Gadgety News

I’ve only just got back into regular reading again this year.  Shameful I know. Even more shameful is that since moving to London in February 2004 I’ve yet to join a local library!

Well, a new multimedia venture has just been launched that will bring together the content from more than 1000 cultural organisations across Europe in a free online resource.

The British Library is amongst the institutions that have signed up to the new European online library called Europeana.

The European Commission and the Louvre Museum are also to add content.

This is sounding fantastic!

The ambition is for internet users to be able to access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films.

More lazy students……..I didn’t think that was possible!

The project was created by the European Commission and is run by the European Digital Library Foundation, and will launch in 2010.

BBC News

Ah, I remember back in the day.

Attempting to work out what Vai, Satriani, Sheehan, Lee, Entwistle, etc were doing invovled a-not-so-cheap bit of kit that reduced the speed of the tape to make the parts a little easier to follow.

After that, those that had the cash, could go and buy small sampling devices that allowed you to record about 30 seconds and again slow the part down and keep it in pitch.

TASCAM’s brilliant GT-R1 not only allows you to change the speed of tracks without changing their pitch it does so much more!

Whack in your guitar or bass and record using the built-in amp simulator and effects.

Better still, the stereo condenser microphones allows you to record ambient noise, vocals, off the cuff jam sessions or anything else for that matter.

Noise….err…music is converted into MP3 or WAV format (16- or 24-bit) and the unit includes an SD card slot (1GB bundled in) and a USB 2.0 port for offloading files and charging the battery.

Other handy bits worthy of mention are the integrated metronome and chromatic tuner as well as the Line In and Mic in ports extra to the Guitar In.

It sounds like it will be hitting the streets for around €200 so well worth sticking in your gig-bag.