Nerd Stalker

SF Music Tech Summit Announces a Hackathon to Kickoff SF Music Tech Summit Prior to this year's SF MusicTech Summit on October 17, the SF MusicTech summit just announced a hackathon to kickoff the SF MusicTech Summit on October 14th and 15th at Upload SF . Participants will join forces to address a focus area in MusicTech ( Music , VR/AR/XR,  Music  AI,  music  blockchain and cryptocurrencies)  with the aim of developing an overnight unicorn and compete for prizes under the supervision of experts. It will be like the "24 hours of LeMans" with non-stop action as hackers, innovators,  tech- specialists, artists, makers and coders use and share their knowledge to develop the new, innovative solutions in the  MusicTech  industry. The SF MusicTech  Hackathon is being produced by Travis Laurendine of SXSW Hackathon / Outside Hacks, and Luann Williams of the SXSW Hackathon in partnership with International Music HackDay, the SF ...

Tribe of Noise Head Noise Maker Updates us on their Latest Venture -  Bizmusiq Hessel Van Oorschot - Chief Noise Maker at Tribe of Noise Startup Business models evolve. Some out of necessity. Some out of pure timing and chance meeting.  In an  interview  early this year with Hessel Van Oorschot , we learned that there is another higher decibel noise coming from the Tribe of Noise  which Hessel talked about a new streaming service for restaurants. Turns out this announcement was just the infrastructure tech for an even bigger deal.   Hessel talks about a new joint venture with a record label in the Netherlands. Here in the states(as every one outside of US likes to call it), you may or may not have heard about them - Strengholt Music Group .  Strengholt owns new dutch music licenses as well as classic licenses. As Hessel discusses in the interview, the old labels need to get into the digital era and why not stream modern to classic music, se...

Adolfo & Greg Talk About Trending Weekly Tech News Adolfo Foronda and Greg Viloria discuss the weekly tech news in their mind's eye. Check it out!

Tribe of Noise Gives Indie Musicians Revenue and Gaming and Video Creatives Licensing Options The music industry is complicated. Music Licensing is complicated. Getting quality music   within budget and within timeframe  into your indie game, video or movie is nearly impossible  (unless you know i.e. the Doobie Brothers). That is why there are tech events like SF Music Tech . Recently, we interviewed Hessel van Oorschot , Head Noisemaker and business conductor at Tribe of Noise . Tribe of Noise is a service that connects creatives who need music with independent musicians who create beautiful music. Tribe of Noise has been around since 2008 (that's 49 Years in startup dog years) - that's a long time. Untangling the music industry spaghetti is what they are trying to do with strategic partnerships with Getty Images , SONOS and Pond5 . Hessel explains why the Tribe of Noise fills the void and gives the money and choice back to the indie musician and the reason...

Swizzle.fm Screenshot With all the videos out there, sometimes we need recommendation help from our friends. That is what Ian Lee and Nick Szabo of Swizzle.fm promises. We met these startup entrepreneurs at Founders Space 's "The Future of Korea" event last year and we caught up with them to hear about their new revision of their product. Originally, Swizzle.fm was a social music playlist platform, like a "Quora for Music Recommendation" and now they announced their new beta will be focused on sharing your favorite music videos. Watch Ian and Nick as they demo about their product, share how they founded their startup and talk about expanding their business strategy.

BERKELEY BOARD – MIDI CONTROLLER CONCEPTS, Nerd Stalker interview at O'reilly Maker Faire. Check out this interesting exercise in UI concepts. From the Berkeley Board site, "the object of building the board is to explore areas of musical instrument design. Isomorphic keyboard : not the key feature, but it takes the notion of ergonomic design in consideration Button (key) position sensors: after looking at piezo and keyboard switches have decided to use CNY70 infrared sensors Balls as keys: allows glissando, a different feel with a full 5/16″ travel Channels : additive logic that allows the left and and right hand to work together. This enables features like modal fabric."

This week for the Nerd Stalker Techweek Update, Adolfo and Greg discusses Tizen, Device Addiction, Famo.us, Samsung Wallet and more.

UI design seems emphasized these days, especially on portable devices. How about hardware working with iOS devices? Eventide shows that their new product, H9 Harmonizer, was carefully designed taking a product that had 11 knobs and boiling it down to one and putting the rest on the iOS device. We talk with Tony Agnello, president of Eventide as he talks about some of the challenges in designing with iOS and redesigning an existing product.

Adolfo Foronda was a featured guest on the great Play This! podcast over at TechHive with hosts Carlos Rondela @onawa and Jason Cross @jasoncross00 have a listen, Have a listen: Or, if you prefer, download the  MP3 of this episode . " What do you get when you cross a traditional Japanese RPG with the creators of classic animated movies like   Spirited Away ,   Princess Mononoke , and   Howl's Moving Castle ? You get Ni no Kuni, which is weird, jeuvenile, and wonderful. We talk about that, Metal Gear, UFC, and much more on this week's show. We're joined by Adolfo Foronda from   Nerdstalker . Links from this week's episode: Why can't you download to  own  UFC matches? They're retnal only, typically. Ni no Kuni  is a polished, beautiful, but typical JRPG. But it has character design and animation from  Studio Ghibli . If you stick with it past the slow beginning, it gets great. Speaking of Studio Ghibli, almost...

We love music at Nerd Stalker. AirTurn caught our music eye at Macworld/iWorld 2013. With AirTurn wireless pedal technology, you can control virtually any iOS music app through their wireless pedals. We sit down with Hugh Sung , co-founder and VP of Marketing of AirTurn - maker of wireless (bluetooth) pedals and controllers. In this interview Hugh discusses the different music applications that can be used with AirTurn's BT-105.

At Macworld/iWorld people are focused on the latest app or latest accessories and there were not a shortage of those items. Tucked away in various corners of Moscone West were three music pioneers displaying their music gear at Macworld/iWorld 2013.  They are not the household names connected with Fender, Gibson or Yamaha but after our Nerd Stalker interviews with each of them, they need a due mention. Have you heard of Larry Fishman, Robert Godin or Tony Agnello? and why should we? Well, they have created their companies from nothing to a sustained business with over 100 years of business experience combined.

Hello from the Nerd Stalker gang at Macworld / iWorld. We were busy this AM on day one of the opening of Macworld / iWorld.

We start the MacWorld excitement today. Nerd Stalker is live from Moscone West Exhibition Center in San Francisco where MacWorld/iWorld 2013 is being held. Today is the media preview Nerd Stalker wanted to give you a preview of what to expect.

Positive Grid’s JamUp Pro XT Guitar & Bass Multi-Fx Processor Adds AirTurn Wireless BT-105 Pedals for iOS Guitar Effects; JamUp 2.2 upgrade adds 11 new amp channels, and more functionality! The NAMM Show • Booth #1101 Hall E (January 24-27, 2013)—Positive Grid ( www.positivegrid.com ), the developers of JamUp Pro XT for iOS, is adding AirTurn's ( http://airturn.com/ ) wireless BT-105 pedal controllers to their popular guitar and bass amp and effects processor app. The JamUp/AirTurn is the world’s first of its kind: an iOS Guitar/Bass Multi-FX system with wireless foot switch hardware. JamUp Pro XT users will be able to use AirTurn's two or four pedal BT-105 Bluetooth controllers to switch between dozens of studio-grade amp and stomp box effects hands-free.  Each AirTurn pedal can be customized within JamUp Pro XT to perform various functions, from toggling amps and effect switches, to moving between presets, controlling Jam Player's iTunes song playback functions, trig...

(4mins) Nerd Stalker interview with co-founder of Bandize , Andy Miles. Bandize helps bands take control of their careers by giving them a simple way to get organized. They created a suite of DIY tools all available and packaged in one smooth, cohesive web application. View more demos here: Dashboard , Shows/Tours , Track Finances , Contacts .

(5 mins) Oosah is a simple, easy-to-use, but feature rich "Web 2.0" content hosting site. They give you one spot on the Web where you can manage all of your digital media content - photos, videos, and music/audio files. It is designed to be easy enough for novice users to use, while at the same time providing features that even the advanced user can appreciate. Oosah is a fully Web-based application, there is no Oosah application or code that you need to download or install on your Mac or PC (minus the optional screen grab application). Dan Khasis (CTO) demoed the application for us at a mashable monthly party in San Francisco. I was really impressed how once you had assets uploaded you could drag and drop media from service to service. Unfortunately Flickr connectivity has been removed since Sept. 08 and I would strongly urge them to get that back in the feature set asap. A fantastic fact is that they give...

The music theme continues, we interview founder of BlueHaze Mark Shedletsky. At first glance I thought BlueHaze was a simple company that sends you concert notifications, but that was a gross underestimation. BlueHaze gives the concert goer a 360 degree beginning, during, and after experience. BlueHaze is getting quite a bit of buzz as of late, with an iPhone, Facebook, and web solution to: Find local concerts. Get tour alerts from your favorite artists. See what shows your friends are seeing. Post your concert photos and reviews Keep track of your own personal Tour History. Discover new music.

Jam Legend seems like a web application that has massive potential, gaming + music + social+ internet = lots of $'s in my opinion. I can't remember the last time I've been this impressed with a web application, seriously. Nerd Stalker tracks down CEO Andrew Lee and Co-founder Arjun Lall. The give us their take on where the company is now and where it's going, very exciting stuff. BONUS, Jam Legend private beta invites available for Nerd Stalker viewers here .

Recently wherever I go in the tech community, I keep hearing about Blip.fm, and how everyone seems to love the service. I knew we had to stalk Blip immediately, I contacted CEO Jeff Yasuda who graciously agreed to a sit down. Jeff turned out to be a very cool down to earth guy who has all the right qualities to take his company to success.

I'm always disappointed when I see things like mid to late punk music scene movies, dvd's and notice that they never seem to cover northern california bands. It always seems to stop at the Dead Kennedy's, but the thing is there was a thriving music scene in Northern California (hint hint movie makers and authors!). Ignoring the importance of one of the most overlooked bands of that area Victims Family can never be forgiven. Fortunately Gabe Meline does a really nice job with the limited amount of space he has of covering some of that treasured history . I've got (almost) nothing but fond memories of that era and everyone that participated in stoking that artistic fire. I feel so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to be a part of it. Now go read Gabe's article and then create something, anything.