Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
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After a sneak peak at this years NAMM show, Hercules officially announced the release date and price of their new Mk4 controller at the Musikmesse fair in Germany. This slim sized controller is designed to interface with whatever input you can dream up. There certainly is something to be said for portability. I’m just not sure this is where it belongs. The design seems to focus on being able to mix multiple audio sources with this single platform, iPod, turntables , laptops, etc. But if the controller is the only thing that’s super-portable, it kinda defeats the purpose. Not to mention having decent speakers you have to haul around. List of features: 2-deck mixer: mix digital audio files on PC and Mac®. Includes a built-in, high-performance audio interface 2 stereo outputs to play the mix on active speakers, a PA system, a hi-fi system or a mixer. 2 stereo inputs (with 4 levels: Phono / standard line level / professional line level / boosted line level) to connect any external audio sources: MP3 players, CD mixing decks, vinyl turntables and more. Headphone output (for previewing tracks). Microphone input (with talk-over function). Well-spaced controls for precise mixing: 2 jog wheels, one cross fader, 2 volume faders, 2 pitch encoder knobs, 6 EQ knobs and 36 buttons. Intuitive to use: includes functions for synchronizing tracks, automatic loops, adding multiple effects, and recording mixes. Includes the VirtualDJ® DJC Edition mixing software. Look for it in June of this year, at $199.99.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
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Needing assistance with your most basic of senses is never something anyone wants to advertise. Thus we’ve come up with handy ways of making them socially acceptable. Enough nerdy kids like myself needed glasses that they’ve become fashion accessories in and of themselves. And modern hearing aids usually focus on being tiny and out of sight. But Oticon out of Denmark has something new on the market. The Agil may not be the stealthiest of assistive listening devices, but it holds a new sound processing algorithm designed to reproduce sounds much more realistically. This handy little things is designed to: “Minimize the cognitive energy expended in typical listening environments without compromising sound quality and speech understanding.” So what does that mean you ask? It essentially does your brain’s work for it. Capturing sound, deciding what’s important (separating speech from other sounds), and keeping track of it in your current environment. This frees up your brain’s functionality much like a streamlined piece of software frees up your CPU. But wait, there’s more! Some handy technology dubbed Speech Guard, allows users to “lock on” to a certain speaker in their current environment. By picking out subtle speech cues and patterns, the Agil makes that target easier to hear despite extraneous noise. And if both speakers are using the Agil, the devices will wirelessly sync with each other, both optimizing to the environment. And it gets even better. The Agil will link to your phone, MP3 player, or what have you allowing you to stream music to the headphones you never take off. Fascinating, what we can do now days, isn’t it? via [ MedGadget ]