With all this drab but-not-quite-tragic news filling up the industry press releases, what can we really write about? Ironically some think that Apple, who helped revitalize the industry only a few years ago, is now hurting it.

The days of the iPod are slowly disappearing into the past. You may have noticed it when Apple failed to make any iPod the centerpiece in September 2009 during their Apple Day (note: in their Apple Day of 2010 the buzz re-focused somewhat on revamped iPods). The buzz about Apple these days involves a different sort of device, focusing almost exclusively on the iPhone and the iPad. Apple is the trendsetting company for many of younger urban professionals that tend to spend more on entertainment. With an increased focus on multi-purpose devices instead of solely iPods, Apple has helped direct the attention of the trendsetting masses from music to a broader media focus.

But is this Apple’s fault? A look at the census data reveals a wider pattern of media usage that has shifted away from music. Take a look at the table attached to the article.

Source: 2010 Statistical Abstract, US Census Bureau

As you can see, we are listening to less and less music per year, while at the same time mobile media consumption has soared. (for the full data set from the US Census bureau, check out this) Apple’s iPad and iPhone are only indicators of a shift that has happened in American media consumption, not the trendsetter behind it.

The outlook for the music industry looks similar to the chart; money spent on music parallels time spent listening to it, and while these statistics project increased revenues in 2010, they also weren’t predicting the recession that still grips the United States. So the outlook then for the music industry is similar to that of the overall economy: slow and measured, but looking to stabilize within the next two years. You can tell your friends to cut it with the gloom and doom stories and look to the bright side, because the music industry is looking to be in good position for the years ahead.

Pop stars Chris Martin of Coldplay and Lady Gaga have both endorsed the new network, promising to play an active role in Ping’s new social community. Ping members will be able to view music other friends purchase and will receive special playlists based on what users are listening to, similar to the Genius application. Looking to attend a Katy Perry concert in the near future with your friends? Ping will show upcoming concerts and allow users to purchase tickets to shows.

Ping

However, just like every good thing on the internet, there are already major drawbacks. Spammers have hit Ping like a firestorm, setting up fake artist pages and plastering the network with advertisements for “free iPhones” if you complete a survey. It’s a bit embarrassing for Apple, as they originally had zero spam filtering for the service.

Apple will find starting Ping up difficult if it does not allow connectivity between the other major social networks such as Twitter, Last.fm, Facebook, and Myspace. Having a “walled” social network that’s not connected to other services will turn users away out of inconvenience.

PCMag.com’s Michael Muchmore has a great in depth article that delves deep into Ping and helps users with a quick start guide to getting around the social network. From an initial look at the network, Apple is going to need bigger hook to keep its one million users active and away from Facebook.

The Fader app offers exclusive features, fresh editorial content from the magazine, a slideshow of images from each issue, a music player featuring podcasts and exclusive mixes, mobile access to Fader TV, information about Fader events, and so on.

“We are very protective of The Fader brand, and we’re extremely selective about anything we output to our specific and loyal audience of tastemakers,” said Andy Cohn, EVP and Group Publisher of Fader Media. “The Fader’s mobile app is another dynamic platform in which our readers will be able to consume all kinds of the original content we’re known for, including music, video and photography.

The Fader app

“In 2006, we were the first magazine in the world to make full issues available on iTunes as a free PDF,” continued Cohn. “Wherever our readers are, and whatever technologies they’re using, we’re right there with them.”

In early 2010, The Fader released a mobile application through Mobile Roadie for its annual Levi’s Fader Fort festival held in Austin, Texas with up-to-date news on concert schedules, music streaming and official photos.

Another brand who took advantage of Mobile Roadie Pro is Ninja Tune, with an app that features profiles for all 90 of its artists, including photos, a video stream, and the option to buy songs and gig tickets.

As suggested by Sandbox.fm, Mobile Roadie might simply want to offer extra features due to Apple’s unhappiness with the large number of ‘cookie-cutter’ apps appearing on its App Store, using the same platforms and looking the same.

You have to pay more for such additional customization, though.

So here we go, Slayer just entered the “app age” with the launch of Slayer: Pinball Rocks, a new pinball game app developed in conjunction with American Recordings/Columbia Records, Sony Music Entertainment and Gameprom.

Slayer: Pinball Rocks

“As a life-size pinball player, this looks so awesome,” said Slayer’s Kerry King. “It looks really fun and entertaining, with a shot of evil, and it could definitely keep me up all night with a few shots for myself…”

Slayer: Pinball Rocks should appeal to both long-time and new Slayer fans, as well as any pinball enthusiast, by giving gamers multi-ball play and tap-along mini-game, as well as cool visual elements like spinning razor blades, guitars, amps, concert lights, and a skull that eats your ball and spits it out through its eyeball. As you might have guessed, this is all accompanied by music courtesy of Slayer.

Slayer: Pinball Rocks is available worldwide for $2.99 from the App Store. The game includes original voiceovers from Slayer members as well as songs from Slayer’s latest American Recordings release, World Painted Blood.

This app has been developed by Gameprom, a company famous for its series of Pinball games for iPhone and iPad.

See a video of Slayer: Pinball Rocks below:

Have you tried this out? Thoughts?

In the Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion! app players embark on an adventure taking them through six districts in the game, each featuring the distinctive style of a band member. The master goal is to retrieve the band’s stolen music track – Blackbirds, an unreleased Linkin Park song made exclusively for the game. The song is unlocked upon completion of all missions inside the game (I’ve heard it doesn’t take that long to do it, which is logical).

Production on the game began more than a year ago, with the band (vocalists Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington, drummer Rob Bourdon, guitarist Brad Delson, DJ Joe Hahn and bassist Dave “Phoenix” Farrell) working with Artificial Life, Inc. on various aspect of the game, such as storylines, gameplay, character design and music. Mike Shinoda designed the band members’ avatars and edited every line of dialogue.

The iPad app renders the adventure with HD graphics, and a user interface that has been redesigned to utilize the iPad’s larger screen.

Among the game’s highlights are original and 8-bit remixes of Linkin Park tracks including “New Divide,” “One Step Closer,” “In The End,” “Crawling,” “QWERTY,” “Hands Held High,” “Faint,” and “No More Sorrow.

Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion! game screenshot

Additional game features, according to the press release:

• Personalization of players’ avatars and apartments provide a unique community experience
• Non-player characters (NPCs) inhabit the world, adding drama to the gaming experience
• Shopping for virtual items with coins awarded by winning fights and completing missions
• Earning trophies for adding friends to the rebellion
• A news feed to stay up-to-date with Linkin Park
• Facebook and Twitter integration connecting millions of social network users worldwide

But the main feature of the app is probably that it’s not a rhythm based game!

For more details about Linkin Park 8-Bit Rebellion! visit this website. And check out the trailer below:

On a side note, don’t forget to enter our latest giveaway for a chance to win 1,2,3’s colored Confetti 7″ vinyl for simply “liking” the Dotted Music Facebook page!

Let’s take a look at two iPad apps released this week: Korg’s iELECTRIBE and GrooveMaker from IK Multimedia.

iELECTRIBE

Korg‘s popular among electronic musicians hardware Electribe Series is now also available as a dedicated iPad musical instrument app – the Korg iELECTRIBE virtual analog beatbox.

iELECTRIBE

“Korg Electribe products have been popular due in part to their interactive, easy-to-use front panel controls. The iPad’s 9.7″ multi touch display offers an intuitive layout that will be familiar to previous Electribe users. Just as on the original Electribe, users simply choose one of the eight parts (or sounds) and touch the 16-step sequencer to quickly build patterns and grooves.

The iELECTRIBE faithfully recreates the historic Electribe’s entire sound engine – including analog synthesis modeling and PCM synthesis, along with virtual Valve Force tube modeling. The sequencer can record instrument parts as well as advanced Motion Sequencing – the recording of knob movements as part of a pattern.”

The iELECTRIBE is currently available from Apple’s App Store. Regularly priced at US $19.99, a special introductory price of $9.99 is being offered until June 30, 2010.

GrooveMaker for the iPad

The infamous IK Multimedia‘s GrooveMaker series of remixing apps is now released as an iPad version as well.

GrooveMaker for iPad

“Released for the iPhone and iPod touch in August 2009, GrooveMaker has become one of the most popular mobile loop remixing apps. The GrooveMaker Free version has consistently been in the top 100 music apps with over 600,000 downloads, and the entire GrooveMaker family features 11 style-based apps for the most popular genres of music.

GrooveMaker for the new iPad offers the same smart features and streamlined workflow as the iPhone/iPod version for making music with loops, but also takes advantage of the new larger multi-touch surface to provide enhanced operation with an integrated, advanced controller.

Also, GrooveMaker for iPad adds even more control when working with loops, providing a new level of creative flexibility. Users can now switch “snapped” grooves with a single touch, plus control the number of loops that are automatically combined during a random mix. GrooveMaker iPad is the perfect addition to a DJ set, providing unlimited creative flexibility in live remixing and DJ applications.”

There are 4 GrooveMaker packs for the iPad available now: Free (a 120-loop pack with a mix of House and Hip-Hop), House, Hip-Hop, Drum & Bass. GrooveMaker House, Hip-Hop and D’n’B contain over 300 loops each and are $9.99 from the iTunes App Store.

Check out the demo video below:

I’m wondering, will we ever see Ableton Live on a tablet?

Now, this links to the internet fairly simply. It starts with the computer link. You load your mobile musical device, or MMD, with whatever music you enjoy, through your computer. This is either done through a specific media player, or just through copy and pasting folder to folder. The internet comes in to play here through the availability of music through it. Before the internet, there was no reliable method by which to load yours MMDs, so there was no real need for them, and this is a fairly worrying fact.

Photo credit: weheartit.com

You’ve been able to buy CDs for a long time. Admittedly, not as long as vinyl or tape, but it’s a good trade off. Since the development of technology reached the point that CDs could be ripped onto your PC, MMDs have been under development to design, create and make profit from. However, they were nowhere near as popular before broadband internet and free, fast, illegal mp3 downloads became common. Being able to listen to a track on the move made particular tracks much more desirable. Something that you’ve heard on the radio is something that you might go out and buy, but it’s less likely that you’ll buy it if it’s something that you won’t listen to often. Being able to listen to it in the back and forth between point A and point B has convinced people that, instead of merely wanting it, they need that track to be available.

There’s also a certain danger when it comes to listening to music on the move. After all, your ears are already under complete distraction, so you can’t hear what’s coming behind you. You are so consumed with your chosen distraction that you’ve lost interest in the safety. This is exactly the same as the moral implications when it comes to track downloading. You’re so absorbed in the smaller picture that you don’t even know that there’s a bigger one to overshadow it.

The money is obviously made with the sales of MMDs, but with iPods in particular, there are other avenues. With an iPod comes a copy of the media player iTunes. This is a clear advertisement of Apple software, even on a Microsoft operating system. In addition, iTunes software brings several other types of software with it, all of which has paid money to Apple in order to have the advertisement. Having their software installed, alongside iTunes, onto as many computers as possible has no viable downside when people are proven to use the product.

Without a doubt, the internet has pushed the advertising and development of MMDs, as well as offering them additional financial possibilities. You can never really doubt how useful these little things are in travel, but it’s also fairly clear that the distraction that they offer have downsides too. Most people might swear by them without a question, but in reality it’s yet another accessory that the internet has made essential.

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

Read also: The Effects Of The Internet: Contract Giveaways, The Effects Of The Internet: “Making It”, The Effects Of The Internet: Music Distribution

By the way, just as with our Arcade Rocker game, you (precious Dotted Music readers) hear about this project first.

What is UGT?

Ultimate Guitar Tabs is an easy and convenient application for viewing guitar and bass tablature and chords. What differs it from similar apps in the App Store is that this is the only mobile application giving you an unlimited and licensed access to the world’s largest database of tabs from Ultimate-Guitar.com. Everything is legal. And it’s relatively cheap, you can buy the app for just $1.99.

Here are the main features to get some of you hooked, hopefully:

• Simple Search. Find Tabs quickly by entering artist name or song title.
• Advanced Search tool. You can search for Tabs by specifying Tab type (guitar Tabs, chords, bass Tabs), part of the song (intro, solo, chorus), difficulty level, tuning, and rating.
• Favorites. Add any Tab to your favorites to make them available for offline browsing.
• Tab Packs. Collections of pre-selected Tabs that are preloaded into the application. Tab Packs are based on skills level (Easy, Medium, Advanced), music genres (Rock, Metal, Punk), and special occasions (Love songs, Xmas songs). Tab Packs are frequently updated.
• Top 100 Tabs list for each Tab type (Guitar, Bass, Chords or overall).
• Auto-scroll feature. View Tablature in the text viewer using the handy Auto-Scroll functionality – The App will scroll Tabs for you!
• Portrait and Landscape modes are available. You can scale Tabs too.

Here Come The Screenshots!

Share your thoughts! Found any bugs, glitches, or just have an idea on how to improve the app? Please let me know via the contact form or in the comments below.

What can be described as a first generation of musician-branded apps is built mostly to provide fans with content like music streams, news, photos, tour dates and so on (e.g. the Alice In Chaince iPhone app, covered here earlier). Despite all the built-in standard social features, it is more of a one-way communication.

And what we see now is a growth of the number of really creative applications. Bands unite with young developers and big companies alike to create interactive apps with their music in it. They share samples from their songs and allow doing remixes directly on the mobile device, and that’s not all.

Let’s take a look at some of the most recent and most notable examples.

Beaterator

Rockstar Games’ Beaterator

Originally made for a PSP platform, Beaterator had been optimized for iPhone / iPod Touch and appeared in the App Store in December. Beaterator gives users access to a library of sounds, many constructed by Timbaland, with which to construct original songs.

The infamous producer is not the only author of the samples used in the app, but the whole application is build around his fatty (in a good way!) image.

GrooveMaker Series

This style-based series includes 11 applications to date, each allowing you to create songs in particular genres, from Reggae and Hip-Hop to Techno and Drum & Bass (!). This month the apps’ collection has surpassed the 500,000 downloads.

GrooveMaker allows for instantaneous control over 8 stereo loop tracks, making it possible to remix the included loop library of drums, bass, bass drums, lines, pads, percussion and effects. Its patented randomization feature allows musicians to generate a number of remixes on the fly “to produce millions of possible groove combinations.”

These apps are attached to music genres rather than artist names, but let’s see what we have in GrooveMaker Rock Ace… The rock edition of the application features guitar samples from Skunk Anansie‘s guitarist “Ace”. The multi-platinum rockers reunited and released a greatest hits album last year, so isn’t a branded iPhone app a nice addition to a “comeback”?

Jammit

This is something truly interesting. OEM Inc., the company behind Jammit, has created a product that uses the original master recordings of popular songs formatted with synced notation and the capability to rebalance the mix for easy learning and playing along.

I won’t be trying to explain how it works, better check out the demo video:

Is there a space for musician-branded versions of this app? You can guess yourself. Already available for purchasing are Sum 41 and White Zombie bundles, and few dozens collections (“70′s Rock”, “80′s Rock” etc.) The artist and song catalogs expand rapidly, which can be seen on their Artists page.

The only thing though, we know the masters are pricey. So each Jammit app containing three songs goes for $6.99.

What else?

The list doesn’t end here. There is also a number of artist-branded Tap Tap Revenge games and many other interesting things in the App Store.

Not only musicians, but their creations become closer to the listeners – this tendency is great.

If you want to add something, feel free to do it in the comments!

Actually, it doesn’t, but if it did then this would be kind of a pointless article.

There’s more to the infamous “making it” than people seem to realise. A lot of hard work has always gone in to making successful music, and successful music is essential to a successful musician. Then again, while most bands and artists are generally honoured and praised for creating music that is true to their own preferences and styles, it is rare that those things coincide with that which is commercially successful. In fact, the phrase “sell out” is usually made in reference to a band or artist who radically changes their own style in order to better suit the emerging market in which their music is being released. Sadly, it’s also a phrase that is passed around as an insult referencing the actual meaning, but such is the way of people in general.

Making It!

In order to be signed onto a record label, whether large or small, you have to have three things behind you:

• A sound that suits that particular label.
• A band that bring something new and unique to the table.
• A large and dedicated following that reaches beyond their home town.

You can see why the first two may interrupt each other. The first one follows the route of commercial success, following the sound, style and standards of the record label that wishes to sign you, or that you wish to be signed to. The second is more personal, and is just as likely to keep you or your band from being signed if you are too unique. Additionally, you have to make sure that you are not too special, or you’ll simply be too far away from what the label wants to be of any use to them. A label such as Roadrunner, with a reputation for metal acts, might be a little perturbed by “Folk Metal” or “Dance Metal”. You have to make a very strong pitch for these people.

The internet has opened the door for much easier contact directly with record labels. It has also allowed the birth of many new record labels, as well as distribution methods that cut out the label middle man completely. With your music online, you could become like an actress waiting to be “noticed”. This breeds complacency, but, in truth, there’s no downside to it as long as you don’t deny your own life in waiting. The act of making music is, in itself, experience for making more music. Using uploaded mp3s and other forms of media, you can put together entirely digital CDs and distribute them online using links and sale options. You can also upload your media to programs such as iTunes, where people can purchase it as long as they can find it.

This means that the power of record labels now largely rests in advertising. Distribution is as available as ever, in fact, more so than ever before, but it means nothing if people have no idea who you are. This is where the following comes in. In order to create fans of your music, you need both wide-ranging music and you need it to be out there; available for anybody to see. The more forwards and forceful you are with your music, the more people will end up listening to it, and the more fans you might end up with. So, with this in mind, surely personal advertising is potentially as powerful as any advertising that record labels can currently offer?

So, do bands need to make it any more?

Tom Colohue is a fiction writer and music instructor from Blackpool, England. Though his main works are in the realms of fantasy, he also writes modern fiction for multiple websites, as well as theoretical and practical music lessons for magazines.

Also read The Effects Of The Internet: Music Distribution