The insanely cool looking i-tab offers guitarists a pocket sized unit that scrolls chords and lyrics in perfect time. The unit allows users to download backing tracks and video cover lessons from a massive library of fully legal tabs, tracks and lessons from the official website.

Once downloaded, the i-tab sits conveniently at the end of your guitar and acts as the ultimate prompt giving you a seamless clear display of chords and lyrics at the tempo of your choice. Now you can take your tab library with you wherever you go and this really will be your best friend on your guitar.

Ideal for players of every level, the i-tab will help you learn songs, remember lyrics whilst storing 100’s of tabs, backing tracks and reels of video. A 4GB memory gives you plenty of room to organise your songs into handy playlists and build your own song library. If you are learning to play you can also download i-tabs free tuition video modules to help you along. Funky video cover lessons will help build your portfolio of cool songs for gigs and parties.

The i-tab unit has a 5” touch screen, in-built speaker and comes with headphones, stylus, USB connector, power charger, soft carry pouch and weighs in at only 0.14kg. The i-tab comes with 30 free song tabs including U2 (Beautiful Day), Oasis (Wonderwall) and The Rolling Stones (Jumping Jack Flash). It also includes TV out leads so you can play synchronized chords, lyrics and backing tracks through the player or through your TV and everyone can sing along!

The unit is available to purchase now for £129 (EU€149, US$199). The first units are shipping mid-March and will hit the streets worldwide from early April 2010. The backing tracks and songs (including the chords and lyrics) can be purchased from the website at a price of 25 pence for the tabs and 50 pence for backing tracks.

“This is a momentous occasion for AM&S,” comments Lynn Martin, President of American Music & Sound. “With more than 85 years experience manufacturing the world’s best microphones and pro audio products, beyerdynamic is an incredible fit with our other live sound product lines, and we are looking forward to expanding their penetration in the US. Together with beyerdynamic, we are now able to offer the finest transducer-to-transducer live sound solutions in the United States.”

Additionally, Paul Froula has been appointed National Sales Manager for American Music & Sound. Froula, an industry veteran, has managed various beyerdynamic business units for a decade. “This union offers tremendous synergy with the AM&S portfolio of brands. The ability to offer the market with end to end solutions will provide the next level development for the beyerdynamic brand. We continue to extend our reach into the market and look forward to this partnership with AM&S”

For more information about beyerdynamic, please visit http://www.beyerdynamic-usa.com

American Music & Sound (AM&S) is a leading independent US distributor of Pro Audio, Musical Instruments, and Music Creation Products from the world’s finest manufacturers including Allen & Heath, beyerdynamic, Focusrite, Fostex, NetCIRA, Hagstrom Guitars, Jay Turser Guitars, Kurzweil Keyboards, Mano Percussion, Ministar Guitars, Nord Keyboards, Novation Keyboards, Phonic, Profile Stands & Tuners, Quik Lok Performance Structures, Studiologic Keyboards, Turbosound, Vestax, Walden Guitars, and Wharfedale Pro.

Cluster Sound launches a massive upgrade for Tech Producer DSP that now goes over 16 Gigabytes. Registered users can download the new section Drum Rack section expressly dedicated to Live users and two Xpander Packs (Induster & Downclock). The free libraries in detail:

CS Dracks – Drum Rack Section
CS – DRACKS is a massive upgrade for Ableton users and consists of 4.360 Drum Racks clips & devices. The Drum Racks are obtained by converting the REX2 loops included in your Tech Producer DSP and allow Live users to benefit of slicing technique.

Induster – Xpander Pack 05
Induster is an electro industrial loop library, specifically designed for incisive downtempo productions. Electro-fi your tracks with the infusion of glitchy breaks, digital synths, agressive and disjointed ryhthms, modular hi-frequencies microbeats and much more. This powerful download collection consists of 170 worldclass quality WAV loops, 170 REX and 340 Ableton Live devices and Drum Racks.

Downclock – Xpander Pack 06
Concrete machine sounds, vocodized beats, glitches and blips, crispy noises, distorted low frequencies. Downclock is an industial loop library with a minimal mechanic flavour and consists of 190 worldclass quality WAV loops, 190 REX and 380 Ableton Live devices and Drum Racks. These punchy and terse loops are built around puzzle structures that will allow you to create customized rhythms in few steps, the sliced versions (REX – Live DRacks) guarantee you easy manipulation and re-structuring.

For more information, visit their web site at www.clustersound.com

HUMCAST is HUMTOO’s Video Podcast series featuring musicians from their online community.

Bring the magic of the Middle East to your desktop with these enchanting and mysterious Arabian breaks. This spectacular loop pack contains fully mixed cuts of music that feature traditional instruments, melodies and rhythms from all over the Middle East. We’ve got entire orchestral arrangements, darbuka drum solos, oud, zither, quabub, buzuk, tabla, dombak, kamanja (Arab fiddle), vocal acrobatics and lots more.

These authentic breaks include sounds from Syria, Baghdad, Morocco, Lebanon and other Middle Eastern locations that boast some of the most spellbinding music in the world. With 152 loops and 18 one shot samples Arabian Breaks V1 offers you a wealth of inspiration whether you’re a hip hop producer or a singer songwriter.

We worked hard to secure licensing deals with one of the world’s leading publishers of Ethnic music so you can expect to see more impressive titles in this category. Let Arabian Breaks V1 add an exciting new dimension to your recordings with exotic sounds from ancient cultures. Tempos range from 82 to 158 bpm. All samples are mixed and mastered edits with no single instruments. Multi track Mix elements are not available.

Go to their website to order and download right away.

Recently, a new project was posted on the site looking for music. It’s a 2 minute brand film looking for a rock track, worth £750. It’s free to pitch your join HUMTOO and to pitch your music for projects on the site.

HUMTOO is also looking for talented musicians to write for it’s user-generated production music library and various mixtapes.

More information can be found at www.humtoo.com

HUMTOO makes it only about the music.

www.humtoo.com

In more NAMM 08 news, US guitar giants Gibson have merged with the Danes, TC Group. TC Group produces amplifiers, speakers, digital processors, guitar pedals and other pro audio and MI products.

“This merger will revolutionize the music industry for many years to come,” said Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar. “The synergy between the two companies will allow us an enormous advantage in the development of new audio technologies and brings together two of the world’s most powerful brands.”

“The opportunities ahead are very exciting for us,” said Anders Fauerskov, Chief Executive Officer of TC Group. “This merger will create exciting new opportunities for all employees within TC Group and Gibson, and in particular, fantasticnew tools for our markets and customers . This partnership will allow us to expand our leadership position in the marketplace.”

Nice one TC, it’s another string to your bow.

The name should give you a pretty good idea what it sounds like. Audiotechnews named his amp Demon Fucker. It sounds like it.

The name on the G-1000 suggests it might give Demon Fucker a good run for its money.

It contains 100% new-old-stock (NOS) tubes. Apparently tubes never seen in guitar amps.

The G-1000 consists of two totally independent amplifiers, with very different preamp sections. One channel is called the HAPPY channel. The other is called the ANGRY channel.

For damn good reason. One sucks your face, the other gnaws your foreskin off.

The HAPPY channel is a more-or-less conventional instrument amp. It has plenty of gain and distortion (if desired), it has a conventional guitar-amp tone control section, and it has reverb. Everything else about it is DEVIANT. It has a PHASE control, which allows mixing of normal and inverted signals—or it may be adjusted to cancel out the original signal and pass only the distortion products….and, it’s all made of unusual tubes. Mostly pentodes, ha ha ha.

The ANGRY channel is well-named. It is designed for instability and raw, berserk distortion effects. It, too, has typical guitar-amp tone controls and reverb. It uses a 6BN6 and two remote-cutoff pentodes. Ask your mother what those are. She’s already tasted your foreskin anyway.

The output tubes are 6BK5s. Obscure, yes, but great and forgotten. Phase inversion is done with 6GU7s. Various types are used throughout the preamp stages: 6AU6, 6BJ6, 6CB6, 6BN6, 5BQ7, 6AK5, and others. No 12AX7s, of ANY brand. How many tubes? TWENTY-THREE tubes in total. Including eight 6BK5 outputs. It might be the most complex tube guitar amp available today….

For more info, you can go here. And

No, you moron, it’s not available in combo form. Head only.

A service centre in Buena Park, California, is home to an advanced instrument customization technique, which involves cryogenically freezing instruments, and then using fibre optic endoscopes to analyze the inside of woodwind and brass instruments.

The point of this? Well, if successful, could have major implications for the trade, as the services will include overhauling instruments, and designing new ones. If successful, it will surely only be a matter of time until more instruments are incorporated.

More from the LA Times:

Alterations can be as slight as shaving a component by 50-millionths of an inch or as dramatic as plunging a French horn into liquid nitrogen, freezing it at 300 degrees below zero to enhance its sound.

“We [musicians] are always trying new things, searching for the perfect mouthpiece or the perfect instrument,” said Bergeron, a Grammy-nominated studio artist who plays lead trumpet for the musical “Wicked” at the Pantages Theatre.

So how have I now got a #2 position in Google searches for multiple keywords and phrases? Some might say I’m stupid to share the information, although there is plenty of it out there, free, and on the internet – from people with far more experience and relevance than me.

It’s been beneficial getting help and experience from Greenbang – my brother’s blog.

Most of you have probably followed Courtney Tuttle’s blog; you probably even changed to his brilliant Keyword Sniper theme. I did.

So lets look at some of these key phrases that I’ve been getting hits from.

Not the ACTUAL key phrases, obviously, or I might see some unwelcome competition. Step number one – don’t share all of your secrets. I’m sure Courtney doesn’t.

I can honestly say the biggest part of this success so far has been content-keyword driven.

More to come later this week.