This is not the car I was driving when I won my title How did you  spend your Saturday? I spent it behind the wheel of a 2013 Lexus GS 350 F, ultimately winning the title of “Fastest Woman in Vegas” while driving on a closed course at Las Vegas Speedway. The GS350 really impressed me because it was the best of both words — fast and sleek like a sports car, but large enough for a family and totally decked out.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Kev and I are headed to Las Vegas to spend a day at the Motor Speedway and watch the superbowl, where Lexus will run their first-ever Super Bowl commercial for the 2013 Lexus GS, called “The Beast”. The :30 second commercial features the all-new 2013 GS as it breaks free from containment, illustrating the company’s move in a new design direction for the brand. The spot also hints at the additional new vehicles Lexus will unveil later in the year, which are waiting in the wings for their turn to burst onto the scene. “The all-new Lexus GS is showcased in this ad because it’s the first model to feature the new look of Lexus and it’s also the first of nine new or updated models we’ll launch this year,” said Brian Smith, Lexus vice president of marketing. “This spot looks very different than anything Lexus has done before and demonstrates to the 50-million-strong Super Bowl audience that 2012 will be a breakthrough year for Lexus.” Continue reading on Gear Diary …

  ioSafe is known for keeping your data SAFE. How safe? Well, first we took the initiative to burn and water-soak a drive, and the data was still recoverable. Then, starting with CES 2010, ioSafe decided to show everyone that their drives are capable of withstanding burning, soaking, dropping, and crushing. In 2011, we upped the ante again and took shots (yes, using a gun) at an ioSafe drive, and the data saved on the ioSafe drive came out unscathed. Well, we wondered what they would do next and, at CES 2012,  we found out. Honestly, what we saw shocked us …… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Mark of the Unicorn had one huge announcement that I already covered, the note that the upcoming Digital Performer 8 would support Windows 7 as well as Mac OS X. But now we learn that MOTU is also introducing a new version of the well-received MicroBook audio interface. MicroBook was released in 2010 and was straightforward in design – 1/4″ inputs and outputs giving you a 4-in/2-out audio interface for your computer that delivered excellent sound quality and performance. So hwo did MOTU up their game for the new version? It is now a 4-in/6-out, giving you mich more recording flexibility. It also has an enhanced USB 2 connection, and rather… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last year we were amazed at iTar concept that promised to turn your iPad into a guitar. While that product has yet to ship, in the fall the concept was made reality by the cool and innovative Misa Kitara Synth Guitar – which is a fully digital instrument that utilizes the iPad as a core part of the instrument. So naturally there was a line forming to This year at NAMM we had not one, not two but THREE eerily similar new iPad-based guitar instruments. None have strings, all stick the iPad in the string area, and are functionally fairly similar. Here we go! ION Audio Announces the iPad-Based Guitar Apprentice Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Carly is loving the Case-Mate Phantom. Judie stole the first Case-Mate DIY iPhone case with the words “I’m on a Deadline” and is still using it (although her iPhone isn’t seeing much use right now). The bottom line is this, when it comes to cases for the iPhone 4S Case-Mate has a great lineup this year. Here’s a video look at some of them and then more detailed descriptions of each.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Bodyguardz has come up with a great way to change-up and/or customize your iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S case in seconds. The mykase line offers a base case in black or white as well as interchangeable back plates that can reflect your mood or dress. They’ll even be rolling out an easy-to-use engine for making your own customized back plate. It is pretty ingenious and definitely worth a look.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Each year when I check out the news from NAMM I look at cool new stuff as well as what is happening with companies I already known and love. Mackie Designs is one of those companies. For a long time they were a mixer-only company, and about 20 years ago when I was transitioning from trying to use my Tascam Portastudio as a pseudo-mixer into having a real home studio, the Mackie 1202 provided everything I need in a well made, high quality package at a budget price – and it is still going strong today for myself and my son! At Winter NAMM they introduced a great looking new mixer based around… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Back in the early 90′s object-oriented technology was a happening buzzword, and Roland introduced COSM – Composite Object Sound Modeling – with their next-generation guitar synthesizer system, the VG-8. But rather than just a guitar synth, it introduced the concept of a ‘virtual guitar’. The thought was that rather than just playing Pat Metheny-esque lead lines, guitarists would be better served if they had a system that provided maximum flexibility of sound. COSM allows string-by-string tuning, processing, and pitch shifting. This allows for on-the-fly tuning changes, virtual capos, and the ability to emulate nearly any other guitar sound from a single instrument … although the results now sound more quaint than realistic. Now more… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

We told you about Seagate’s new Thunderbolt adapters last week. Yes, we are finally seeing products come to market that take advantage of the speed increases offered by Thunderbolt. But how fast IS Thunderbolt? Sure you can see lab testing but that doesn’t necessarily tell you about using it at home or work. We shot a video of moving 2.5GB of data from a MacBook air to an external drive using both USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt. This is a normal use-scenario for something like this so the speeds you see here are what you might expect if you get one of the adapters. See for yourself… Want to know more?… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Way back at the dawn of MIDI in the very early 80′s, I started learning about controlling digital instruments using arcane control bits using the fresh communications standard called ‘Musical Instrument Digital Interface’. The following year I took my first class in ‘computer music’. The studio setup was a massive mess of wires and re-tooled Prophet V’s and so on … and one little Macintosh computer. The program? Performer by Mark of the Unicorn (MOTU). Through the years Performer has been a constant companion – it was the one thing that kept me on the Mac in the mid-90′s until CakeWalk matured enough to be a workable PC solution … and one of the… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

NAMM 2012 just keeps rolling … and more and more great products are appearing. Given that I grew up with analog synthesis and all of the good (the sound) and bad (everything else) that went along with it, I have always been amused by the fascination younger folks have with analog synthesizers. I still have a 90′s sound module that used a combination of digital sampling and waveform manipulation to provide analog-like sounds, but recently we have seen and heard much greater use of the massive bass waveforms by artists in electronica and dance music. This week at NAMM we have seen two awesome analog syths for under $750 that take different approaches… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Last week I wrote about the cool looking series of iPad music docks from Alesis introduced at the NAMM trade show, and now over the weekend we got news of competing iPad IO docking systems. Both offer a variety of cabling interfaces to get the most out of that powerful iPad in a musical setting! Let’s take a quick look!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Motorola stole the show last year at CES 2011. The Moto Xoom and the Atrix with its web top keyboard dock… oh my! They were pretty amazing to see. Francis and I even had a chance to remote log into my iMac in New Jersey using the Atrix smartphone as the “computer” powering the remote access. Sadly, the actual experience of using the Xoom and the Atrix left a good deal to be desired. Judie, Thomas and I all bought one; we all returned them. Judie and I visited Motorola again this year at CES 2012, and while they didn’t blow us away, the two smartphones we did see were pretty impressive in their own right.… Continue reading on Gear Diary …

Corning Gorilla Glass. You know the name. You know it is strong. You know it is on dozens of smartphones and a growing number of notebooks. [600 different devices and 600 million total devices sport it!!] And you likely know that Corning announced Gorilla Glass 2 during CES. But until you see it in action you can’t really appreciate just what it is. Seriously, Judie and I were impressed, and we think you will be too!… Continue reading on Gear Diary …