Roland R-MIX Audio Processing Software
I've mentioned a few times about how I'm a huge fan of Roland (and Boss) and their gear, and once again they have released another incredible product. This new release is different than most of their traditional lines of gear (besides Cakewalk), as it's software instead of hardware.
Employing Roland's Veriphrase technology, [...]

 
Strictly Cassette is a new website/blog that's been collected, compiled and presented as a cassette archive. 
Seeing it all come together and on display is pretty mindblowing. Some of these I had when I was younger, so there's the nostalgia factor, but then a lot of them I had never seen or even thought that they [...]

So we did it. 2012 Winter NAMM has come and gone, and I'm not really sure how I made it out alive. We were in kind of an inebriated Fear & Loathing style happy mess at the Hilton next door for the weekend, and the amount of bells & whistles and flashing lights and drums [...]

These could be real leaks of Akai's next release, the MPC Fly, and they could be fakes, of course. The official Akai announcement comes Thursday evening, probably at NAMM. The Fly could just be an I-something download, a mobile app version of their new software, but since MPC has rebranded itself as "Music Production Controller" [...]

RIP to Jimmy Castor. Saxophonist, percussionist, singer/songwriter & funk MONSTER. I knew about him like most people my age (I assume) through his Bboy anthem "It's Just Begun". With the break appearing in the 1983 film Flashdance in the scene with legendary Rock Steady Bboys Frosty Freeze, Crazy Legs, it blew up Bboying (and Hip-Hop [...]

Another DAW? Sure, why not. This one is put out by Bitwig Studio (Ableton Live expats). It looks a lot like a slicker, more polished version of Live. Whether it works as fluidly as Live won't be known until the Beta version is released.
Besides the interface, one of the coolest features I saw was the "Lan [...]

L-Fudge – Liquid – What If – Show Me Your Gratitude 12"
Great moments in Hip-Hop 12"s – L-Fudge, Mike Zoot, Shabaam Sahdeeq, Skam & Kweli – "What If". Produced by DJ Spinna.
This was a classic Rawkus posse cut. Spinna had released his Heavy Beats LP, Skam (Skam2) dropped a 12" w/ Eminem (he also did [...]

For this post, I gotta give a big shout out to a friend, mentor & inspiration: Danny Holloway aka @smokinvinyl. I can only footnote it with the time I have, but from selling wax to Cut Chemist, the Beat Junkies, Peanut Butter Wolf, Madlib, etc, to having a young B+ (Mochilla) working as his early [...]

Wildflowers The New York Loft Jazz Sessions Sampler 
The Wildflower grows naturally, developing in its own time according to the laws of its own inner nature. Life outside the greenhouse can be harsh, but somehow it survives, bursting forth with ever renewed vitality and conviction. Jazz is by its very nature a music of improvisation…Therefore of invention…Therefore [...]

Coast To Coast Album Covers: Classic Record Art From New York To LA
by Graham Marsh and Glyn Callignham
Jazz is forever associated with labels like Blue Note, Prestige, Atlantic, Contemporary, Pacific, and Riverside. Each of these companies strove to communicate the essence of its sound through album covers. Now, this captivating anthology of 400 covers brings [...]