Sony

Everyone knows that Summer NAMM is the smaller of the two NAMM shows. . . so it only makes sense that Sony used SUmmer NAMM to introduce it's smallest PCM recorder ever, the Sony PCM M10. This little guy is priced to dominate the "prosumer" market, and sacrifices very little of the functionality from the PCM D50.  

Tucson sound artist Skincage has a wild past. One story involves plummeting fourteen feet through the floor of a missile silo -- all in the name of collecting ambient sound. Hear this harrowing tale of urban exploration with a Sony MiniDisc, plus a lesson or two on when you should really move on in the editing process.  

Why be a man, when you can be a Mega Man? You won't have to resort to kidnapping to castle your princess with the Sony Creative Software 8 Bit Weapon.  

Tucson's Skincage (aka Jon Ray) uses Sound Forge 9 to help him turn a variety of household instruments, like the Vietnamese Mouth Harp, into the source of endlessly looping and progressive sounds. Hear the entire review, set to music. . . a first for Gearwire.  

If you remember all the way back to last year (a few days ago in 2008), Bill Holland was taking a look at Sony Acid Pro 7. He finishes taking that look here.  

We heard tell about all the DAW-riffic features in the newest incarnation of Sony Acid Pro back during the 125th AES convention. Now Bill Holland's got the program in his hands -- figuratively, anyway -- and he's geared up for a full-fledged Gearwire Labs Walkthru.  

Bill Holland might not review everything that came into Gearwire.com this year, but there are a few things that did leave a lasting impression. 2008 was a crazy year, and there's no way in hell he could have digested it all in one sitting.  

Chris Shepard of Chicago Recording Company opens up the secret microphone vault to show us the Sony C-800 GPAC tube microphone. What we couldn't show you was the meandering labyrinth, retinal scanners and laser sensors we had to traverse to get there.  

Sound Designer, Performance Artist and all around sonic-experimenter Glenn Weyant talks with Gearwire's Gretchen Hasse about how he used the Sony ICDP520 to document the U.S.-Mexican border wall in ways CNN would never dream.  

We check out the new VSTi's and effects plugins that come bundled with Sony Acid Pro 7. This newest version of Acid has so many bundled plugins, it's a wonder they didn't call it "Acid Pro 7: Glade Springtime Freshness Edition." Wait, I mean, it's a good thing they didn't call it that.  

We're back with the penultimate piece from our time with Sony at 125th AES. We check out the time stretching capabilities within Sony Acid Pro 7 to hear how Elastique improves the quality of your tracks at different speeds.  

Among other things, Sony Acid Pro 7 offers an updated beat-matching engine. Think about it this way: The new beat mapper is like Vespucci to the old beat-mapper's Columbus.  

Overviews are nice if you're on the run or doing a quick point-by-point comparison, but GW wanted to really get into the newest version of Sony Acid Pro (release 7). In this clip, Sony tell us about the new mixing and routing interface, and some other DAW-ish features.  

We followed Sony back to their AES hotel room (apparently) to check out all the new features in Sony Acid Pro 7, the newest version of the first widely-used, loop-based music sequencing software. Does Acid still have what it takes to hang with the DAWs of today?  

Bill Holland continues to flex his cinematic knowledge with the demo for yet another Sony Cinescore soundpack, this one called "Urban 24/7." We don't know why Sony is being so coy in their product nomenclature; everyone knows that "Urban" is code for "The Soundtrack To Taxi Driver."  

Every great filmmaker reaches a point in his or her career where they truly find themselves. That moment comes when they realize that no one cares about how their college relationship ended when their now-erstwhile significant other came out of or went back into the closet / moved back to Moravia. What people really care about is: sexy explosions (sexplosions).  

One of the main reasons that there aren't more Nicolas Cage blockbusters coming out this year is that film scorers cannot keep up with this prolific actor's ability to churn out gut-wrenching action film after gut-wrenching action film. Sony answers the call for more Cage with Cinescore.  

Every day that a field recorder, in this case the Sony PCM-D50, goes out to the field, it's like game day. Only it happens all seven days, and there is no injured reserve. Retired field recorders just get taken out back and shot and made into glue or some kind of adhesive.  

Ahead of the field recording field, the Sony PCM-D50 has a bit steeper price tag than it's competitors, but it's not unwarranted. It's a field recorder for serious field recorders, embodying the no-guff, boundless field reporting that puts you in the line of fire and the top of the pile.  

Whether you're looking to impress the crowd at your frat's next co-ed mixer, or just feel like playing superstar DJ when you're home alone, the Sony XFade system is the perfect "instant DJ" package for people who don't care about things like beat-matching.  

While wireless microphones often bring their own technical baggage to a live setup, for Sones de México they offer convenience in terms of portability and minimizing stage clutter.  

We hit up the Sony booth at Summer NAMM 2008, hoping to get press copies of the new Metal Gear Solid for review. Instead, we check out their new UWP series wireless products, which Solid Snake probably uses to communicate with base.  

In this installment of Looping 101 with DJ Puzzle, the demo loop (which I can no longer stop humming to myself) gets normalized, and then acidized. I'm pretty sure that's what my laundromat did to my suit last week -- I am no longer a client.  

DJ Puzzle has composed and sequenced a pretty smooth-sounding space-lounge MIDI loop. Now it's time to record the performance into Sony Vegas, where it will be converted into and audio file meta-beat data. I think I saw this same process on Mr. Rogers once.  

In the third installment of Gearwire's field recorder shootout, Owen O'Malley seeks out Chicago's premier acoustic open mic night legend, J. Irving-Giles. Josh took a break from enchanting coffee-drinking audiences with his folksy ballads and writing in the third person to put three field recorders to the test.  

What do Musak and Public Transportation have in common? They're both featured in this installment of our Field Recorder Shootout! Join Owen O'Malley as he test our three recorders out in a large, indoor mall, and tries [emphasis on "tries"] to record a passing el train.  

We haven't done a shootout in a while, so we decided it was time to bring them on back and bring them back right. In part one, Owen O'Malley takes the Zoom H2, Marantz PMD 620 and Sony PCM D50 down by the Chicago River to test their limits in the Windy City.  

We're back with Jason Donnelly and Patrick Ogle as Jason tries to teach Patrick how to use Sony ACID. In this video, Jason shows Patrick the mute button, arguably the handiest button in all of music.  

Gearwire's Jason Donnelly knows the ins and outs of Sony Acid. Gearwire's Patrick Ogle wants to learn them. Tune in for what critics are calling this season's wackiest sitcom on internetwork TV. It's like the Odd Couple meets ReBoot because it's all on computers. Remember ReBoot?  

Chicago Hip-hop artist, Isaac Paul (The Intellectual) speaks to Gearwire about how he started making music and the gear he used in his early days. He talks more about how he records and some gear he wouldn’t mind...