The next Unique Beats Festival of Electronica is being held on April the 24th at the Roxy Art House, Edinburgh.  The event will run from midday unitl 1am and will combine live performances, company stands and workshops.

We can't give you much information at the moment but we thought we'd give you a sneak peak at how things are shaping up.

Craig Blundell will be up with the Roland team so expect an amazing performance showcasing the V-Drums and some immense drumming skills!

Bitbasic will be coming up from London for some Monome inspired madness:

IG88 will be joining us from the U.S. so go check out his Myspace and download his amazing free album!
Picture

Well, that's all we can divulge at the moment but don't worry we'll keep you posted on how it's all coming along.
 
 
Firstly, we hope you had a great festive period! Now it's time for us to give you a belated present.

Previously, we have stated on the website that we are not a record label. However, for 2010 we have decided to bend the rules slightly (well destroy them completely actually!) and have therefore created a Unique Beats netlabel. All the releases will be free and the first download is ready for you now. So get yourself over to the Netlabel page.

Our first release that you can listen to and download is the amazing album by Pandacetamol entitled “Live at Unique Beats Electro Orgy”. As you've probably guessed from the title of the album, this is a live recording of the set performed at the Unique Beats Electro Orgy held on the 22nd of August 2009.

Got an E.P./album you want us to release? Then contact us at info@uniquebeats.co.uk

That's not all though!! In association with our good friends over at IDMForums.com, we will be bringing you their bi-weekly podcast featuring tracks by their members. There are many great artists that will be releasing tracks through the IDMForums.com podcasts and true to the spirit of Unique Beats, the more exposure we can bring to both new and established electronica artists the better!!

This will be in addition to the humorous, ridiculous and highly entertaining Unique Beats podcast featuring the immense talents of Andy Farina and bass wonk maestro Scott Robbie every month. That means that you'll get lots more music for free and will give artists get even more exposure...Everyone's a winner!!

Want to feature on our podcast? Send a track to podcast@uniquebeats.co.uk

You can listen to and subscribe to the Unique Beats podcasts by going to our website, searching for us on iTunes or visiting the following web address: http://uniquebeats.podomatic.com

And finally, to end on a high, we can formally announce that the Unique Beats Festival of Electronica (rumoured to be the Electronica Event of this year, we hear) is going to be held on the 24th of April 2010 at the Roxy Arthouse Edinburgh. It is going to be bigger and better than last year and there will be some very exciting surprises...but you'll have to keep your bums on the edge of your chairs for a little bit longer for further information about that.

Lots of digital love,

Unique Beats

 
 
Musicradar.com have announced their tech picks of the year.  See what you think:

  1. Control Surface: Novation Launchpad
  2. Audio Interface: Cakewalk V-Studio 100
  3. Controller Keyboard: Novation SL Mk2
  4. Software Synth: FXpansion DCAM, Synth Squad
  5. DAW: Propellerhead Record
  6. Computer: Apple iMac 27-inch
  7. Compact: Dave Smith Instruments Tetra
  8. Synth: Roland AX-Synth
  9. Monitor: Event Opal
  10. Plug-in effect: iZotope Ozone 4
  11. All-new product of the year: Native Instruments Maschine
  12. Hi-tech hero of the year: Calvin Harris

 
There be bugs! 12/29/2009
 
Abletone send out a letter to their users.  Here it is:

Dear Ableton users,

Some of you have experienced and reported problems with Live 8 several months ago that we have still failed to fix. This is both painful and necessary for us to discuss. We owe you sincere apologies, as well as an explanation and outlook for the future.

Ableton values quality over innovation. Our engineers will stop whatever they are doing to fix a bug when they become aware of it. They must, however, rely on a process that prepares the incoming information and funnels it to them appropriately. Establishing and maintaining this process is the responsibility of management — particularly us, Bernd and Gerhard — and this is where things have gone wrong while we let our attention divert to ambitious new projects.

Our apologies also extend to both the Ableton developers and tech support colleagues because they want to be proud of software and service that users love.

We have now decided to:

  • suspend all development towards new features while the whole team joins forces to address the current issues. This effort is open ended and will result in a free Live 8 update;
  • make process changes to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.
We hope this plan finds your understanding and agreement. We’d like to wish you a very happy holiday season and a wonderful 2010!

Gerhard Behles, CEO
Bernd Roggendorf, CTO

Unique Beats has found Live 8 a tad buggy to be honest.  We have especially noticed that it crashes a lot more than previous versions.  However this anouncement from Ableton suggests that they are taking things very seriously and have downed everything else to focus there attentions on fixing the issues.  This in our opinion is the right thing to do.  Think differently?  Then post in the comments and let us know what you think they should do.
 
Our Edited World 12/02/2009
 
Unique Beats has joined forces with composer Jwilson on an exciting new project called Our Edited World.

The idea is to collect footage of cityscapes and landscapes from around the world and put it to music.  Think updated Koyaanisquatsi and you're on the right track.

All artists whose videos we use will be credited and the best thing about the film???  It will be debuted as a live performance at the next Unique Beats festival!

Check out oureditedworld.com for more details.
 
 
So for all those who have watched the first "Unique Beats presents..." video (if you haven't get yourself over to the video page and let us know what you think) you may have heard us mention that Alex Tronic Records was the only electronica label in Edinburgh...we lied, well not intentially we just prefer not to do any research. 

Afer finding our about Abaga Records we checked them out and listened to the banging tracks they're putting out.  We shall be interviewing them on the next podcast and we'll be letting them pick the tunes!  Very exciting.

In the meantime check them out here http://www.abagarecords.com
 
 
Check out Unique Beats artist Melivtronica's brand new video for track "We Aint Wise No More".  It's trippy, it's ace. Well done Melv. Check out more from Melvitronica here.
 
 
First of our "Unique Beats presents..." videos is now online. 
 
 
Fancy having a track feature on the upcoming Unique Beats free compilation album?  If so then send your tracks here with some info on yourself, links to your music on the net and also what hardware/softwre you use.  The best entries will be added on to the compilation which already boasts a stella line-up of acts who have previous played at a Unique Beats event.  It's going ot be immense!
 
 
B-Burg got the behind the decks and made a 45 minute set, we like, is niiiiiice!
Download it here
Picture
B-BURG at Unique Beats v1.5