bands

Now that you've finally gotten your taxes (or your request for an extension) to the Internal Revenue Service on time, better turn your attention to composing your magnum opus for our first-ever crowdsourced, multitouch-produced music album.

The deadline is April 30 and there are just a few rules:

The composition needs to be wholly your own--no sampling or remixing.

It needs to be done completely without instruments, using a multitouch-based audio production software program like GarageBand for the iPad. All interaction with the software should be done through a touch screen, in other words. Adding your own vocals is … Read more

Apple has released a new version of GarageBand, which is a small update that fixes a number of small stability issues with the program. The focus of this update is to add support for opening projects that were created on GarageBand for iPad, and is a recommended update if you use GarageBand on both OS X and iOS devices. This update is for the OS X version of GarageBand, and not for iPads or other iOS devices.

The update is 47.44MB as a standalone updater and can be downloaded through Software Update for those who already have GarageBand installed, … Read more

Attention all GarageBand fans. We need your help creating what we think may be the world's first crowdsourced, fully multitouch-generated album. That's why we're putting out this call for submissions. Please send us your best original musical compositions, so long as they were created wholly using multitouch-based applications like GarageBand (it's OK to add your own vocals, if you dare).

We'll pick the best 10 compositions and songs for inclusion in our digital compilation, which we'll promote around our cubicles, and perhaps even on some sort of globally interconnected network of informational portals, or "sites." All musical genres are welcome.

Here's how to enter:

1. Get creative with GarageBand (or another multitouch music app). 2. Document the process of creating your composition in a video (so we can make sure you only used multitouch apps and didn't bring in a big band), and then let your musical work play in full at the end of the video. Videos should be no longer than roughly seven minutes in total. 3. Upload the video file to MediaFire for free and send the link to emackCNET@gmail.com. Be sure to include your name, location (city and state), and e-mail address. 4. Get them all in by April 30, 2011. Multiple entries are just fine.

We look forward to hearing your creations. Get tapping! And no "Stairway to Heaven" remixes please. We don't want any copyright lawyers after us. … Read more

According to a few commenters in the Apple Discussions support forums and a recent Apple knowledge base article, some may experience an issue using GarageBand '11 in which they are unable to create a new guitar track, even though they can create other real or software instrument tracks.

Apple says that the problem can occur if you chose to do a custom installation of a previous version of GarageBand and then moved the instruments and loops to a new location.

ASD forum user "Martyputz" writes:

Music games might be down, but they aren't out just yet.

Game developer Ubisoft is planning to release a new guitar game, called Rocksmith, later this year. In a statement today, Ubisoft's senior vice president of marketing, Tony Key, said that the new title will prove to be "the most authentic and addicting music game ever created."

Ubisoft hopes to achieve that lofty goal by putting a real guitar in the hands of gamers, rather than the plastic guitars with buttons used in Rock Band or Guitar Hero. The title will launch with a "sizable … Read more

Among all the exciting news at the iPad 2 event today, Apple announced that GarageBand will be coming to the iPad. Already a part of the Mac's iLife suite (latest update for Mac here), GarageBand lets you make music using prerecorded clips as well as your own real-time recordings to lay down multiple-track songs.

At the event, the director of music marketing for Apple, Xander Soren, gave a rundown of the main features for GarageBand on the iPad. It offers Touch Instruments, guitar amps and effects, eight-track recording and mixing, more than 250 loops to play with, and you can export an AAC file of your project through e-mail.… Read more

It's been a rough month for the former superstars of the rhythm genre.

Rock Band label MTV Games ceased its publishing operations, which was shortly followed by the game's recently sold developer, Harmonix, laying off up to 15 percent of its staff.

The capper came Wednesday, as Activision disbanded its Guitar Hero business unit, confirming that there would be no 2011 installment in the franchise and the company will stop making new downloadable songs for the Hero franchise of games.

In a posting on the official Rock Band forums yesterday, Harmonix's John Drake offered condolences for his … Read more

Like a great band breaking up, Guitar Hero is no more. Activision, the company behind the once-popular series of games, said today in a quarterly earnings statement that it's pulling the plug on the franchise.

The series, which has been around for six years, hasn't been profitable lately. About two years ago, the franchise had racked up more than $2 billion in sales from its various installments. But sales plummeted to the point that the latest installment in the series, Warriors of Rock, sold fewer than 100,000 copies during its debut month last September. Part of the reason is competition from a new generation of games that don't need specialized controllers, especially those for the PS3's Move and the Xbox 360's Kinect.

The brand has had many iterations, including "World Tour," which featured many notable musicians as playable characters, and mobile versions for iOS devices and Nintendo's DS series of handhelds. The game's popularity paved the way for bigger games like Rock Band, which have likely also played a role in Guitar Hero's decreased sales.

"It doesn't surprise me," said Amanda Caparoon, a Seattle bartender and music gaming fan, when told Activision was burying the brand. "There's cooler stuff now, like Rock Band. And dance-based games are where it's at now." … Read more

When researchers at Brigham Young University's School of Family Life decided to investigate the role parents play in gaming with their adolescent kids, they discovered a statistically significant gender divide.

For boys, gaming with a parent did not have much of an effect on positive behavior, aggression, family connection, and mental health. But for girls, gaming with a parent resulted in as much as a 20 percent variation on those outcomes--specifically, improving positive behavior, mental health, and family connections.

The team studied 287 families with adolescents ages 11 to 16; the boys played Call of Duty, Wii Sports, and … Read more