song

The iPad has made it possible to create some very impressive pieces of music. It's hard to imagine something as complex and deeply intellectual as composition happening on a device used more often to play bird-tossing games, but there are some truly impressive compositions and even more impressive apps to create those works. One such app is Sketch-a-Song, providing a sleek, drag-and-drop interface to create songs with the tap of a button.

Sketch-a-Song starts by requiring you to register an account. You can choose to connect to Facebook, but Facebook integration is deep and the settings are not immediately … Read more

Apple's iTunes Store doesn't actually turn 10 years old until April 28, but Apple seems keen on getting the party started a little early.

In honor of the occasion, the company has sent journalists a digital keepsake of sorts: 100 handpicked songs and a physical copy of the digital timeline it put up on iTunes yesterday.

The package even comes with a thank you note from iTunes and iCloud chief Eddy Cue:

When Apple introduced the iTunes Store on April 28, 2003, we thought if consumers had a great, legal way to download music they would embrace it … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Did 4chan just find the Boston Marathon bomber?.

- 4chan's Boston bombing Google Doc culls photos, speculation, and accusations.

- Internet tough guys and girls already pointing fingers at the Middle East. Response: "Please don't let it be a Muslim."

- Beating conspiracy theorists at their own game.

- Using Microsoft Photosynth to recreate a panoramic photo of the bombsite.

- Encode hidden messages in your Facebook pics with "Secretbook" extension.

- Demonic portraits and other evils lurking beneath waves of musical spectrograms.… Read more

If you've ever dubbed LP records to your PC, you have already figured out that it's a whole lot easier to record each side as one big WAV, cut them out into singles, and convert them with audio editing software. The same goes for editing MP3s, movie sound clips, ringtones, and other digital audio files. NGWave is a shareware audio editor with plenty to recommend it to music lovers and others who need something more than they can find in freeware, such as 32-bit processing for fast editing, unlimited undo and redo, filters and effects, and a sound … Read more

GarageBand already had a long history on the Mac, letting people use intuitive controls and a huge library of instruments and prerecorded loops to create songs. But with the iOS version, Apple needed to come up with creative ways to record music using only a touch-screen interface, and we think the company did an amazing job. In the latest version, GarageBand now supports Audiobus, letting you use sounds and effects from other music apps and then recording them to GarageBand tracks.

As a general overview, the GarageBand app offers several Touch Instruments, guitar amps and effects, eight-track recording and mixing, … Read more

The idea behind Song Studio HD is very good. It comes with nine beats installed and you can record yourself singing, beat boxing or rapping over those beats. When you start the app, press the "setup" button and then choose which beat to use. The app will then play the beat and you can record your voice. Once done, all completed songs are saved to the "My Songs" menu, though there is no way to change the names of these songs, so if you use the app extensively, it will get confusing as to which songs … Read more

Spotify has been around for a good year and hasn't changed much; it's still one of our favorite applications for music on-demand and music library management. Taking cues from iTunes, Spotify integrates your existing music libraries with its own giant catalog of songs from artists all over the world. Where it trumps iTunes is that all the music is pretty much available to stream for free, with offline functionality for an addition ten bucks a month. In their in-app advertisements, claimss like "Piracy is overrated" are quite justified; it's seriously one of the most easiest … Read more

iHeartRadio is an old favorite of mine that lets you stream radio from over 1,500 live radio stations or create custom stations based on a song or artist. The best thing about it, though, is that your custom stations are completely ad-free.

Live radio stations from all over the U.S. are available, including everything from pop, country, rock, electronic, and urban, to talk and college stations. You can browse by genre or location and listen to music until you hit a song you don't like, then hit the Scan button to move on to another radio station (… Read more

Remember "Name That Tune," the classic game show where contestants had to identify songs after hearing just a brief clip? That's the basic premise of SongPop Free, a free Android app from FreshPlanet. SongPop not only tests your musical knowledge, but also extends it by exposing you to new genres and artists, familiarizing you with the classics, and quizzing your trivia knowledge. You can also challenge your friends and relations via Facebook and Twitter. SongPop makes it easy to share quizzes, playlists, and tunes. It boasts long, high-quality audio clips, weekly tournaments, bonus content, and other features. … Read more