Parker Harrington

Technology Tuesday: Korg Kaossilator

Parker Harrington October 4, 2011 3 Comments

Sipping a cold beer and enjoying a Mike Gordon show at the Paradise in Boston in 2010, I had to scratch my head when Mike leaned into the audience and passed a young lady a small square device. After a moment of pointing and perhaps a word or two of instruction, a new groove blared from the stage and the band kept turning on a dime as the sounds continued to shift.

I turned to someone nearby and asked, “What the heck is that?” He nonchalantly answered, “Oh, that’s just Mike’s Kaossilator.” Curious when that was, I went home and Googled it and ended up buying one a few weeks later.


So what exactly is a Kaossilator and what can it do?

READ ON for more on the Kaossilator…

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Technology Tuesday: TuneIn Radio – Falling In Love With Radio All Over Again

Parker Harrington August 30, 2011 14 Comments

There’s never been a more exciting time to be a music lover. Technology continues to expand the myriad of ways to connect with new music and like minded music fans. Instant, easy, free access to music is a goal that many people continue to pursue. While there are scores of services that will play customized “stations” (Pandora, Slacker), allow you to listen to your own music (Google Music, Subsonic), play tracks on demand (Grooveshark, Last.FM) or explore new music (Spotify, MOG, Rdio), there’s nothing quite like listening to compelling DJs, great radio stations and interesting radio programs from around the country and around the world.

TuneIn Radio’s tagline “It’s time to fall in love with radio all over again” is apt. Long before Mumford & Sons’ albums trickled into Pandora, before they were licensed for Spotify and before you heard of them, there were countless DJ’s across the country spinning their tunes. Still to this day, radio stations are the ones exposing artists, discovering music and playing it for the masses.

This week we will look at TuneIn, a service which gives you a way to not only listen to 50,000+ radio stations across the globe but also tune-in to stations that are 100% band-specific (Phish, Beatles, Springsteen, Grateful Dead, Dylan, etc.) Additionally, giving you easy access to every internet-only radio station like Bonnaroo Radio and an ability to record (PVR for the radio!) makes TuneIn a huge winner.




READ ON to find out what TuneIn Radio is all about…

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Technology Tuesday: Reviewing Sonos & the new Play:3… plus Giveaway!

Parker Harrington August 23, 2011 109 Comments


If you are like many people, your digital music library continues to grow exponentially. While physical CD sales still eclipse digital downloads, that will not be the case for long. Likewise, the proliferation of music streaming sites like Pandora, Spotify, MOG & Rdio make the ability to move away from physical CD’s even easier.  The problem now for many music lovers is how to enjoy all the music trapped on your hard drive & streaming through the web. Sure, you can listen through headphones, desktop speakers, transfer to a portable music player or listen through your laptop speakers. While all of these are acceptable for background tunes while surfing the web or casual listening, what if you want to fill your house with gut-thumping bass, speaker rattling, wake-the-neighbors-up cranking volume that only your stereo system can give you? Sonos has the answer and they’ll help you in your quest of  “streaming all the music on earth”.




So what is Sonos? How will it help you liberate all your music from your computer? Will it break your bank? Do you need to be a genius to set it up? What’s with this new Play:3 unit that’s being advertised? These are all the questions we’ll answer this week in Technology Tuesday as we explore and evaluate Sonos. Additionally, we’ll answer another great question: HOW CAN YOU GET A SONOS PLAY:3 FOR FREE?

READ ON for a complete guide to Sonos…

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Technology Tuesday: Memolane – Replaying the soundtrack of your life

Parker Harrington August 16, 2011 1 Comment


There’s no doubt that all your senses can trigger profound memories from the depths of your mind. Certain smells conjure up vacations spent half a world away, childhood memories and other events inextricably tied to a particular aroma. However, nothing for most people, hard core or casual music fans included, can place you at a time or place in your life the way hearing a particular song can. Music is the soundtrack of the “movie” of our life, constantly playing like the background music of a motion picture. It’s omnipresent, always playing and a great way to “bring you back” to a particular time.

What if you were able to make a timeline of every song you listen to and were able to browse through this timeline of your life? Well you can. This week we will look at web service called “Memolane”.


Memolane bills itself as a place to “See, Search and Share” your life. Through a variety of connected services, Memolane aggregates a ton of information and presents it in a neat & clean timeline that can be shared privately with friends, to the public, or not shared at all.

READ ON for more on what Memolane is all about…

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Technology Tuesdays: DropBox Tips & Tricks

Parker Harrington August 9, 2011 3 Comments


Wow! A recent auction allowing investors to participate in a future funding round may push the valuation of DropBox to $10 Billion. Yes, with a “B”. Billion. That is phenomenal. Not too many companies can boast a market cap anywhere near that. For a tiny company with scant few employees, you’d have to assume that they are doing something right. You’d assume right. DropBox makes it extraordinarily easy to sync documents and files between computers. But what else can it do besides syncing simple items like memos, spreadsheets & pictures from one computer to the next? In this weeks Technology Tuesday we’ll look at some creative ways to use DropBox.


Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know about DropBox. A small cross-platform program that allows you to sync files easily across any computer as well as mobile devices like Android & iPhone. The “secret sauce” of DropBox is that there is nothing to learn. Syncing is just as easy as dropping files into a folder like you are accustomed to already. Automagically, your files instantly appear on any of your connected devices. No pain. No hassle. On the off chance you have not yet tried DropBox, feel free to sign-up with this referral link (mine, thanks!) Free accounts get 2GB of storage & syncing that can be increased all the way to 8GB with referrals.

he point of this article is not an overall review of DropBox, comparisons with other syncing applications or a discussion about recent security lapses, rather it is to share some pretty cool ways that I use DropBox. While these principles may work perfectly fine on other syncing applications like Wuala, SugarSync, or Allway, I can only speak to DropBox and my two years of use. READ ON for more about ways to use DropBox…

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Technology Tuesdays: Google Music, Your Tunes in the Cloud

Parker Harrington August 2, 2011 14 Comments

Last week, we discussed Subsonic, which allows you to stream music and video to any PC or Mobile Device. While Subsonic offers many features & capabilities, it is not an ideal solution for everyone. This week we’ll be examining Google Music Beta which may be a better solution for some.

So wait…why tell us about another way to listen to your music away from home?


As we pointed out last week, there are many different options to be able to access your music anywhere you want. Google Music Beta differs from Subsonic and other streaming options in that your music is uploaded and hosted by Google. If your music resides on a laptop or another machine that is not constantly on, streaming from that computer is not a viable option. Likewise, if your music is behind a firewall and you do not have the ability to open ports on a router (for example on a campus), streaming from your own computer will be an issue. READ ON for more of this week’s column…

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Technology Tuesdays: Subsonic Allows You To Bring Your Tunes Everywhere

Parker Harrington July 26, 2011 11 Comments

Before we dive into this week’s subject matter, I’d like to say thanks in advance for reading. I look forward to this column which will be appearing on Tuesdays.

Sometimes it’s tough to stay on top of all the cool gadgets, apps, software, web services, and other things that makes our lives easier, better, more enjoyable and just plain more fun. While of course we are all music fans here, and that will clearly be a focus of the column, not everything will be music related. Photography, web services, communication, computers and many other topics will be covered in the coming weeks.


While my contact information will be in the footer of each column, I figure I’ll put it up here this week as I’d really like to hear from you. Feel free to get in touch with topics you’d like covered along with feedback and suggestions.

Find me on Twitter at @tmwsiy. Email me at parkerjh@gmail.com. Leave a voice mail at my Google Voice Number: (781) 285-8696.

Many music fans have but one simple goal – to be able to listen to any of their tracks, anytime, on any device.  It takes a lot of time and expense to accumulate, organize and archive your music. It’s a bummer when you leave the cozy confines of your house only to remember you’d really like to listen to something you forgot to burn to CD or transfer to a portable music player. Likewise, when the 32GB storage is at capacity on your device, it’s disheartening to get to the “one in, one out” mode by having to decide which album no longer makes the cut.


There are more options than ever to keep your music playing. This week we’ll focus on Subsonic which is free, plays virtually any music format, is available on any operating system and on most all mobile devices.

READ ON for more of Parker’s thoughts on Subsonic and what it can do for you as well as what separates the service from its competitors…

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Spotify Arrives: FAQ About The New Service

Parker Harrington July 18, 2011 21 Comments

Most music lovers have by now heard that there’s a new music service in town. Last Thursday, July 14, after two years of speculation, rumors and waiting, Spotify launched for U.S. users. Following several days of use, it’s clear why Spotify has taken many other countries by storm and people were so eager for the service to arrive Stateside. With several days of streaming, syncing, music discovery, social sharing, playlist creation and tinkering under our belts, let’s answer some questions about Spotify.


What is Spotify?

Imagine browsing the iTunes store. Now imagine finding a song or an artist that you’d like to listen to and being able to play the entire song rather than just a ten second snippet. That’s cool right? Well, not only can you simply listen to a song on demand like you can on Grooveshark, you can sync the files to your computer to play them when you are offline, sync them to your mobile, share them with other users, create playlists and seemingly enjoy most all the benefits of digital music “ownership” as if you had actually purchased the track. Of course, completely legally.

Sweet! Where do I sign-up?

Spotify is still in a limited beta mode in the United States, but it’s not too hard to get in.

  • Twitter users can go to Klout.com, click on “Perks” and see if a Spotify invite is available to you instantly.
  • You can add your name to the waiting list on Spotify.com
  • You can use the author’s invitations from Klout by signing up here: Invitation Link
  • Or you can sign up for one of the paid tiers of service which require no waiting

READ ON for more answers about what Spotify can do for you…

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Final Thoughts from Leg One Phish Survey

Parker Harrington June 29, 2011 No Comments

We had some pretty interesting results yesterday in the first part of our survey results about the first leg of Phish Summer Tour 2011. In addition to results on everything from fan perception of the songs, the shows, the runs, the prices, the stream, the jamming, who’s going to IX and many others, Hidden Track was thrilled to be recognized by fans so highly. Only Phish.net, Phish.com & YEMBlog ranked higher as a go-to source of information about Phish. So while we recognize the inherent advantage we had by running the survey, thanks for reading and recognizing the coverage Hidden Track provides.

[Photo by Kenny Pusey]


Now on to the business at hand…

The questions from the survey that remain to be answered are perception of the venues, three words to describe tour, general thoughts about tour and favorite moments and jams.

Three Words to describe Tour

As we did last summer, we created a Wordle from your responses. The larger the word, the more often it appeared in results. Though of course if someone answered “not much jams”, that would make “jams” a larger result. So while not scientifically accurate, this is fun nevertheless. We have included the individual responses below the graphic.

[Click To Enlarge]

fun but songy
Intense, Powerful, Funny
improved guitar playing
Rock And Roll
Blissful. Funk. Long-haul.
Pretty kick ass.
page rage
Brought the steam!
Brought Fire Fast
Shorten the setlists!!!
Too many repeats.
God Shit Man

READ ON for the rest of our survey results…

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Phish Summer 2011 Leg One Survey Results

Parker Harrington June 28, 2011 9 Comments

Phish Summer 2011 Summer Tour Leg One is now nothing but a memory. Super Ball IX, which will undoubtedly create unbelievable memories for the fans that are there and also those listening at home, is knocking on the door. But what about the memories of Leg One? What did everyone think? Well over 1,000 fans took the time to fill out our survey and shared their thoughts on the venues, the songs, the jamming, the ticket prices and even the band’s legendary ‘Fleezer.’

[Photo by Parker Harrington]


We will follow up with another survey at the end of the summer after what may be the last tour for a while. Until that time, read on for a snapshot of what fans are thinking about Phish right now.

So is Phish just going through the motions? Or performing at the top of their ability? The very first question sums up the general consensus: Phish is ROCKING! Only 14% of fans rated the First Leg at “Average” or lower. Overwhelmingly, “Phenomenal” or “Very Good, Some Gems.”

[Click on the Graphics to Enlarge and View]


Did everyone think this has been the best tour since Hampton 2009? Yes! A majority of fans [56%] think this is the tour to listen to so far.

READ ON for the rest of the results from our survey…

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