Bits & Pieces

Here it is, the final episode of Bits & Pieces. We reminisce on what the podcast has meant to us, relive some bloopers, and discuss our future plans for being listeners and creators of music. Oh, and there's a shotgun guitar. Picks of the week from Michael Edwards and 13 & God.

Mike has some bittersweet news, Matt has a gig report, a forgotten unreleased Sufjan album from the 90s surfaces, and Matt seeks after hardware and software flexibility. Picks of the Week from Hypoluxo and Adulescens.

The secret Wu-Tang Clan album is released, Soundbreaking looks like an amazing documentary about recording technology, Adobe shows off VoCo, and Matt creates his own private version of Songl.ink. Picks of the week from LVL UP and Gameface.

David Lyons guest hosts with Matt as they discuss audio routing, cable shielding, and headphones. Picks of the Week from Hamilton and Danny Baranowsky!

Mike writes a song on his iPhone while flying in a plane, Matt tries to solve audio I/O routing on his computer, and dabbles in livestreaming his music production. Picks of the Week from Daniel Rossen and Nik Kershaw!

Matt updates us on the troubles with his audio interface, Creative Commons is under fire in a lawsuit, and an AI makes pop music. Picks of the week from Elin Palmer and TR/ST.

Matt comes back to the show as we discuss headphone jacks, in-ear headphones, stupid required memberships with Ticket Master, a crowdsourced melody, and the ghosts living in deliberately bad mp3 encodings! Picks of the week from Deastro and Sinkane.

Kevin Larkin of Denver band Chimney Choir guest hosts with Mike as they discuss 80s synths, Ableton Live rigs, and the future of computer generated music. Picks of the Week from Dr. John and the Dresden Dolls.

Justin Edwards, Michael's brother, guest co-hosts while Matt is off at Gamescom. We discuss innovative infographic treatments of classical music, how visual albums are (or aren't) changing cinema, and how Justin got into music. Picks of the week from The New Pornographers and The Rentals.

Mike podcasts lying down as he and Matt marvel at the wacky pop metal sensibilities of Maximum the Hormone and LADYBABY. ALSO: Talenthouse has a sketchy new promotion scheme. Picks of the Week from Car Seat Headrest and Alternative Allstars!

Friend of the show Benni joins Matt as they discuss switching instruments, purchasing habits and music they are fascinated by yet cannot really get into. Picks of the Week by Explosions In The Sky and Nathan Allen Pinard

A slew of interesting web-based instruments and music tools, and Apple might buy Tidal? Picks of the Week from Say Hi and Errors.

Led Zeppelin wins a Stairway to Heaven lawsuit, the music industry wants to revise the DMCA's Safe Harbor clause, and Alicia Keys is banning phones at her concerts. Picks of the Week from Glorie and The War On Drugs.

Mike re-releases his 2011 album Genetic Engines, Germany backs sampling as a legit art form, and do you ever have days with no music? Picks of the Week from Starflyer 59 and Three Trapped Tigers!

Doom's soundtrack hides 666 in its spectograph, songwriter royalties are shockingly low, and USB DACs are invading consumer audio. Also: Art School favors novelty over talent and skill? Picks of the Week from Beulah and HLCY OFUK!

Adult Swim's Lords of Synth tickles AND impresses us, iTunes might try to delete your music, and Radiohead teaches us a lesson about frequency ranges, hearing and audio engineering. Picks of the week from Hope of the States and, uh, Radiohead.

Matt delves into a Lara Croft themed meme-genre, a jazz drummer plays along with Super Smash Bros., and Radiohead erases their internet presence. Also, YouTube takes some steps towards fixing Content ID woes. Picks of the week from Faded Paper Figures and Grauzone.

Phil Collins never stops the thundering tom-toms as we talk micro-genres and meme-genres like Seapunk, Vaporwave and Simpsonwave. Also, Matt hates Nightcore. Picks of the week from Sunny Day Real Estate and Crystal Castles.

A resource dump of audio tools, explanations of reverb, and a new learning platform called SoundGym. Also, an interesting new field recording mic. Finally, if rock is dead, did perfect studio recordings help kill it? Picks of the Week from Buke and Gase and Red Vox!

Recording face to face yet again, Matt and Mike discuss Adam Levine's updated contest, and Herbie Hancock's open letter to inspire artists. Also a deep dive into things we've learned and are still learning about audio production and songwriting. Picks of the Week from Beirut and Jon Hopkins!

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!

We listen to a piano speak, check out Kim Dotcom's new music streaming service Baboom, and try our luck at keeping perfect time. Also: CHVRCHES tells us they'd sell more records if they presented themselves as a solo project. POTWs: Adebisi Shank and The Districts!

Will.He.Is (will.i.am) participates in a ridiculous Lexus ad involving night driving, lasers and musical roads, Spotify actually does a good job recommending new songs, and a slew of novelty metal bands fatigue us. Our song picks of the week are sure to delight you, though!

Prince's next album will be exclusively on Tidal, Beach House unveils a setlist creator for fans and for FXPlain, Matt talks about how Delay works. As always, stick around for our Picks of the Week each episode.

David Byrne wants to open up the black box of record label contracts, One Direction strikes oil with their new single on Spotify, and for FXplain we do a deep dive into Dynamic Range Compression! Learn how compression works and when to use it!

A $340 ethernet audio cable is our latest example of snake oil, Pandora isn't scared of Apple Music, and we launch a brand new segment called FXplain where we discuss the how and why of audio effects. This week's FXplain: Chorus, Flanger and Phaser. Finally, as always, stick around for our Picks of the Week.

Neil Young thinks streaming music sounds worse than 8-tracks and radio. A new kind of optical audio cable promises quality and maybe a little snake oil too. Finland refunds generally agreed upon horrible concerts, and maybe the end of capitalism would be good for music?

David Lyons joins Matt who describes faking a RATATAT song that apparently fooled their label and people still can't hear the difference between lossy and lossless. Homage is paid to a person who brought millions joy and fun over the last decades.

Special guest co-host Michael Raven joins Matt while Michael Edwards is on vacation. Prince shows his face to say wrong things about the internet. Home stereos are interesting, and how does one go from listener to creator in music?

Taylor Swift joins Apple Music, Tidal loses its CEO, Sony targets smug jerks with their advertising, and a startup proposes to let you EQ real life.

Mariana Trench tells us how to write pop songs, Gene Simmons blames music fans for ruining the universe, and we find out which musical genres sell the best.

NPR explained their signature sound, Spotify dabbles in premium-only songs, and Apple Music is poised to shake up the music industry. Which suggests the question: Is the whole music industry now just a feature of technology platforms?