Sponsored Post: Review of EZ-Tracks: Gospel

This is a review of EZ-Tracks Gospel, though this is just a subsection of the EZ-Tracks online music service as a whole.

EZ-Tracks promises to allow users to “download and listen to music carefree� and is 100% legal because it is supported by advertising. Herein lies the problem, though it depends on how you like to use the Internet.

Signing up for the service highlights the issue. I was forced to click through around four product advertisements before I could finish registering for the service and listening or downloading to music. Often, whole page adverts interrupt the download or preview process. While this is understandable, given that this is the only way for the service to generate revenue to cover royalties, it becomes rather annoying after a time.

The music itself is of variable, but generally acceptable, quality. MP3 files seem to be encoded at 128kbps, which is far from the highest quality available online, but not bad for a “free� service. There appears to be no DRM (copy protection) on the files, either, which is a blessing.

A few gospel tracks I downloaded suffered from poor vocal reproduction, particularly on sibilants, but this could have been a fault of the original recording rather than the encoding.

Sometimes, the 30-second sample of each song failed to load first time, at least on Safari on a Mac.

Users seem to get about 100 free song downloads upon signing up. To get more, users need to sign up for various deals offered by advertisers. This has the disadvantage that one could end up on a number of emailing lists.

EZ-Tracks seems to do what it was designed to do, but whether you’ll be able to bear the ads is up to you. Personally, I find it very difficult to use web sites and services with lots of advertising, and I’d prefer to see the option of paying a monthly fee to avoid the ads and get a download quota. Then again, there are plenty of other online music services which do this.

EZ-Tracks claims 30,000 music tracks, including a number of current popular hits, though to get at them all you’ll probably need to view a lot of ads.

EZ-Tracks.com

Sonic State video reviews Novation Nocturn Control

I haven’t heard much about Novation recently, but here’s a video from Sonic State’s Rob Jones, who does a 6+ minute practical review of the Nocturn Control, a nifty little device making it easy to control plug-in parameters and other effects.

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The Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B book reviewed at All About Jazz

All About Jazz have reviewed The Hammond Organ: Beauty in the B:

Vail includes enough technical information about the development of the Hammond’s electrical engineering—shunting resistors, lowpass filters, inductor-capacitors, etc & etc—to satisfy even the most hard-core techno-geek, and more than enough to make the eyes of many other readers glaze over somewhat. Thankfully, most of it is dumbed-down into layperson’s language. For example, readers learn (if they didn’t already know) the difference between tremolo (a pulsation of loudness) and vibrato (a rapid variation in pitch). The what and the why of the “chorus� effect (or what synthesizer players now call “detune�) is also explained; a blending of slightly flat and sharp tones, it was a necessary retrofit because the musical tones produced by Hammond, designed as a cheap replacement for the pipe organ, were too “perfect.�

Other distinctive features of the inimitable Hammond sound, including loudness robbing, key click, percussion and spring reverb, are also explained in accessible terminology.

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Dustin O’Halloran Piano Solos Vol 2 reviewed at Gigwise

This release by Dustin O’Halloran is a departure from the guitar-based songwriters and features no songs, no guitars – just a solo piano of instrumental movements in a classical vein which cock a wink to inspiration from Satie, Debussy and Ludwig Van. With richness in it’s Eno-esque simplicity, there’s music here to sooth the jangled nerves of many a concrete-dweller and offers more comfort than a laced cup of cocoa. The ears that be decided to use two compositions for Sophie Coppola’s movie ‘Marie Antoinette’, such is their sumptuousness.

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Yundi Li gives phenomenal performance: review

24-year-old Chinese pianist Yundi Li gave a virtuoso performance last month in Toronto, to which he received a standing ovation.

At age 18, Li was the first person in 15 years to win first prize in the prestigious Chopin International Piano Competition in Poland.

This man is also a player with personality, much like superstars of yore like Vladimir Horowitz and Arthur Rubinstein. Like those 20th-century legends, Li imprints the music he plays with a personal esthetic that may not necessarily be true to the original score or to mainstream style.

In the case of last night’s program of crowd-pleasing dazzlers by Mozart, Schumann and Liszt, Li grabbed great handfuls of notes and shaped them into his own artworks with an iron will and breathtaking virtuosity.

But many of the results were odd, even off-putting.
In the case of Mozart’s popular Piano Sonata No. 10 in C Major, K.330, Li overlaid the Classical-era purity of sound with a Romantic sensibility. This made for a sweetness that became downright saccharine in the slower second movement.

Read the full review: Young pianist’s technique magical

Van Cliburn silver medallist Joyce Yang gives dazzling recital

Rocky Mountain News’ Marc Shulgold positively reviewed Joyce Yang’s recent concert, which included pieces by Chopin, Carl Vine, Medtner and Bach.

Yang was up to the challenge of stitching all the pieces together into a somewhat comprehensible whole.

Throughout the recital, she showed herself to be a totally committed artist, hunching over the keyboard, crunching her face into contorted expressions of concentration – allowing herself only one or two modest bows at music’s end before heading for the wings.

Yang will turn 20 next month, a reminder that this talented, interesting pianist has time to develop her budding musicality and intriguing stage presence.

Read the full review: Teen pianist’s recital dazzles

Concert Review: Talvin Singh

Richard Thomson reviews Talvin Singh at the New Zealand State Opera House:

As you’d expect, the festival promotion machine took care with their advance description of Talvin Singh’s set. “Low-fi electronica” was bang on, but while the audience was appreciative, you had to wonder whether many of them might have been unexpectedly challenged by the sounds produced by Singh and his Powerbook-shaking partner Oscar Vizan.

Live laptop techno is something fans of electronic music are going to hear a lot more of in years to come. But while the new technology regains something of the excitement of live performances, it comes raw and without the smoothing and compressing of harsh sonic edges that goes on in the studio.

And for people who quickly grew bored by the lush yet soporific noodling that typifies much electronic music, that can only be a good thing. Although Singh’s earlier work, such as the album OK which led to his winning the Mercury Prize in 1999, could never be described as noodling, its washes of synth chords and smooth drum’n'bass styles were rarely less than easy on the ear.

Read the full review: Arts Festival Review: Talvin Singh

Yamaha P140 digital piano favourably reviewed by Keyboard magazine

The January issue of Keyboard Magazine (links to scanned copy) has a very positive review of one of Yamaha’s latest digital stage pianos, the P140 (P140S).

Which is good, because I’m just about to go and buy one…

The review includes a clear diagram of the instrument, pointing out all the main features.

Let’s cut to the important bits, as Keyboard Magazine sees it:

Pros:

• High-quality piano-like keyboard action
• Rich and variable sounds
• Strong clean sound from built-in speakers
• Lightweight for an 88-key digital piano
• Attractive

Cons:

• No 1/4″ outputs
• RCA output level (volume) not adjustable
• Some buzzing from internal speakers at maximum volume

To be honest, if these are the only problems the reviewer found, this is praise indeed for the Yamaha piano.

The output issue can be resolved with use of converter cables and a good mixing desk/amplifier.

Most keyboards I’ve ever played emit some kind of buzz or vibration when playing at full volume through the internal speakers: solution – don’t play at full volume!

The P140 (black) and P140S (silver) were reviewed by Michael Gallant, a professional musician/pianist, so he should know what he’s talking about.

All in all a very positive review and proof that Yamaha continue to produce high-quality digital instruments.

Links:

• Keyboard Magazine
• Yamaha P140 product page
• Yamaha P120 and P140 comparison
• Yamaha’s range of home, contemporary and stage pianos

Piano Wizard game: does it teach?

Shiva Stella over at Gaming Horizon has been testing Piano Wizard with 49E Keystation, which claims to teach piano playing through games.

Short answer: it doesn’t.

It seems its main shortcomings are:

• no musical notation display option
• no instruction on piano technique
• limited songs and games

Whilst learning musical notation is certainly not everything, learning good playing technique is essential.

Mimicking piano playing doesn’t produce musicians – it produces robots.

The game is Windows only, though ironically the keyboard is just as happy functioning on its own on a Mac.

It’s a shame – perhaps a future release of the software will improve things because it’s a great idea. At the moment, Shiva recommends you spend your money on a tutor rather than this combo.

Jerome Rose in concert, review

The San Diego Arts site has a review of an intimate piano performance by Jerome Rose at the Athenaeum on Monday night.

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