studios

I'm usually a sound-first guy, but this time I have to talk about the way these Marten FormFloor speakers look. The stunning, three-sided cabinets looked spectacular at the Wes Bender Studio in Brooklyn. The sleek, apartment-friendly towers are works of art.

Luckily enough, the sound is no less brilliant; their astonishing purity really enhances the experience of listening to music. Bass definition and "speed" are exceptional, and vocals sound present, like the singer is in the room with me. With jazz CDs the spontaneity of the band's improvisations was captured with unusual fidelity. The 43-inch-tall towers … Read more

Virtual DJ Studio looks and feels like a professional mixing tool, but it's missing some of the more advanced editing tools you might need. True to that, it boils down some of the most common mixing tools into a few basic steps for rookies, although it would benefit from better labeling. The bigger downside is that you can't save your work without an upgrade.

Virtual DJ Studio opens with a relatively obnoxious audio file playing and a tutorial waiting for you. It lets you control nine different audio files at once. You can adjust the volume, add effects, … Read more

By being able to craft just about every element of the song, including lyrics and multiple instrumental layers, Anvil Studio makes it almost too easy to compose songs. Its interface isn't very attractive, but with great user guidance and a wealth of features, it's an awesome app for any musician.

Despite being loaded with features, this program downloads really quickly and is light by most standards. Anvil Studio has a great tutorial that opens when you get inside. It's helpful for finding all of the program's cool features, but it doesn't make you click through … Read more

VinylStudio for Mac easily converts all your favorite tapes and vinyl records to a more convenient digital format without losing sound quality. The program stores your recordings as a well-organized collection, which you can burn on a CD or simply copy to your MP3 player. Additionally, it lets you split your recordings into tracks and helps you clean up your audio with effective sound cleaning filters.

Upon startup you are prompted to create a name for your collection and the location where it will be stored. During the "new user mode" the speech bubbles will pop up to … Read more

Microsoft finally peeled back the covers on the server-side products coming as part of the "Blue" wave on the opening day of the annual Microsoft TechEd North America conference.

Microsoft officials went public with details about Windows Server Blue, which is officially christened "Windows Server 2012 R2"; System Center "Blue," which will be called "System Center 2012 R2"; SQL Server Blue, a k a "SQL Server 2014"; and Visual Studio Blue, or "Visual Studio 2013," on Monday at its show for IT pros and developers in … Read more

PicsArt Photo Studio doesn't offer many features that other photo editing tools don't already, but it is well crafted, smartly designed, and filled with options. When combined, these options allow you to do everything from frame and text-tag your images to filter and add masks and effects to photos.

What PicsArt Studio has done is combine many of the most common features provided in other free photo editing apps into a single interface. In many cases, this would have led to a messy, convoluted design, but it works here, even with the text labels on each of the … Read more

Leaked from today's 404 episode:

- Simpsons theme park "Springfield" will serve duff beer, Krusty Burgers.

- 12 obsolete technologies Americans are still using.

- The Weird Stuff Warehouse where old tech goes to retire.

- Amazon greenlights 5 new shows.

- Why Amish teens love using Facebook.… Read more

This app inches so close to being the all-in-one photo app you need on Android. Sadly, it has some weird quirks and one glaring omission that make it just miss the mark. Magic Effects Studio Camera is still a solid editing app for your smartphone or tablet. If you like to shoot with your gadget, give it a shot.

One of the first things you might notice about this app is its layout. It's easier on the eyes than a lot of other Android apps, even though the ads it has often make some of the buttons disappear on … Read more

The purpose of Caption Studio is to create pretagged photos automatically from your photo library or phone. The concept is basic and may seem, at first, to be a good idea. Why spend hours trying to think of the perfect caption for a new photo if an app will do it for you? Unfortunately, not only are the captions limited, but they also can be vulgar and there are very few options for editing or changing them.

Caption Studio presents very few options when you first open it. Either select an existing photo from your library or take a new … Read more