http://openlabs.com/ en Open Labs 2006 120 - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer Over the past few years, you may have seen older generations and models of our products, and wondered what the difference is between our older gear and the new. Always topping the charts for customer satisfaction, we here at Open Labs would like to educate our customers on where our company has been, and what direction we are heading, so we've pulled together this general history of our products. As many of you know, our original product i... <a href="http://openlabs.com/evolution-open-labs.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/evolution-open-labs.html Get your trendy Open Labs Beats 'N Treats event tees. All black shirt with gold metallic ink. Only $10. Call 512-444-6222 x124 to place your order. Shirts come in: L, XL, XXL, XXXL, Tall L, Tall XXL, Tall XXXL ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/bnt-shirt.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/bnt-shirt.html Austin,TX -- A unique battle, pitting digital DJs against their analog brethren will take place this Saturday at the Art Institute of Austin. Thirty-two competitors were chosen based on originality, flow, technique and sound quality, and will compete in head-to-head battles. Digital DJs (aka laptop DJs) will face traditional analog turntablists, with both sides able to incorporate one supporting artist (rapper, singer or dancer) into their performance. The single-elimination contest is c... <a href="http://openlabs.com/analog-vs-digital.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/analog-vs-digital.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer The first time I met Mickael he had just (literally) arrived in Houston (after performing in Corpus Christi, and Los Angeles before that, and Palm Springs before that). He was spreading himself thin between the Ozone Music Awards, our seven-person Open Labs team, and a recording session. The first time Mickael met his love for music was as a 14-year-old 20 minutes outside of Paris, trying to DJ with a... <a href="http://openlabs.com/mickael.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/mickael.html Austin,TX -- Now that the event has ended, Open Labs has calculated the Beats 'N Treats Music Festival to be a successful business venture. The two-day festival at the Mohawk in Austin, Texas from Oct. 24 through Oct. 25 featured the Gold Rush beat competition with the grand prize a 24 karat gold NeKo LUX. After six rounds of one-on-one competitions, each contestant played their beat through an Open Labs MiKo until the final contestants played early Sunday morning. The grand prize winner was A... <a href="http://openlabs.com/beatsntreats-winner.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/beatsntreats-winner.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer Ric'key Pageot's current rehearsal space looks like the arcane Hangar 18. The first reason being that it actually is an airplane hangar, although it's loaded with a different kind of futuristic spacecraft than an alien intergalactic voyager. All 5000+ square feet of the New York launch pad is lined with cords, cables, consoles, sparkling purple instruments, 12-foot fans, and even purplish-gray flooring. Some... <a href="http://openlabs.com/rickey-pageot.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/rickey-pageot.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer You may not know this, but Sheila E. is a virtuoso percussionist. You may remember her name from her 1980s song, The Glamorous Life, or her involvement with the New Power Generation (Prince's main musical sidekick during the same decade), but outside of the music that she is most known for, Sheila E. can shred on any percussion instrument like Eddie Van Halen on guitar. Bongos, congos, traditional trap set -- y... <a href="http://openlabs.com/sheila-e.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/sheila-e.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byCarson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer We have a secret spiritual advisor that lives in the mountains in California, who has 100,000 records of shit from all over the world, says Lovebones member Jackson Myres, as he reclines in a coffin-black chair at the bands' home studio. We went up there for four months and listened to him play records for us. He had a big trunk of a hallucinogens collection, and a bunch of books - it was pretty wild. H... <a href="http://openlabs.com/lovebones.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/lovebones.html Boston, MA -- The Open Labs sales and marketing team will be at the The Core DJs 5th Year Anniversary and The Core DJs Retreat IX held in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina from Friday, October 10 to Monday, October 13.Armed with two Timbaland Special Edition MiKos, the Open Labs team will have a booth on display during the event, featuring software and hardware demonstrations in a QA type setting, and showing the many functions of Open Labs gear. Open Labs' presence at the BMC is intended to inform... <a href="http://openlabs.com/core-dj-anniversary.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/core-dj-anniversary.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Nick O'Toole didn't know he was looking for something special. He was convinced it already existed. And though it did it wasn't what he expected. Writing the music along his quest like the score for the movie of his life, Nick searched for a simple MIDI keyboard controller that just happened to also have a trackball and QWERTY keyboard. He found himself frustrated with the heap of individual pieces h... <a href="http://openlabs.com/nicholas-otoole.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/nicholas-otoole.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer The thing missing from mixed tapes today is the tape. Like many musicians, or kids who went through school in the '80s and early '90s, The Drama King spent hours recording to cassettes in junior high. Lying on the floor while carpet imprinted his skin, he'd create his masterpieces. Rocking giant yellow headphones on his little 8th grade cranium, he'd carry his cassettes in his backpack to sell to frie... <a href="http://openlabs.com/drama-king.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/drama-king.html Boston, MA -- The Open Labs sales and marketing team will be at the first annual Boston Music Conference this weekend from Friday, September 26 to Saturday, September 27. Armed with two Timbaland Special Edition MiKos, the Open Labs team will have a booth on display both days of the event, featuring software and hardware demonstrations in a QA type setting, and showing the many functions of Open Labs gear. Open Labs' presence at the BMC is intended to inform musicians and industry professional... <a href="http://openlabs.com/boston-music-conf2008.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/boston-music-conf2008.html - by Albert Le Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writers Touring can appear to be the pinnacle of achievement for an artist. Others know it's not so glamorous. Lavish tour buses, parties, and exotic traveling is usually a cramped back seat, exhausting nights after a long set with sound problems, or getting left at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. And if you're a one-man-band, like No One Conquered, Wyoming's Israel Cilio, you may just find yourself alone with a broken radio and... <a href="http://openlabs.com/tour-cheap.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/tour-cheap.html To me its (MiKo) perfect - I have everything I need in one sturdy box ... -Happy Perez Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Maybe he left a sort of electric wake behind him. Maybe it was coincidence. But it wasn't an hour after Happy Perez walked out the Open Labs doors that I knew I needed to talk to him. I just got a quad four processor put in, he told me about his Gen 3 MiKo LX and the visit to the shop. I've had it for about ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/happy-perez.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/happy-perez.html - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer Good music won't get you noticed if you don't get the word out. With modern technology's grace of easy home recording techniques, there's been musicians all over the world writing potential hits, but if no one hears them then the music remains confined to the studio. Half of having a successful band is marketing yourself: spreading the word about your music so you can reach a bigger audience, get bigger shows, and make more money. So put down yo... <a href="http://openlabs.com/marketing-your-music.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/marketing-your-music.html - by Albert Le Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writers If you multiply the number of musical instruments, mics, amps, bundles of cables, and merch you tour with by the number of cities you'll be visiting, you may be faced with an outrageous number. That is, the number of possibilities that your music equipment could be broken, stolen, sat-upon, tinkered-with, or molested in any number of ways. So to aid in the protection of your gear, here are a couple of precautions you can take when t... <a href="http://openlabs.com/moving-gear.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/moving-gear.html Austin, TX -- Catering to the growing urban music scene, Open Labs will be hosting a two-day music event titled Beats 'N Treats Music Festival at the Mohawk venue on October 24-25, 2008. The two day event will feature live bands and a beat competition called the Gold Rush Beat Competition, in which the winner will receive an Open Labs NeKo LUX encased in a 24-karat gold chassis. The instrument is worth over $24,000, and is Open Labs' most expensive instrument to d... <a href="http://openlabs.com/beats-n-treats-pr.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/beats-n-treats-pr.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Not every 11-year-old kid knows what a synthesizer is, much less that they want to play one for the rest of their life. But Vince Jones did. My mother asked me if I wanted to take up an instrument, Jones explained. At first I was going to try guitar then I heard Vince Clark and Alison Moyet (Yazoo) doing 'Only You' and I was so blown away by the amazing sounds and the fact that here was electronic mus... <a href="http://openlabs.com/vince-jones.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/vince-jones.html Houston, TX-- This weekend, from Friday, August 8th through Tuesday, August 11ththe Open Labs marketing and sales teams will be gasing up the corporate limo and heading down to Houston, Texas for the TJ's DJ's Tastemakers Music Conference and Ozone Magazine Awards. This event acknowledges and awards various important artists of the rap and hip-hop industry, based on their contributions to the music scene. There will be panels, performances, parties and other occasions throughout the event. ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/ozone-awards.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/ozone-awards.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Since 1984, when he bought his first Roland Juno 106, Mark Packard has been experimenting with keyboards. Today, while computers and late models of various other keyboards lean against the gray and red walls, one single piece of equipment stands in the middle of his studio: an Open Labs NeKo. In those first years, while learning to convert the press of a key into music, Mark began laying the foundati... <a href="http://openlabs.com/mark-packard.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/mark-packard.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer For Bradley Nagle of A.I. Music (Art Into Music) one of the first things that came out of his MiKo LX was a thin trail of smoke. I blew it up seriously, I forgot to change the voltage from 115 to 230. I was so excited to finally have it, that I just wanted to see it light up ... all I saw light up was the power supply and a faint smell of burnt electronics. After his initial mishap, he says, he hasn'... <a href="http://openlabs.com/a.i.-music.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/a.i.-music.html - by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Vocabulary. It's one of those things we don't usually think about once the quizzes stop in high school. And we are relatively content until someone says a word we don't understand suddenly there is a tingle of embarrassment, a moment of insecurity. If you're new to recording lingo and entering the music industry, this is a sensation you are either going to have to grow accustom to, or you're just going to have to learn what VSTs and MIDI cont... <a href="http://openlabs.com/sound-competent.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/sound-competent.html - by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Unless you do it for a living, mastering can be something of a mystery, and with good reason. The three main steps in recording a track are recording, mixing, and mastering. Recording is easy enough to understand you make noise and through the magic of technology it is saved, in some form, to listen to again and again. Mixing is taking all the separate components that build your recording and layering them until the song, or whole album... <a href="http://openlabs.com/mastering-your-mix.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/mastering-your-mix.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer The B3 organ is Dave Cohen's first love, his weapon of choice, his Holy Grail, if you will. Cohen has had his hands professionally on guitars, pianos, and other chunks of musical wood, but the B3 is his one and only. Why? Because according to Cohen, the B3 has a soul of its own, and a sound that no other instrument can touch. It's just powerful, more so than a piano, says Cohen. A piano in a big room m... <a href="http://openlabs.com/dave-cohen.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/dave-cohen.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Imagine what you want your life to be ... then make it happen! For Gail Garner and John St. Jean this is more than a Myspace quote or a cute way to sign e-mails, it's what makes them Imagine a two piece band that sounds like six, eight, or ten. With backgrounds ranging from musical theater to sneaking into clubs through the back door at age 11 to play bass, Imagine has been soaking music in for most of the... <a href="http://openlabs.com/imagine.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/imagine.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer I was set to meet David Williams at a gray, slab of a bar on the East Side of Austin called Rio Rita's. Its after work, office hours at least, and I pull upside the place around 7:30 pm, we were supposed to meet around 7:00. Most people might call this place a hole in the wall, I tend to think of it as a hipster's casualty caught in between downtown Sixth Street and the lower income East Side. The boozers th... <a href="http://openlabs.com/david-williams.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/david-williams.html News Flash: Sounds Under Radio has released their long-awaitednew album Cinematica. See video footage below oftheir CD Release Party at La Zona Rosa in Austin, TX on October 18, 2008 filmed by Open Labs. Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer Consider the rolling textures, gigantic landscapes and vertigo overtures that Sounds Under Radio's debut album, Cinematica offers. Judging by its sonic texture, you'd think that lead singer/guitarist L... <a href="http://openlabs.com/sounds-under-radio.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/sounds-under-radio.html - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer Music sampling is the act of taking a segment of a recorded sound and using it as means of instrumentation or reproduction. The type of sample itself can range from a sampled drum loop, to a person's voice, to random sounds of any nature. The boundaries of sampling are virtually limitless, as anything that produces audible sound can be used as a sample. However, many types of samples, like music, speeches, or commercials have copyrights attached... <a href="http://openlabs.com/what-is-sampling.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/what-is-sampling.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Ed Rhone got his first musical high in the fourth grade with a long-haired hippy, Ms. Wooten ... she had hair down to her waist. She brought an acoustic guitar in and a case of recorders. A few years later, in the sixth grade, he got his second musical jolt, They had all the kids from the high school come down and show us what they were into. Some played sports, some sang ... all the kids from band cl... <a href="http://openlabs.com/james-edwin-rhone-jr.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/james-edwin-rhone-jr.html - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer Amplifier Simulator - An effect that simulates the tones of different amplifiers and their set-ups. Analog Delay - A delay effect that reproduces the original signal, but sound quality gradually decreases over time similar to an echo effect. Arpeggiator - Takes the note of one signal, and breaks it into three tones, simulating a musical arpeggio. Auto-Wah - Mimics the effect of a wah-wah pedal without the expression pedal. ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/effects-dictionary.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/effects-dictionary.html - by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer While the trials and tribulations of recording should lie in the creation of your opus, they often start with figuring out what you need to set up your home studio. This is a quick guide to get you started. Some of the most frequently overlooked aspects of home recording are the most mundane. Shiny new gear may be exciting, but the acoustics and layout of your room can make a huge difference. Though professional studios may pour thousand... <a href="http://openlabs.com/fengshui-home-recording.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/fengshui-home-recording.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Justin Stewart explained, I figured there needed to be a reason why I was posing shirtless with it (his NeKo). And that's where, 'Who needs clothes, I got a NeKo!' came from. Though hearing him tell of tearing the packaging from around his brand new keyboard, one wouldn't be surprised if he was just so excited by the board that he started ripping off his clothes. This wonderful machine that I'd been d... <a href="http://openlabs.com/justin-stewart.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/justin-stewart.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer For seven years, Gabriel Romero Jr.'s eyes would scan the stage and see elephants draped in satin costumes doing headstands, motorcyclists flipping in mid air over a spew of flames, and white tigers prancing on their hind legs at the tamer's direction. While he was twisting knobs and pushing keys on his prototype NeKo, scantily-clad women would cartwheel in front of him, trapeze artists would fly above his h... <a href="http://openlabs.com/ringling-bros.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/ringling-bros.html - by Albert Le, Open Labs Staff Writer Since the creation of the guitar amplifier, the quality of sound has evolved through several technological advancements. Among those advancements is the transition from the old school vintage tube amps (or valve amps) to the more advanced, solid-state amps. This transition can be contributed to the low-cost/low-maintenance advantages of the solid-state amp, which nearly obliterated the costly and inefficient tube amp market. But most professional gu... <a href="http://openlabs.com/tube-vs-solidstate.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/tube-vs-solidstate.html -For Immediate Release Wednesday, June 18, 2008- Contact: Carson Barker Corporate Communications Open Labs Inc. 4020 S Industrial Dr, STE. 100 Austin, TX 78744 Email: press@openlabs.com Tel: 512.444.6222 ext. 113 Open LabsLive Summer Webcast From Friday, June 20 to Sunday, June 22, Open Labs will be hosting a live webcast from their office in Austin, TX. The webcast will be broadcast on www.openlabs.com, and will feature events such as live performances from Open Labs en... <a href="http://openlabs.com/live-summer-cast.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/live-summer-cast.html - by Tatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer As progressively more music is produced digitally, MIDI equipment has become a standard, even a necessity. MIDI, which stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is a means of sending digital information from one electronic device to another. For example, sending music from a keyboard to a computer for recording. Digital music technology first gained momentum in the 1970s as electronic instruments became more widely available and a... <a href="http://openlabs.com/all-about-midi.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/all-about-midi.html - by Albert Le, Open Labs Staff Writer Whether you are setting up a home studio for your professional career or pushing your new twin-sized bed up against the wall to squeeze more room for your bands new practice space, there's no getting around figuring out where cables go, what they do, and how long they should be, and finding the correct cable material to purchase. Get the lengths wrong on a couple of cables, a few second-grade connectors with nowhere to plug them in and you've got a ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/plugged-in.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/plugged-in.html - by Carson Barker, Open Labs Staff Writer A synthesizer is an electronic instrument that creates different electronically produced audible tones, most of which are manipulatable by the user via control devices. Unlike an acoustic instrument, tones from a synthesizer are produced digitally or by analog, as an acoustic instrument produces sound from the reverberations of its wood, brass, or metal housing. Consequentially, synthesizers require speakers to be heard, whereas acoustic instrum... <a href="http://openlabs.com/the-synth.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/the-synth.html Austin, TX - Super producer duo The Heavy Weights have selected Recorder as the winner of the Famecast contest to win a NeKo keyboard production station, valued at $6,000 and courtesy of Open Labs. Here's what The Heavy Weights had to say about their selection: Open Labs NeKo and MiKo Workstations have many features that would compliment any artist of any genre, but for the sake of utilizing a Neko to its fullest potential, we have chosen the winner in the Electronic genre, Recorder. ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/recorder-wins-famecast-neko-contest.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/recorder-wins-famecast-neko-contest.html ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/spotlight.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/spotlight.html ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/marquee-artist.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/marquee-artist.html Open Labs Exclusive Artist Interview - byTatiana Ryckman, Open Labs Staff Writer Tucked away in college housing and knee-deep in the books, snacks, and gadgets that come with it, Cory Washington, also known as C James, has somehow found the time and the room to make himself a professional. Thanks to his Open Labs NeKo TSE, his studio doesn't get tangled with his ramen noodles and shaving kit. C James considers the mess he could be tied up in, I had about three different keyboards,... <a href="http://openlabs.com/cory-washington.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/cory-washington.html ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/featured-artists.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/featured-artists.html Trained OL staff will be in California to visit select vendor locations and will be availible for live in store demos. Stop by, hang out, ask questions and get your hands-on experience. Thursday Nov. 13th 10am-2pm Sherman Oaks Guitar Center (map) Thursday Nov. 13th 3pm-5pm Guitar Center Hollywood(map) Friday Nov. 14th 11am-1pm West LA Music, Universal City location (map) Friday Nov. 14th 2pm-4pm Guitar Center West LA (map) ... <a href="http://openlabs.com/demo-1108.html">Read more</a> http://openlabs.com/demo-1108.html