Ins & outs

GET INTO THE GOOG Google celebrated what it called the 44th anniversary of the birth of hip-hop by giving you the chance to DJ in your browser. Yes, it was a pretty simplistic setup, but with some classic breaks and samples to work with, it was certainly a fun one.

SOUNDCLOUD SAVED After weeks of negative headlines, finally some good news from Soundcloud: the company announced last month that it’s secured a significant finance injection and hired new personnel at the top of the company. Let’s hope that this is the start of a renaissance.

LEARN AND PLAY If you fancy brushing up on your subtractive synth programming skills interactively from within your web browser, check out Electric Telepathy’s website. This lets you fiddle with the various components of a basic synth as you’re taught how they work.

UNTRUTH SERUM? Some people got excited when deadmau5 posted a photo of what appeared to be a hardware version of Serum in his studio. Sadly, we think it was nothing more than a 3D render, though we’ll look rather silly if such a product has been announced by the time you read this...

THE SH HITS THE FAN Roland must have been very proud to announce their SH-01 Boutique synth, a miniaturised and digital version of the classic SH-101. But then along came Behringer on the very same day with what appeared to be a full-size emulation of said synth.

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN? Forbes’ recently released list of the highest-earning DJs featured the usual suspects – Calvin Harris, Tiesto et al – but perhaps the most depressing thing about it was the complete absence of women from the top 10. Isn’t it time the industry’s gender imbalance was corrected?