Monthly Archives: July 2009

55,000+ New Sound Effects by The Hollywood Edge Now Available

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The Hollywood Edge

Big News! We have just added over 55,000 new sound effects from The Hollywood Edge, the world’s most widely used sound effect library.   These sound effects were created by the Academy Award-winning sound studio Soundelux, whose credits include such films as Kill Bill, Braveheart, and Fast and Furious.  The Hollywood Edge and Soundelux are part of the CSS Studios group of companies. CSS Studios is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Discovery Communications (NASDAQ: DISCA) and provides creative services to major motion picture studios, independent producers, broadcast networks, cable channels, and advertising agencies. CSS services are marketed under the brand names Todd-AO, Sound One, Soundelux, POP Sound, Modern Music, and The Hollywood Edge. This content partnership is a big step forward for AudioMicro and brings our total track count to over 150,000 and growing.

In addition to our superb collection of user-generated content, we can now deliver, on-demand, thousands of sounds created by the world’s most talented sound professionals.  Our users should be impressed with the unprecedented quality, size and scope of The Hollywood Edge collection.  Under the terms of a new licensing agreement, our members have access to The Hollywood Edge’s library of professional-grade sound effects royalty free and under the same pricing and terms as our user generated, crowd-sourced sound effects. Prices for individual sound effects are as little as $1 per minute, while subscription packages start at just $9 per month.  End users are permitted to use the content for all digital media, including websites, short online films, motion pictures, feature films, flash animations, radio advertisings, PowerPoint presentations, live performance, remixes and other purposes.  Historically, The Hollywood Edge library has been available only in the form of large sound effects packages on hard drives, CD’s and DVD’s and aimed at the professional market.

For additional details on the deal, check out the full sound effect press release here.  Thanks again for your support as we continue on our quest to be the web’s leading stock audio distributor.

Gang uses stolen credit cards to buy their own music on iTunes

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How’s this for pathetic? The BBC is reporting that nine people, including a few DJs, have been arrested and held in suspicion of credit card fraud and money laundering after they allegedly used 1,500 stolen cards to purchase their own albums on iTunes and Amazon.

Not only that, they also made hundreds of thousand of British pounds doing it! For anyone who’s checked the exchange rate recently, you’ll know that equals a whole hell of a lot in U.S. dollars. The crafty thieves first posted their music on Amazon and iTunes, and then spent almost £500,000 worth of their own music on credit cards that didn’t belong to them. This netted them about £200,000 in royalties.

Investigators say this is part of an ongoing investigation into international fraud conspiracy against the online music retailers.

iTunes and Amazon have been down this road before. People have been using the sites to test out the legitimacy of stolen credit cards for years. Thieves will steal your card info, use it to buy music on iTunes. Once that transaction is successful they then go on a credit-ruining shopping spree.

Poor Apple has probably seen more than its fair share of creative fraud attempts. Like this guy who set up shop as an iPod repairman, then defrauded Apple into sending him up to 9,000 replacement iPod shuffles players.

But every story has another side, and Apple has been on the receiving end of fraud charges in the not-to-distant past. An Illinois couple is suing the tech giant for misrepresentation when they were charged $1.29 per download when their gift cards promised the songs could be purchased for $.99. Seems like an innocent mistake, until you take into account this same thing may have happened to millions of people. The couple is also seeking refunds for all other users who had the same experience. If a judge rules the suit as class-action, the damages could reach up to $5 million — probably chump-change to Apple.

Always a good thing to be reminded to check your credit card statements, even after buying an intangible MP3.

–Michelle Lanz

Boogie down on monday nights @ Funkmosphere

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Funkmosphere,stock music,sound effects,funky sound effects

Monday nights have never before been so funky.  If you’re a resident of Los Angeles, then you need to come down and check out Funkmosphere at Carbon in Culver City. Synth-Funk guru Dam Funk takes you back to the 80s, playing retro classics and rarities that are guaranteed to keep you dancing.  Some artists featured in the playlist last night were Morris Day and the Time, Mazarati, Prince, The Gap Band, and tons more. There are usually around 3 guest DJs that come to spin and they have plenty of funky sound effects to keep you moving. French hip-hop artist Onra graced us with his presence last night.

Funkmosphere is every Monday night from 10PM-2AM. 21+ No cover!

Here are what some other blogs have to say about Funkmosphere…

The urge hits like a gnawing pain deep in the gut…

Early ’80s funk and boogie bangers…

Warm spacey vibes harping back to the 80’s but steppin’ into tomorrow…

The Walkman the most important invention in the last 50 years?

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Yep, that’s right. According to T3 gadget magazine, the now-obsolete cassette (remember those?) player is the most important music-specific invention of the last 50 years, beating out compact discs, mp3 format and even the market-dominating iPod.

In a recent U.K. Telegraph article, Kat Hanniford at T3 said they chose the Walkman over these newer inventions because, “It changed the way we access music, changed how often we could access music, and changed a generation.”

Originally invented so the co-founder of Sony, Akio Morita, could listen to opera while on the road, the beast really did revolutionize how we consume music. It finally came out July 1, 1979 and was called the Freestyle, the Soundabout and the Stowaway in a number of different countries, until Sony decided to make Walkman the official name.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the portable cassette player, the BBC recently invited a 13-year-old named Scott Campbell to give up his precious iPod and replace it with a Walkman for an entire week. The thing probably looks like a VCR with headphones to a kid who had probably never even heard of a Walkman before the experiment. Campbell even says it was borderline embarrassing to be seen in public with the monstrosity:

“When I wore it walking down the street or going into shops, I got strange looks, a mixture of surprise and curiosity, that made me a little embarrassed.”

Poor little chap. I remember how every kid in the neighbor HAD to have “the grandfather of the MP3 Player,” in order to be socially acceptable. Well, maybe it wasn’t that serious, but not having the ability to tune out on the bus to school in the morning definitely put you at a disadvantage. I also remember when the portable compact disc player came out and I begged my parents go buy me my ticket to cool-hood.

So this all has me a little nostalgic with flashbacks to my childhood, and I am sure some of you out there feel the same way. So to take a little walk(man) down memory lane, here is CNET’s photogallery of the Walkman’s illustrious career.

What will the next 50 years will bring in the universe of portable music technology? Will it be the iPod or something we have yet to invent? It’s exciting to think of the possibilities.

Happy 4th of July!

–Michelle Lanz

Photo by Esa Sorjonen