New toy

This weekend I've spent pretty much the whole time playing with my brand new iPod Touch. I've never really considered buying one, but my company decided to be completely awesome and buy one for everybody! I'm still not a fan of iTunes, but I have to say that I'm finding the iPod Touch experience pretty slick so far.


I think the most impressive thing is how integrated everything is.. The contacts list is a great example. You can tap on a contact in your list, tap on their address, and it switches to google maps and shows you their place on the map. Then you can tap to get directions from your current location (without gps). Then tap their name on the map again, tap their email address, and let them know you're on your way over!

I've already rushed over to the App Store to download a few bits and pieces - Last.fm so I can scrobble on the move, Guitar Toolkit, which is a handy chord guide for guitar newbies like me, and VNC, which let's you remotely control your PC.. very handy for kicking off some torrents on your home system ready for when you get back in the evening! :)

I'm still on the look out for some real music making apps for it.. I have a couple of weeks away from the main PC over xmas and new year, so I'm hoping to have some half decent portable options with me too. If you know any, then please add a comment below!

Oh, and in other recent news, the game I designed, PowerUp Forever, was released on Xbox360 Live Arcade. PS3 release should follow shortly. I've played the trial version a little bit, and I'm happy to say that it looks like it's turned out pretty good! I found a rather nice review here too!

Gear

I added a few new sections to the website today, including a bit of info on my current set up. While putting the list together, it reminded me how much free software I use in my set up. Some of my favourite VSTs are free, such as the awesome MDA plug pack, pluggo jnr and FreeAlpha. It's pretty incredible to think of the results you can get out of a music set up that literally costs nothing. I remember how hard it used to be when I was making tracks in Octamed, having to program in some faked delay effects by hand, as I just didn't have any effects plug ins or external fx units. Search on the net now and you'd find hundreds of them, along with countless other synths and effects, which can all be used in free sequencers/trackers.

Which reminds me, I came across another free bundle of plug in effects today..

Blue Cat Audio

Not had a chance to dig into them yet, but it looks like there could be some useful stuff in there, although nothing that sounds weird or revolutionary. If you are looking for something a bit weirder, you could try out Olga. I've only played about with that one a little bit, but it's pretty strange. For starters, the interface is all Russian (i think), making it a little hard to learn. Definitely has a sound of it's own though.