| Awesome Foursome Of July 2013 |
| The same month we got our hands on the impressive Sony RX1, touted as the smallest and lightest full-frame camera in the world, we also got to hear about the equally impressive Canon EOS Rebel SL1. Apparently this is now going to be the smallest and lightest full- frame camera in the world. |
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| Google Glass - It’s In Your Hands |
| Imagine walking around an unknown road in the city but knowing who everyone is. Sounds a bit far-fetched? Well, not if Google has its way! After many years of cooking these glasses in their R&D labs, Google have finally decided to launch them "officially" in 2013, for under $1,500. That's roughly about 82K in INR. |
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| Opulence Re-defined - Bigger Ultra HD TV’s Is Better? |
| With bigger screen sizes in smartphones, how could TV sets be far behind? Especially with the ever increasing pixel density, things are only going to get mega-sized mega-quickly! Whether or not you will be afford such extravagant devices will be another thing entirely, but they’re out there and we’ve spotted some of the best Ultra HD TV’s around the world. |
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| The New 19" LED TV From AOC - Almost Life Like |
| AOC have launched a fairly good product with some great features like Dream Surround Sound, USB Movie, Real Color Engine, PC Input and HDMI - all of which help in really adding more depth to the LE19A1331/61. It's an LED TV at a very affordable price, with additional ports for that much room to have a better viewing experience. |
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| Videocon VT10 - A Promising Debut |
| The first time you see the Videocon VT10 Tab you are amazed at its resemblance to the iPad. This white tablet's greatest spec is its screen size. 10.1 inches of capacitive multi-touch works perfectly. Although, one's fingerprint marks are quite prominent on them, we advise you purchase a scratch guard as soon as you purchase the device. |
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| The Cowon EM1 Earphones - Musically Yours |
| Tangle free earphones with an in-line remote/mic built in?! Wow! Isn't that what every audiophile wants while enjoying his music on the go. Unfortunately, not all earphones can give you excellent performances on all the devices you own. So, looking at the spec sheet and build of these Cowon EM1 earphones, we were expecting it to be really good for mobiles and some laptops. |
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| The JBL J22i - A Lot More Than Just Earphones |
| When we received the earphones, looking at its packaging the first thing that we noticed was that it is made only for iPad, iPod and iPhone. This kind of did not go down to well with all the "Android Loyalists" at the office. So, we decided to test the earphones on an iPhone. |
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| Musical Fidelity M1SDAC - A Wonderfully Musical-Sounding DAC |
| It’s hard to pigeonhole products such as the M1SDAC. As the name implies it’s a digital-to-analogue converter but there’s more here. It’s a forward-looking device that recognizes phones and tablets are viable music sources and should be celebrated rather than ignored. |
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| Skullcandy's Navigator Headphones - The Aviator's Kin |
| The sibling to Skullcandy's Aviator series are here - lovingly christened as Navigator. They draw inspiration from the Aviator's but do have a personality of their own. Right from the impressive looking packaging to the overall quality of sound you can expect. |
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| Ten Top Synths (Part 3) : Synapse Audio Software, GForce Software, u-he, Native Instruments |
| On the face of it, dune is just a regular subtractive synth, and with two main oscillators, a sub-oscillator, three LFOs, three envelopes, filter, arpeggiator, modulation matrix and effects, you may be asking why it’s in our list. But through a combination of excellent patches, simple interface, flexible oscillators and a unison system called the Differential Unison Engine, it can conjure up some very big sounds. |
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| Ten Top Synths (Part 2) : FXpansion, Rob Papen, Native Instruments |
| While the rest of our recommended synths adhere to an all-in-one design, DCAM: Synth Squad is the complete opposite, comprising a set of three totally individual synths connected by a master combo plugin called Fusor. The synths in question are named Strobe, Amber and Cypher, and each one addressed a different aspect of the analogue synth heritage. |
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| Ten Top Synths (Part 1) : Native Instruments, KV331 Audio, LennarDigital |
| MusicRadar’s ‘Best Software Instrument of 2012’ is a do-it-all synth with an attractive price tag. The brainchild of Turkish developers KV331 Audio, over its six-year gestation period it’s morphed from a PC-only VST instrument into the cross-platform v2.5 we have today – but throughout that time it’s retained its core aim of offering multiple synthesis types in a semi-modular framework, flanked by an excellent range of effects. |
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| Five Top Drum Machines (Part 2) |
| If you’re after a fully synthesis-based drum machine, MicroTonic 3 is one of the best available. It includes eight drum channels, an integrated 16-step sequencer with accent, fill, swing and choke groups, and the ability to drag MIDI patterns into your DAW. |
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| Five Top Drum Machines (Part 1) |
| NI’s Battery 3 is about as close as you can get to an industry-standard sample-based drum machine. With an impressive 12GB library including over 100 kits, ranging from urban and club sounds to pop, reggae and acoustic, it has many bases covered. |
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| Five Top Filters (Part 2) |
| Quad Frohmage is a four-channel multi-filter. Each channel includes eight main filter types: low-pass, high-pass, band-pass, peak, notch, Moog, comb and ring modulator. Each type gets its own additional options, including such parameters as Slope, Fatness and Color. There’s also a self-oscillating SVF mode. |
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| Five Top Filters (Part 1) |
| FilterFreak sounds great, and the input/output analogue modeling gives it a further dimension. But it’s the simplicity with which you can add modulation to this classic sound that makes it a plugin that you’ll turn to again and again, any time you need a lush and evocative filter. Great stuff! |
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| Harman Kardon CL - Heavy And Powerful |
| The box of these headphones itself weighs at least a KG, this is what took us aback but then it is Harman Kardon packaging, you would expect they would impress from the very start. The product is made only for iPod, iPhone and iPad, this may disappoint few souls. |
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| 9 Speakers-Blowing Sounds (Part 3) |
| There’s nothing like a laser effect for adding intensity to a track, and it’s possible to make these simple sounds with practically any virtual analogue synth. Let’s use Dune CM. start by clicking the Bank B button to get an initialized preset. This gives us a sawtooth oscillator by default, which is perfect, as that’s the basis of this sound. |
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| 9 Speakers-Blowing Sounds (Part 2) |
| FM (frequency modulation) bass sounds work well because they can have a more interesting character and more punch than sounds created using subtractive synthesis. Start by loading Curve 2 CM into your DAW, then click New button in the top left-hand corner to initialize the patch. |
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| 9 Speakers-Blowing Sounds (Part 1) |
| If you’re a synthesis novice, it’s easy to be put off by complex interfaces and confusing terminology, but in this guide we’ll smooth the way and show you step by step how to create some of the most useful sounds in electronic music. If you’re already a competent synthesis, hopefully the advice proffered on the following pages will help enhance your repertoire, and you might just learn a few new synth-specific tricks along the way too. |
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| Five Top Distortion Plugins (Part 2) |
| Maul is a 3-stage distortion processor that can operate in three modes Multiband, Serial and Single. Multiband puts the three stages in parallel; Serial, as you can imagine, puts them one after the other; and Single leaves just one stage active. |
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| Five Top Distortion Plugins (Part 1) |
| Trash 2 is the recently updated distortion offering from iZotope, and has been brought in line both visually and functionally with their other top flight plugins Ozone 5 and Alloy 2. It includes six modules – Trash, Filter 1, Filter 2, Convolve, Dynamics and Delay and the processing order can be user-configured within the Graph page. |
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| Five Top Compressors (Part 2) |
| Elysia’s Mpressor is a highly respected hardware compressor with some pretty cool creative features. Elysia have worked in conjunction with Brainworx to emulate it as closely as possible in software form. |
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| Five Top Compressors (Part 1) |
| If you’re after a dynamics processor tailored specifically for cutting-edge club music, Multiband Sidechain2 should be right up your alley. Vengeance Sound have teamed up with Keilwerth Audio for a number of effects plugins, but this was the first, and now at version 2, it’s got a new engine and many few features. |
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| Portronics Pebble - Innovative And Convenient Music |
| Most of you who see the product will agree with us that it looks like a mouse. When we first received it, we were quite astonished with its size. Having reviewed several other portable Bluetooth audio devices, all of them had a very different built then this one. We sure were looking forward to see what Portronics had to offer in this highly competitive product line. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 16) |
| Vevo isn’t well known in the UK but it is doing well in the US. Developed by Sony Music Entertainment. Universal Music Group and EMI, the service has now made its way to Android and it is a decent way to keep up with pop music. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 15) |
| If you’ve already synced your Facebook friends with your contacts, you’ll soon find out that profile images that have been grabbed from the social networking site appear significantly poor in quality, now they have been stretched to the entire screen. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 14) |
| It’s been a longtime coming for the Sky+ Remote Record app to land on Android. To say we are bitter about this is an understatement but, putting aside grudges for a second, we’re happy to announce that the Android version of the app matches the iPhone’s in pretty much every way. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 13) |
| Vignette is one of the best on the market, because it has a wide range of options. For a start, it adds to your phone’s camera capabilities. At its heart are the filters - there are 68 effects and 56 frames in all, which range from vintage to trendy LOMO style shots. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 12) |
| Nobody can properly predict the weather. Michael Fish proved this with his lack of hurricane-spotting skills. But download the Weather Bug and you will know more about the weather than, well, anyone who hasn’t got this app. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 11) |
| 7digital is no stranger to Android - its store is already embedded in a number of tablets. The new app brings this store functionality to smartphones and is a joy to use. You can chose between new releases, what’s in the charts and genres, and there is also a handy search bar at the top of the app. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 10) |
| Sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. With Car Locator, you rock up somewhere in your car, turn the app on to log where you parked, then use the app again when you need to find your I automobile among the 100 other Fiat 500s clogging up the multi-storey. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 9) |
| If you want to add more home screens, you can do that by simply gliding your finger up on the screen to preview available screens and see exactly what lives on them. You’ll still be able to add widgets, change your wallpaper, search your phone, share the app, and view set-up preferences and settings. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 8) |
| With the advent of 10.1-inch Android tablets, it’s more important than ever for developers to make a decent site aggregator that not only stores all your lovely feeds but also enables you to present them on your device so that it doesn’t just look like you have added a small postage stamp to an A4 envelope. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 7) |
| Tuneln Radio enables you to instantly access over 30,000 radio stations from across the globe, including thousands of AM/FM local stations. If you were thinking of investing in a new internet or DAB radio, you might want to think again, because this app turns your smartphone into the ultimate digital radio. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 6) |
| The Opera Mini web browser is so quick and slick, it has to be seen to be believed. In fact, in our tests, the only thing holding it back was a shoddy 3G signal. Whack it on while you are using Wi-Fi and the results are electric. |
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| 101 Recommended Apps (Part 5) |
| The Sky News app was a revelation when it came to Android. As an app it was a breath of fresh air, offering decent content within a snazzy user interface, and it was constantly updated, which is always a bonus. |
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