Held over 3 days (30th July - 1st August) and attracting even bigger names than it’s rival Download, Sonisphere has become the hard rock/metal festival of choice for serious music fans.

Last year’s was good with 40,000 people attending, but this years is set to be even better with the increased capacity of 60,000. Below is the un-official lineup and stages for this years festival. This will be updated as new acts are added and confirmed.

View & Download a Map of the festival here

Click here for the official Sonisphere website and be sure to follow @jamie_dale on twitter for live Sonisphere updates

Ok, so it’s not the newest kid on the online beat making block, but it is one of the best. This rather impressive looking web based music production studio has most of the tools you’ll need to start making tunes right from your web browser. It’s certainly no replacement for conventional studio gear, but it’s a bit of fun when you’re bored.

It comes with emulators for some classic drum machines, sequencers and stomp boxes namely the TR-808, TB-303 and the BOSS guitar effects pedals.

You can set the time signature and BPM of your new track and using the Tone Matrix, you can programme in hooks and melodies like you would on a Monome say.

You can record your masterpiece, but you’re limited to 5mins recording time.

http://www.hobnox.com/index.1056.en.html

While the band ultimately gained strength from misfortune, initially they were on the verge of breaking up. “We honestly thought that after this thing happened with Chi, why even carry on?”

Although Deftones had already tracked a full album of songs with Cheng and producer Terry Date tentatively titled ‘Eros,’ they decided to shelve those recordings and work on an entirely new batch of songs with their friend Sergio Vega filling in on bass. They hired producer Nick Raskulinecz to work with them, and in just two months they had recorded an entirely new album. “I honestly think it’s one of the best, if not the best records we’ve ever done,” Moreno said. “My favourite record is ‘Around the Fur.’ It was written and recorded in four months, which was the fastest, easiest and funnest record we’ve ever made. This record totally has that feel to it.”

Full Interview

UPDATE:

http://www.gunsrazorsknives.com/

Deftones, via their website, have confirmed a release date of May 4, 2010 (pushed forward from the initially reported May 18 release date), for their album Diamond Eyes.

Google have had a FREE little feature called Google Apps for a while now, but still not that many people know about it. The big benefit is that it gives you all the features of Gmail, but with your own domain name! You can sync email to your phone, you can setup POP and email forwarding and even out of office replies. You can have up to 50 email accounts in total, and setup mailing lists and groups. Oh Google…..

But wait, there’s more… It will also give you Google Documents and Google Calendar linked to your domain name. Google Docs gives you a sort of virtual online Office suite, with Google’s version of Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint and Word. Google Calendar is an online calendar which will sync with your iPhone too.

All the features above can be accessed through:
mail.yourdomain.com
docs.yourdomain.com
 cal.yourdomain.com

So How’s it Done?

Once you have your domain name, then navigate yourself here: http://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new

It will ask you to enter your domain name and confirm you are the owner. You must have the control panel for your domain name at the ready as you will need to edit some DNS settings to get it all working. I’m not going to go into the specifics of this too much as the set of instructions Google provide are far better than I could write. (leave a comment if you do get stuck)

The whole process from start to finish should have you up and running within 3-4 hours depending on propagation time.

We love free stuff. Enjoy

Why do this? Mostly to save time and to get your message out to more people.

To start with, you must have both a Facebook and a Twitter account. The best way I have found to link the two is using Twitter to update Facebooks status. The problem I was having is that I didnt necessarily want ALL of my tweets being shunted to my Facebook page. Enter Selective Twitter Status.

Selective Twitter Status is a little Facebook app by Andy Young and is available here

It works by monitoring your tweets for anything with the hash tag #fb. When it finds one it farms that tweet out to your Facebook page.

All you have to do is add the application to your Facebook page, fill in your twitter log-in details and give it permission to post to your wall.

Thats it. Just put #fb at the end of the tweet you want to go to Facebook and it’s job done.

The purpose of jailbreaking an iPhone is to unlock the potential that lies within.

A jailbroken and unlocked iPhone will allow you to use your phone on most networks, with most sim cards in nearly any country without being tied into a certain provider’s contract.

It will also allow you to use a little app called Cydia, which is a bit like Apple’s app store but with a whole host of software that Apple might not want you to use.

For example, you can download via cydia, an app called WinterBoard to completely change the theme of your phone or you can download an array of ringtones instead of the rather boring default selection. For the geeky among us, you can download an app called openSSH which will give full SSH capabilities to your iPhone.

The details below are for PC and will work with the iPhone 2G, 3G and iPod touch. It will not work with the 3Gs yet.

You will need to download:

- RedSn0w: (Used to jailbreak the iPhone)
 http://theiphoneproject.org/windows/redsn0w-win_0.7.2.zip

- iPhone 2g only - Firmware: (RedSn0w will ask for this)

http://www.felixbruns.de/iPod/firmware/

Steps:

1 - Backup and Sync the phone in iTunes first (make sure notes sync too)

2 - Restore phone to vanilla 3.0 firmware via the restore option in iTunes

3 - Run RedSn0w and Jailbreak the iPhone or iPod touch.

4 - Restore backup from iTunes (it will ask you for this when you first plug it in after jailbreak)

5 - Install Ultrasn0w from inside Cydia if you want to Unlock the phone

6 - Install Winterboard from inside Cydia for themes

Here’s a good YouTube video if you need a little extra help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wByBC4Uc10Y

That’s it. Your free to be different!

Creativity and your left and right brain functions.

Ever found yourself stuck in the middle of writing a track and can’t figure out how to get around that block? This might just be the answer to a more creative and fulfilling writing process.

You can be more productive by not only using your right brain and left brain functions correctly, but also using them in the right sequence. You might not be aware that how you separate your functions in any creative endeavor can make all the difference in how easy and enjoyable the creative experience is. The more enjoyable and relaxing the experience is, the more your mind will gravitate toward being inspired, thus more creative output as well as a more authentic personal expression.

Left brain:

- Logical
- Detail oriented
- Fact oriented
- Interprets words and language
- Mathematical and scientific
- Order and pattern perception
- Strategic
- Practical

The left brain functions are often more associated with right handed people. The left brain is great with details, organizing and quality control. you would want to use the left brain when planning out ideas, figuring out which tools are going to be best for the job, and guesstimating how much time something might take. In musical terms, these are some things you may want to put your left brain to work doing:

1) Creating templates that will best work for the type of music you create. This would include fx you would most likely use and sounds you may need access to. Having this done keep you from having to slow down or stop altogether when you are in a creative groove.

2) Making sure all of your studio wiring and routing is complete. This will give you easy access to your hardware and software.

3) Getting all of your samples and loops at easy access

4) Checking all of your recording levels

5) Creating a creative mood with proper lighting and aroma. Also making sure you don’t have any distracting noises that can interfere with your concentration or recording process.

Right Brain:

- Feeling oriented
- “Big picture” oriented
- Interprets sounds, symbols and images
- Philosophical and spiritual
- ”out of the box” thinking
- Inspiration oriented
- Imaginative
- Risk taking
- Deals with the realm of possibility

The right brain is vital to the creative process, and if it is allowed to create uninterrupted and without left brained second guessing, you can expect a fantastic creative experience. The right brain needs to flow freely with ideas without judgment. Creating for 10 minutes and then analyzing for the next 20 minutes is like driving in stop and go traffic. It is counterproductive and frustrating.

The right brain is best at these functions:

- Messing with loops, samples and sounds uninterrupted
- Getting “lost” in the music
- Experimenting
- Mixing and panning
- Real time or “in the moment” creativity

Given how each side of the brain functions so differently it is very important to put each side to work in the proper order so that one side doesn’t interfere with the other.

Lets take a look at one way to approach creating music while keeping the information above in mind.

Start with the right brain:

This is where you dream up an idea. You don’t have to have a song idea in mind at all. The point of this process is to prime your mind for creativity by giving it a clear direction.

Spend a few minutes imagining your desired audience listening to and enjoying your new song. Imagine, or even physically create the way your CD cover might look. Perhaps you can imagine your song getting raving reviews in magazines.

The point is to get yourself in the mental state of mind that you are not only capable but also quite talented and creative at what you do. You don’t want to get into the creative process thinking “Well crap, I hope I can at least finish something“. It’s much better to get yourself to the phase of “This song is gonna knock ‘em dead”.

If you think of all the people who seem to crank out hit after hit (not that I’m saying a hit song should be your aim) it’s got to strike you that these guys are able to keep that creative excitement because they have experienced the positive results of their work in the past. You are going to have to create this in your head. This may sound like a silly step, but give it a shot, you might be surprised.

Once you have done this and gotten yourself to an excited state, just let it go for the day.

Get yourself organised:

This is the part that your left brain loves, so let it play. In this step you will get organized by creating song templates. In these templates you will want to create

Plenty of audio and midi tracks loaded with instruments and sounds you are most likely to use. You will also want to set up some send fx with a couple good reverbs, delay and compression (or whatever is important for you creating your type of music).

Check all of your cables from any hardware, sound cards, external hard drives, midi controllers, and monitors. Make sure you have any microphones set up and ready to go when needed and amp settings dialed in etc..

Make sure your recording levels are good and that your recording environment is set up for inspiration and creative flow. This might involve special lighting, candles, incense or inspiring pictures. Make sure you have access to any sample CD’s, loops or other resources as well.

Make sure your workspace is clean. A mess rarely inspires.

The whole point of this is so once you start creating, you will have no obstacles slowing you down or stopping your process.

Have you ever been so involved in reading a book that you no longer realize you are reading words, that you are instead seeing imagery? Have you ever been interrupted and find it hard to get back to the “zone” you were just in? This is what we want to do our best to avoid when you are in that musical zone. It can be tough to get yourself there to begin with and even tougher once you have a roadblock or technical issue slowing you down.

Time to Create:

This is where all this work is going to really pay off by letting your right brain do what it was meant to do. Just play and experiment. Throw things around, mess with sounds, have fun with samples, loops and rhythms. Don’t worry about trying to be a genius, just realize that the genius will come out when you just let yourself have some fun without any second guessing.

It’s best to just record everything you do because often it’s the mistakes that end up being your best most unique sounds and give your music some real personality. Don’t even worry too much about creating a song, simply enjoy making sounds and taking note of what strikes your interest. Continue to do this for as long as you enjoy it. By the end of this, you should have a few inspiring parts to work with.

Copy, Paste, Delete:

You have let your creative mind play and have come up with a few ideas that you like. This is about the time you are going to want to let your left brain make some judgment calls.

The important thing is that you don’t get too attached to any of your noodling around. Just accept that some things are gonna stay and some things need to go. Don’t take too much time with this, the less second guessing the better. Your mind processes things much faster than you are consciously aware, so just go with your gut feeling. Listen to something and decided quickly, stay or go.

You will quickly find your most inspiring work and get rid of anything that would end up cluttering your music. Just roll with it and enjoy the process. Don’t let yourself get caught up on one or 2 sounds or loops. You need to manage your ideas first, then you get to create again once you have you best pieces.

Arrange:

Arranging your ideas and adding parts as necessary is going to be a balance between left and right brain functions. Don’t get yourself too lost in your head, but also don’t do too much second guessing (as you can see, I think second guessing is usually a bad thing and counter intuitive).

If you are finding yourself stuck, feel free to listen to another song and borrow some of the arrangement ideas. You aren’t attempting to make everything perfect, but more trying to create the big picture.

At the end of this process, you should know how long your song is going to be and have your overall arrangement in order. You should also see where the gaps are in your song that will need to be filled.

Fill the gaps:

Here you will add the parts that are missing to your arrangement by getting right brain creative but left brain practical. You’ll want to get your reverb and delays dialed in as well as compression and creative effects.

You will also want to get your parts EQ’d and strip away unwanted frequencies in each sound to remove mud and keep everything clean. You want to get yourself prepared and organized for the mixing phase.

Mixing:

Mixing should be a very right brained function and should be perhaps one of the most enjoyable parts of the creative process.

You’ll want to relax yourself into the vibe of the song and get the levels and panning placed. Don’t be tempted to simply pan things where you usually do (although there are some rules you may want to keep in mind). It’s better to play with a few channels that work well together and set your levels and panning until you feel some kind of shift in yourself.

You should start to feel like you are getting a bit lost in the music. This is a very good sign. Although sometimes its great to start with your drums and bass and work up from that format, you may want to also try mixing from the most inspiring sound down. You may find some interesting result.

Start with what you consider to be your most magical part and try adding another sound to it. If you lose that feeling, turn it down and try another sound. This will make sure you are mixing from your songs strengths.

You may notice that this approach sounds quite different from a normal mixing approach. Find out which is more inspiring to you and go with it.

 —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — -

The above article was written by Jason at musicsoftwaretraining

You can actually download a trial version yourself before you hand over your $50. Keep in mind that you’ll need to have a machine with one of these processors in order for this to work: Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Quad, i7 or Xeon Nehalem.

We haven’t tested Rebel EFI, so we can’t say how well it works. Let us know if you’ve had luck with it.

Read More.

In my tests, performed on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, iTunes 9 worked as advertised, and I found it to be less cluttered, more intelligent and easier to use than the prior version. It synced music and videos properly for me using both an iPod Nano and an iPhone. It’s available as a free download at apple.com/itunes.

To me, the two biggest new features in iTunes 9 are something called Home Sharing and a new, easier way to organize the apps on an iPhone or iPod Touch.

For years, iTunes users have been able to wirelessly stream music from nearby computers running iTunes whose owners chose to share their music. But Home Sharing takes this one step further, allowing users to actually copy the song files from one computer to another.

Right inside iTunes, you can simply peer into the shared library on another computer set up to allow this, and then select the song you want and drag it into your own library. It doesn’t delete the original from the other computer.

In my tests, this worked perfectly with music, as well as TV shows, movies and audiobooks, and it worked between any combination of my PCs and Macs. You can even configure Home Sharing to automatically transfer to your library new media purchased on another shared computer.

But Home Sharing has limitations. It only works with a maximum of five computers. These computers must be on the same local network, not connected over the Internet. And they must be the same computers authorized to play copy-protected media you buy from Apple.

With 75,000 apps available for the iPhone and iPod Touch, it has been easy to download so many that your device becomes cluttered, with numerous icons scattered among numerous screens in a manner that isn’t optimal. There’s a way to move them around, or delete them, right on the device, but it’s clumsy, partly because you can’t see all the screens at once, and partly because it’s difficult to move an icon from a location on one screen to another location several screens away.

Now, in the new iTunes 9, when you plug in your device, the software displays an exact visual representation of your iPhone or Touch screens right on your computer, and allows you to rearrange them with your mouse. When you disconnect, the new arrangement is retained on the phone. It worked fine for me.

In iTunes 9, you also can create up to 12 automated “Genius Mixes” from your personal music library — essentially personal radio stations consisting of songs iTunes considers to be related, that play on and on. I enjoyed this feature, and found it generally made good choices.

There are also a number of small visual improvements throughout the program. In the jukebox, for instance, you can now locate all songs by a particular artist using a Column Browser — an optional left-hand column that lists the artists.

In the store, categories like music, movies and TV shows are now arrayed across the top, with drop-down menus for genres. The store also is generally better organized, with richer graphics, more white space and easier navigation.

A small touch of social networking, not exactly Apple’s historic strength, has been added to iTunes. From inside the store, you can post a link to a favorite title to either Facebook or Twitter, though this of course serves Apple by encouraging others to buy the title.

You can now buy special albums, called “iTunes LPs,” that attempt to replicate the experience of old vinyl albums by including lots of extra material. For instance, for one such title by the Doors, iTunes delivered to me liner notes, digital scans of old posters and set lists, plus photos and video interviews. Another, called Mayhem, by the singer/actor Tyrese Gibson, includes just one song, but also a vivid digital comic book with voiced dialogue.

However, these iTunes LPs take up a lot of space on your hard disk — about half a gigabyte each for the ones I tried.

Overall, iTunes 9 is a nice improvement on a much-used program.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com.

Saturday’s line up featured the likes of Anthrax, Heaven and Hell, and Bullet for my Valentine. Rain seemed to dampen the Sonisphere vibe a bit on Saturday afternoon but by the evening things had cleared up for Linkin Park whose singer, Chester Bennington in a rather odd move brought on his slightly weak sounding side project to play a few songs.

Sunday promised to be the superior day for most in terms of weather and music with Killing Joke pulling out some old favourites and on the Saturn stage Mastodon and Alice In Chains both giving us brilliant performances. The Apollo stage was set for Lamb of God and Machine Head, who had originally pulled out after finding out they had been pushed down the bill by Limp Bizkit who wore a Machine Head T-Shirt seemingly as a peace token.

Nine Inch Nails divided the crowd after playing a dreamy set which catered for the more die-hard NIN fans but finished their daylight set 10mins early. NIN’s vocalist, Trent Reznor said “We played a purposely quiet, intimate set. I figured it would either enrage or baffle the metal audience…” It did, but in a good way.

Metallica finished off with a two hour set mixing up the old and new to a backdrop of pyrotechnics.

Great bands and great location makes this one to check out next year.