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Posts tagged ‘Apple’

Change Tempo and Key of Audio Files on Your iPad or iPhone

The other week I stumbled upon Anytune – the music slow downer app that also allows you to change the key of audio files. Thanks to the folks at Anytune, I got a demo license to give Anytune Pro HQ a try on my iPad. This is a great app for music teachers who want to have “control” over some of the audio files they use with their students.

Have you ever wanted your beginner guitar students to play-along with a recording but it is in the wrong key? How about a piece that your recorder students could perform, if the recording was in an appropriate key? Are you trying to teach a folk dance and need a recording that is a bit slower for your students? Enter Anytune!

Like all of us, I wish I had more time to “play” with this and other apps but after a quick try, I was very impressed with what this app can do. To get started with the app, I selected “Choose a Song” and could see my iTunes Library on my iPad. Songs in black are ready for Anytune; those in grey text are either DRM protected files (and not available to Anytune) or songs that are matched but not yet downloaded to your device. Also, I found that some of the tracks that were in black, were not supported by Anytunes – I haven’t taken time to figure out why – could be DRM protected.

Once the track opens in Anytunes, hide the Song List and you’re ready to begin. For teachers, the simple thing is that you can quickly change the tempo of the song using the + and – buttons. Tempo changes up/down by .05 at a time. Also, easily change the key up/down by a semi-tone. Of course, you can change both the key and the tempo! I gave this a try and was amazed with the sound quality.   Of course, instrumental only recordings sounded better than those with vocals depending on the amount of change you apply to the track. Connect your iPad to an Audio Source or AirPlay with a device and you are ready to go!

Did I mention that when Anytunes loads your audio file, it does a quick analysis and provides the BPM of the track?

Anytunes can do much more than change the key and/or tempo. Have a section that you want your students to rehearse, easily setup a loop. Click the Loop icon to have the A marker appear. With your playhead (red line) at the end section of what you want to loop, click the B marker icon and you are ready to go. Of course, click and hold the A or B marker to easily drag them right or left. Other tools are available to fine tune the loop as well.

Anytunes even imports lyrics if you have them setup in iTunes! If you want to learn more, you should visit the Anytunes website by clicking here. Keep in mind that there are four versions of the app – the free version all the way to the Pro HQ version.

Thanks to the folks at Anytune, I have TWO trial codes for Anytune Pro HQ to give away. These codes are valid for two weeks. Just Retweet this post to be eligible to win and include @shirleylacroix and @AnytuneApp in your tweet. Also, you must follow both @shirleylacroix and @anytuneApp to be eligible. Winners will be contacted by midnight EST on 09/03/12. That’s today – so start Tweeting.

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Music Technology, Technology

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PDF Files can be played on your iPad with a little bit of work!

Have you ever wanted to be able to take a PDF file and play it with a music notation program? How about playing it on your iPad? Well, you can with a few simple steps!  During a Finale course I took this summer, I was reintroduced to PhotoScore, a scanning a program that I purchased a few years ago and then failed to update! This program came highly recommended to me a few summer’s ago and so I thought I’d give it one more try. First, I needed to upgrade my copy. With the help of the kind people at Neuratron, I was able to purchase an upgrade via a simple link!

Once installed, I opened PhotoScore and located the “Open PDFs” button in the top menu bar. I chose a simple folk song to open to give this a test run! After opening the PDF, PhotoScore performed its magic and I was seeing the notation in seconds! I was able to make any corrections to the lyrics or notation in PhotoScore. The notation came in perfectly but there were a few small edits needed for the lyrics. I decided to take care of these in Finale!

Once finished, I went to Save As and choose MusicXML as the format. Now it was time to open Finale and select “Import MusicXML” in the Launch Window. In a few seconds, the PDF which was converted to MusicXML was now open in Finale! I made a few changes to the lyrics. If you need to change the key, you would do it now in Finale before opening the notation on your iPad! Save your file as a MUS file and you now have converted your PDF to a file that can play without entering a note!

Of course, you could stop here. However, remember my goal was that I wanted this file to play on my iPad. Since I save my critical files to DropBox, the next step was easy.  [If you don’t have DropBox click on this link to get your free account!] I broke out my iPad and opened my DropBox App. After navigating to the folder where I saved the MUS file, I clicked on the file and then clicked on the Share button in the upper right hand corner and selected SongBook. Don’t be alarmed when you first click on file and see a large message that says “Unable to view file.” Just look for the share icon and you’ll be on your way.

If you are not familiar with Finale SongBook, it is a must have App if you are a Finale user and have an iPad. After choosing SongBook from the Share icon, the app immediately opened and my MUS file opened and appeared on the screen. At this point, you can play the file and change the tempo right from your iPad! Remember, you can’t change the key in SongBook so, as I suggested before, change the key in Finale before opening your iPad!

There are many other options for notation on your iPad! The key is to find the best solution for your personal goal and the most efficient way to accomplish your goal. Have fun exploring and trying other options.

Look how great the notation looks on my iPad!

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Music Technology, Technology

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New Life for my iMac!

Have you ever wanted to breathe new life into one of your Apple computers without getting under the hood? Although I have changed internal HDDs on laptop computers, I didn’t want to take apart my 2011 iMac! I had watched some of the online videos about using suction cups to remove the glass, and thought this wasn’t worth voiding my warranty. However, now that my laptops have SSD drives, I was feeling the sluggishness of this computer during my daily work.

I’ve been engaged in some software testing and have been using Super Duper (SD) to create a sandbox drive! With SD, I can keep my user home files on my larger internal drive but transfer a copy of the OS and applications to the external drive. The purpose is that if the test software goes bad, my internal is in pristine shape. I had created this sandbox with a FireWire drive but I started thinking about the faster speeds of ThunderBolt drives and wondered if there was an affordable external SSD drive with Thunderbolt connectivity!

As I was reading about some of this on the Internet, I stumbled on a new use for the Seagate Thunderbolt Adapter that turns the Seagate external drive into a Thunderbolt drive. It can also be used with internal laptop drives! Was this my solution?

I visited my local Best Buy and purchased an internal 180 GB internal laptop drive – SSD version – for about $170. I plugged it into the Seagate sleeve – be careful as it needs a little support as it is bare drive! A Thunderbolt cable was needed to connect my external drive to my computer. I used SD and copied the OS and apps to the SSD drive as a Sandbox drive. After complete, I booted from the external SSD and took it for a test!

First impressions is that Apps that used to take 5-6 bounces on the dock to start, now open in 1-2 bounces! Not a scientific test but my reality! Everything feels faster but I will need a week of usage to really test this out! I’m having some issues with the MS Office license – it sees the new drive as a new computer and wants a new license for the drive. Not sure how I’m going to solve this except with a call to MS.

Since this computer is a desktop, the external drive is not going to travel with me. Remember, it’s a bare drive so be careful where you place it! The entire solution was under $300 – cheaper than a new iMac or an external SSD like the LaCie 240GB Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series SSD.

Read before you buy your SSD, I hear some don’t work with the Seagate sleeve. The one I bought from Best Buy was on sale!

So, what did you do this weekend?

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Music Technology, Technology

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Keynote on the iPad and mp3 files

I made an exciting discovery the other day when I started exploring Keynote. Maybe some of you were aware of this feature but it had completely escaped me! I’m a die-hard PowerPoint user and have created presentations for years using that software. Because of the iPad and iCloud, I really wanted to become more proficient in Keynote so I added this to my weekend of challenges.

One of the things that frustrated me with my iPad was not being able to add audio to my Keynote presentations. As a musician, I like to embed my audio and I just couldn’t make it happen on my iPad. I tried 6 months ago, I mean really tried, and just gave up!

As I was using my desktop to create a Keynote presentation this weekend, I didn’t have to think twice about how to add audio. I dragged a mp3 file that was on my desktop onto the Keynote slide and it just worked! (This is so Apple!). I completed my presentation and decided to upload it to my iCloud account so I could review on my iPad while enjoying my coffee!

In the morning, I opened my iPad and the Keynote App. There was my presentation from the night before – remember, it just works! I opened the file and began to play it in presentation mode. Guess what happened? Yes, there was music – the mp3 file I had attached was working in Keynote on the iPad. I was so excited, I couldn’t believe it. I tested a mp4 file and the same was true. A discovery!

Lesson learned – you can play Keynote presentations on your iPad that include mp3 and mp4 files but you need to add these files using a computer, not an iPad. I am delighted to know I can do this and then easily transfer a completed presentation to iCloud. Of course, when I open it from the iPad App, I can easily edit my presentation, add some effects, etc. The point is that there is sound!

I’ll be back again as I want to share my experiences with a cloud-based video editing software!

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Music Technology, Technology

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