Presented by Scott Hewitt, Samuel Freeman and Adam Jansch.

We have a review of BeatHawk.

News

A New Raspberry Pi

A quad core processor, more memory and perhaps future support for Windows 10. Could the new Raspberry Pi be the choice for embedded audio. link


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Apple have released an update to Logic Pro X including EDM/Hip Hop beat creation tools and region automation. link


Avid Announces ProTools First

Previously seen in the year 2000 it is the return of free ProTools. Supporting 16 tracks of audio, 4 channels at a time recording and support for Avid Cloud Collaboration. link


iTunes to buy Big Machine

Various source around the web suggest that iTunes maybe trying to buy the Big Machine label to secure the hard to stream, Taylor Swift album for Beats streaming service. A real coup perhaps if they can pull it off. link


Review

BeatHawk

UVI Sounds and Software sent us a copy for review, and Samuel Freeman has been giving it a go... link

As well as the new look website for theAudioPodcast show notes, I (SF) have some new tech at home: an iPad mini 2. I've not yet much started to explore first-hand the wealth of possibilities this thing offers for audio stuff, but I have had opportunity to review BeatHawk from UVI... Refer to the show for discussion to which the following notes are addendum...

Watching a couple of the promo/demo/tutorial videos before starting with the app was enough for to give me a clear idea of what's possible and how to set about making things happen. As well as those videos, the app also has a pictorial help overview of the interface elements, which I dismissed at first, but later found handy.

The app loads with a default kit, but thankfully all 16 pads are blank when a new project is started. Loading samples, loops, and instruments to the pads is effortless, as is the real-time recording of patterns via the different pad modes; I noticed that in the pitch input mode the two octaves of piano key type triggers are, in the app, labeled with the pitch-class name and octave-level number which is better than in the promo images that seem to show these without any labels.

Construction of song structures is focused as much on the muting of parts within a pattern as it is with sequencing different patterns in the timeline. A project can have 16 patterns, each being upto 16 bars duration. The copy and paste features work well in the different contexts in which they are found, and it is easy to develop a pattern across multiple variations. It seems to me that the makers of this software had a clear idea of the workflow that they wanted to facilitate, and they have managed to provide a well structured and supportive environment for that.

I did find the labelling of some sliders to be a bit unclear before getting used to them, and found some strange things going on in the timeline, but to this latter observation I'm not sure if it was me not yet understanding something or what...

Overall I'm very impressed with BeatHawk which is both feature-full and streamlined in its execution.


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Artist that never won a grammy

An interesting list compiled by Digital Music News, something the Queen, Tupac, Diana Ross and Journey all have in common. link