OVERVIEW
The Technics 1200 has been the industry standard for 25+ years. The 1200MK5 replaces the 1200M3D, making a couple improvements along the way: 1) the tonearm construction has been improved, which should lead to better skip resistance. 2) the brake adjustment is now more accessible. Simply remove the record and slipmat and it’s possible to adjust the platter’s breaking time with a screwdriver. Other than that, this is exactly the same as the M3D, which had these differences from the original MK2: 1) power switch is sunken to prevent accidental turn-off 2) includes a button which overrides the pitch control to zero (regular speed) 3) no “click” at zero on the pitch control 4) comes with a high quality Technics 2 piece slipmat 5) Dust cover does not include hinges.

FEATURES
This is the turntable that first established the type of high torque (motor strength), accurate pitch (speed control), quality tone arm (aids in skip resistance), and superior sound that is required by djs, and after 25+ years it is still the standard by which all other turntables are judged. Every other turntable that has come since has patterned their design off this legendary piece of equipment, and the reason is simple: the 1200 is about as close to perfection as you can get with a piece of machinery. It functions beautifully and the durability and construction are unmatched. The body and major components are made of steel. The bottom of the body is made of a dense rubber that eliminates distortion and feedback and adds extra weight for stability. Most of the basic parts are readily available and user replaceable.

defcop!

COST: $599.99 @ The Home Depot

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This makes me cry a little. For more information please check the following website.
Click Here

You’ll also find a not so detailed chart of what could be expected from this new/old system.

Justice or money grab? Bands are lining up to sue The Pirate Bay now that the Swedish government has indicted the site’s owners, but their plans could backfire as the promises of sunken treasure give way to reality.

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Interestingly enough

Ever wonder why gadget store employees push Monster cables like they’re crack? Bitchin’ markups, just like you suspected all along. That’s what we found when a Radio Shack employee sent us his store’s entire inventory list, which included the wholesale and retail price of every item in stock

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Internet radio giant Last.fm has now joined up with all four major recording companies (Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, Warner and EMI - as well as CD Baby, IODA, the Orchard, Naxos and more than 150,000 independent labels and artists. The agreement between the companies comes with a change though.

“Last.fm’s free-on-demand service will be advertiser supported, allowing clients many unique opportunities to reach a highly targeted and engaged audience”. - cnn

Last.fm was acquired by the CBS Corporation on May 30 of 2007 and has attracted the attention of many demographics such as the college student, the office worker, the leisure music tester, Big Foot, your mothers hip friend that smokes pot, and of course the executives in those cozy black leather seats. (update - corinthian brown leather seats) Last.fm has launched a somewhat interesting “Artist Royalty Program” that has the labels in a stir of doubtfulness. This becomes a good thing for the plethora of unsigned artists that already seem to be dominating the true independent music “scene” or “revolution”. So every time a song that the unsigned artists uploaded song gets played he or she is paid by Last.fm a royalty check. In theory one can make mad money off this but the problem, yes this is problematic because soon enough Last.fm will see many and many more acts, thus making it challenging to advertise with the “new” industry standard. I personally love the idea making music easily accessible to the mass, I only hope this could work so that everyone can get broke off you feel me.

“We’re building a platform to help redesign the music economy, enabling artists and labels to earn revenue according to how people listen, rather than how they buy,” said Last.fm’s other co-founder, Felix Miller. “Now we can offer the arrangement to unsigned music creators too. For the first time, anyone can upload tracks and get paid when those tracks are played. It’s a whole different model — one that benefits the artists, labels and advertisers - but most of all the listeners.”

Time will truly tell; Last.fm has not yet executed plans for tight lipped Last.tv but expect them to use a entirely different business model and medium.

Do you like making music? Do you like making music in the future? huh? wait a minute Mikey if the map and the treas… I’ll stop right there Chunk. Allow me to show you the next level of exclusivity.

and

reactable

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What’s the McFLY 2015 project?

Radiohead’s Thom Yorke (left) and David Byrne.
Photo: James Day

It seemed like a crazy idea. When Radiohead said it would release its new album, In Rainbows, as a pay-what-you-will digital download, you’d have thought the band had gone communist. After all, Thom Yorke and company are one of the world’s most successful groups — a critical darling as well as a fan favorite for nearly 15 years. They hadn’t put out a new album in more than four years, and the market was hungry for their next disc. So why would Radiohead conduct such a radical experiment?

Thom Yorke in conversation with David Byrne.

While pay-what-you-will worked for Radiohead, though, it’s hard to imagine the model paying off for Miley Cyrus — aka chart-topping teenybopper Hannah Montana. Cyrus’ label, Walt Disney Records, will stick to selling CDs in Wal-Mart, thank you very much. But the truth is that Radiohead didn’t intend In Rainbows to start a revolution. The experiment simply proves there is plenty of room for innovation in the music business — this is just one of many new paths. Wired asked David Byrne — a legendary innovator himself and the man who wrote the Talking Heads song “Radio Head” from which the group takes its name — to talk with Yorke about the In Rainbows distribution strategy and what others can learn from the experience.

Byrne: OK.

Yorke: [To assistant.] Shut the bloody door.

Byrne: Well, nice record, very nice record.

Yorke: Thank you. Wicked.

Byrne: [Laughs.]

Yorke: That’s it, isn’t it?

Byrne: That’s it, we’re done. [Laughs.] OK. I’ll start by asking some of the business stuff. What you did with this record wasn’t traditional, not even in the sense of sending advance copies out to the press and such.

Yorke: The way we termed it was “our leak date.” Every record for the last four — including my solo record — has been leaked. So the idea was like, we’ll leak it, then.

Byrne: Previously there’d be a release date, and advance copies would get sent to reviewers months ahead of that.

Yorke: Yeah, and then you’d ring up and say, “Did you like it? What did you think?” And it’s three months in advance. And then it’d be, “Would you go do this for this magazine,” and maybe this journalist has heard it. All these silly games.

Byrne: That’s mainly about the charts, right? About gearing marketing and prerelease to the moment a record comes out so that — boom! — it goes into the charts.

Yorke: That’s what major labels do, yeah. But it does us no good, because we don’t cross over [to other fan bases]. The main thing was, there’s all this bollocks [with the media]. We were trying to avoid that whole game of who gets in first with the reviews. These days there’s so much paper to fill, or digital paper to fill, that whoever writes the first few things gets cut and pasted. Whoever gets their opinion in first has all that power. Especially for a band like ours, it’s totally the luck of the draw whether that person is into us or not. It just seems wildly unfair, I think.

Byrne (left) and Yorke in Radiohead’s Oxford offices.
Photo: James Day

(more…)

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Touch surfaces as specialized control interfaces: ProRemote converts the iPhone or the iPod touch in a wireless control for Pro Tools LE with realtime feedback. While this may seem limited to the audio world, it shows that having this kind of power in such a tiny package could solve the problems of many users. While the beta will be here next week, the final software “won’t ship until Apple releases their native iPhone SDK and I can convince them to certify the software. So hopefully sometime in late February I hope to have this released.” The price? Around $150. Most musicians I know will gladly pay that for this kind of remote control says the creator of the software Alex Lelievre

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