Bits & Pieces

Matt is in America! Kanye's business plan includes IKEA, the Bela promises an affordable open source platform for low latency audio, and a new contest by Adam Levine follows the awful tradition of trying to squeeze free work out of artists. Picks of the week from Dinosaur Jr. and Hideki Naganuma!

What awful listener contexts should you take into consideration when mixing? Also: SoundCloud may close, and Kanye is a controversy machine. Picks of the Week from St. Vincent and Sébastien Schuller.

We tackle a few more interesting new musical gadgets, like the Touché and Bitwig. Also: AC/DC ends every song the same way, bad sound mixing advice, and Shure's interesting new dual-diaphragm mic, the KSM8! Picks of the week: Kelley Stoltz and Mike Moll.

Jon Benjamin makes a bad jazz album, Apple releases an intruiging new Music Memos app, and we are wowed by the innovations of Melodyne. POTW: Sleater-Kinney's Modern Girl and October Surprise's There Is No Grace In It.

A Baboom developer buys Matt's EP, Pitchfork readers weigh in with contradictory views, and the inventor of Auto-tune has an interesting history. Also, Bragi Dash smart earphones and great picks of the week from Kishi Bashi and Sizarr!

News of the weird has the FBI tweeting about Wu-Tang's album, Thom Yorke and Adele complain about streaming, and dumb audiophiles argue about 'breaking in' a cd player.

Matt releases his first solo EP, Spotify is hiring a UX expert. ALSO: We discuss desktop music players and a wicked cool new experimental control surface. POTWS: Pure Bathing Culture and Girls In Hawaii.

Mike is officially creating a new album of original music, Rdio files for bankruptcy, Microsoft finally ends the Zune (you read that right). A new DAW appears on iOS and Tim Exile is still inventing the future of music tools. Picks of the Week from The Besnard Lakes and Terranigma!

Mike is back on the show with a special tribute song. Also, we discuss slowing down chipmunks, harmonizators and the balanced keyboard.

Lars joins Matt as they talk about the combination of the visual and the aural, music tastes in relationships and their Picks of the Week that both could agree on.

Benni joins Matt as they discuss their past band history, on stage failures and web synthesizers.

CD Baby raises their processing fee, Billy Joel loses his mind on stage, and we take a look at the new Guitar Hero Live. As always we have great songs to share for our Picks of the Week!

Audiophiles are flocking to reel-to-reel as the new vinyl? Matt finds an audience in China, and as always we have great songs to share for our Picks of the Week!

Matt files his first copyright infringement claim, and feels conflicted about it. Also, how to write better lyrics? And what DAW should you learn how to use? This week's POTWs include tracks from Wild Nothing and Bright Eyes.

Are we seeing the beginning of the end to the loudness wars? Also, behind the scenes with Spotify's human-yet-auto-generated Discover playlists. As always, listen to the end for our song picks of the week! This week: Minors and Cloud Control.

We take a good, hard look at all the various services that will put your music in iTunes, Spotify and everywhere else. Which ones offer the best deal to release your music? Also: What would we do without '4 chord songs' in our lives? A listener's tweet sparks our conversation.

Headphones! What kinds are there? Which are the best? We discuss some of our favorites. Also, the Guitar-jo pickup will turn your electric guitar into a banjo. A new FXplain segment explains how synths work, and as always our Picks of the Week bring you great songs that are also posted to our Spotify playlist.

Why do we listen to music? Why do we love it and want to create it? What are some of our most favorite songs of all time? We spend some time sharing the tunes nearest and dearest to us.

We dive into the details of stereo sound, panning, pan's law and phase cancellation! Also, a thorough enjoyment of Vangelis' amazing music situation, and as always check out our song Picks of the Week.

Learn how to acoustically treat your home studio space! Also: Joey Fatone offers advice to the members of One Direction, fans react poorly to Bloc Party's new band members, and Hitler can't quite recreate Stevie Ray Vaughan's guitar tone. Finally, as always, we have some great song picks of the week!