Together with Native Instruments and Digital Village we are hosting a public workshop in Clapham Common demonstrating the new NI Maschine and groove box production techniques in general. The event will kick off at about 12 and throughout the day people will have the opportunity to try Maschine first-hand.

At the same time, in a completely unrelated but interesting coincidence, on the second floor (Digital Village) a Digidesign representative will be available to answer questions regarding Pro Tools 8, and to showcase some of the new amazing functionalities and plugins that come with this new version.

You are all welcome to pop in and take advantage of the situation to ask all sorts of questions regarding production, live performance, mixing, mastering, clearing samples and coyright, etc.

And in the meantime, here's a video...

http://www.spotify.con + http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/ = happy days ;)

While the hip people at Spotify try increasingly hard to get £9.99 per month for the Premium subscription, a lot of stuff that is not there yet (Oasis, led Zeppelin, Beatles...) but there is also a lot of weird stuff that IS there, and more specifically, some rare and rarest b-sides and bootlegs.

For instance, searching for Oasis brings up a bootleg containing 40 minutes(!) of bitter arguing between Noel and Liam about pretty much everything. Hilarious, or just pointless, depending on how you feel about this kind of things.

And while every day more records are added, everyday more other records are also deleted on labels' requests. Which is why we think that if you find something truly special you should find a way to record it, just in case.

We also think that Spotify should provide a link to phisical purchases and that record labels are just making the same mistakes they did with MTV all over again, but this is a longer story, maybe another time...

If Maschine doesn't cut it for you, or if you just like to compare everything before making your mind up, don't miss the launch of the Akai APC40 Ableton controller, which will be hosted by LSS in a few weeks time (check this space for the official announcement). Both these products will be included in our Urban Music and DJ / Remixer Summer courses, and once again if you check any illustrated enciclopedia at the voice 'Cutting Edge' you will find a picture of London School of Sound (not really, but imagine...)

As widely aniticipated and advertised we will be running a number of intensive Summer courses, mostly four and two weeks long, aimed at different specific needs, from beginners to advanced.

Since the course on Mixing and Mastering is attracting a lot of interest from people that can't afford to attend daily classes for two weeks, we are thinking of adding a weekend intensive format for the same content. This will be a one-off so if you are intertested contact us now to reserve a place (and "avoid disappointment", as they say).

For more details on the courses on offer see http://www.londonschoolofsound.co.uk/Summer_Courses_at_London_School_of_Sound.php