Latest in music apps and services

Finding that one perfect music player can be tough. Finding one that's free? Nearly impossible. Rocket Player has been my near-perfect choice for the past few months, but I recently found a successor: Shuttle Player. I would never have found this gem if it weren't for MakeUseOf reader Jarrod Bush, so shoutouts to him. And wow, what a find. This may just be the most polished free music player available on Android.
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I have absolutely no musical training or background. Give me an instrument, and I'm hopeless. But give me a simple sequencer, and I can make some music. Sequencers are brilliant because they abstract away much of the "hard stuff": You don't have to keep a beat, because the sequencer does it for you. You don't have to try and pick notes that go well together, because they all go well together. And Rolling Tones for Android is a great one: It'll have you making music before you know it.
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OCRemix is one of many sites where you can legally get free music. The catch is that the songs on OCRemix are remixes of popular video game soundtracks. You won’t find Pink Floyd or Taylor Swift here; however, you might be surprised to find that there are still tons of professional quality tracks for you to enjoy - even if you don’t like video games! And they don't necessarily sound like video game music. This list covers remixes for Chrono Trigger.
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Don't be surprised if this week's Sound Sunday sounds slightly Spanish. You may also detect some Russian, Croatian, Latvian, and Japanese. This edition is entirely dedicated to foreign languages and a broad mix of genres. Note that name your price albums can be downloaded for free by entering 0 in the price field. That said, we strongly recommend you to donate a few dollars for music you enjoy!
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I’m always on the hunt for new music players. Nothing has completely satisfied me yet, though some programs have gotten close. Whatever is the next, newest, coolest, still-undiscovered music player – I want it. And I’m lucky that I found GOM Audio because, based on my impression so far, it fits the bill quite squarely. [...]
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Mapping music isn't as bizarre as it may at first sound. In the same way locations can be mapped out, so can music genres and artists, with one style feeding into the next, one band being connected to another. What follows are three methods for mapping genres and artists that should lead to you discovering new music. Hopefully, all without having to offend a friend or loved one.
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There are plenty of high quality music players that you can get for Android without paying a single cent. In fact, just a few weeks ago I wrote about Rocket Player, which is currently my favorite free music player available. But, you know, sometimes you have to pay a bit of cash in order to get something truly extraordinary - like n7player.
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Your typical edition of Sound Sunday lulls you in with easy to digest albums and gradually eases you into more challenging and unconventional material. This week we turn the order upside down and start close to where we left last week; with metal and hard rock. A great edition to let off some steam and then drift into calmer rock genres; with alternative, indie rock and post rock.
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iOS has a lot going for it when it comes to mobile music creation, curation and performance. Apple's App Store is absolutely jam packed with synths, drum machines, effects processors, DJ tools and other weird and wonderful noisemakers for your musical pleasure. One such app that produces fantastic results with relatively little skill is Crossfader, an app from DJZ that launched on the App Store at the beginning of April and has been "free for a limited time" ever since.
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This week Sound Sunday explores the dark, loud, and aggressive side of music with a special edition dedicated to metal and hardcore. Mixed with punk and rock, these genres produce explosive as well as surprisingly melodic tunes which are unmistakably loud, yet deep and emotional, revealing massive artistic skill. Note that name your price albums [...]
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Twitter's new music discovery service for finding bands and artists has been out for nearly two weeks now and that has given us plenty of time to put the aptly named #music through its paces. Available in the form of a free iPhone app and as a web app that works in a standard desktop browser, it's time to find out whether the service is the powerful discovery tool that many of us have been hoping for.
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I have never met anybody who doesn't like music. I've met plenty who don't share my taste in music, but none who reject it altogether. A love of music is clearly hardwired into our mainframes, being a key part of the human experience. The fact that we all like different genres and artists is a wholly positive thing too.
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I put five music-recognition apps for Android to the test, pitting them all against seven songs of varying difficulty, and one humming test, in which I tried humming a well-known song to each app to see if it could recognize it. Which app came put on top? Which app should you use next time you must know what song is playing? Read on to find out.
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Sound Sunday offers a short vacation for your ears. This week’s edition contains some rock, a little bit of blues, a pinch of soul, a few experimental and instrumental elements, ideas of jazz and r&b, finished off with ambient and electronic for a well-rounded mix. Note that name your price albums can be downloaded for [...]
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With Spotify and similar music-streaming services on the rise, the run-of-the-mill stereo installation is starting to look more and more inadequate. The main problem with this setup is that if you're sitting with friends, computer-stereo-hybrid blasting away at the other side of the room, it's often a chore to play DJ... unless you start involving your mobile devices and an app like Spot Remote for iOS.
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