TalaStudio Weblog

Need to get my act together

2008-01-31T20:07:00.000-08:00

OK so I have really been slacking in terms of adding content to TalaStudio.. but you shouldn't really blame my tendency to just sit around and watch movies all day (well maybe a bit), I've had so much homework and exam work that I've hardly had room to breathe. Hmm.. so actually don't blame me at all for not adding anything to the website, blame my professors - I always do, for a number of things.

Anyways, so I am planning on finally adding some things to TalaStudio, particularly:

Virtual Dholak

This two-sided drum will really be easy to play with a keyboard. I know some people have complained that the virtual tabla is complicated... well... duh its a Tabla... but maybe putting up a simpler virtual drum isn't such a bad idea :)

Pop India Radio 'Contextual image slideshow'

I've been experimenting with JavaScript, DHTML, and search engines, and I hope to install a feature in Pop India Radio where you can see slideshows of images related to the music you are hearing. This is all done automatically via Yahoo (or maybe Google) search, and it provides a sort of nice ambiance to the song. I'm trying to have this done automatically via automated image search on popular search engines, the only thing is that sometimes I don't quite get images that are *ahem* appropriate! Need to fix this !

Created Works

I've been working on some interesting tunes/music, much better than what is up there right now. Hopefully at least someone will enjoy it! Some of the music has Tabla beats and other surprises.

Virtual Dhol? Virtual Sitar?

This is the plan; however, I don't have any of these instruments! Actually I don't really need to have them, I just need sounds and images. If anyone has either a Dhol or a Sitar (or any other unique instrument), please let me know (comments/email) and I would like to talk to you!!

"Created Works" finally up!

2007-12-08T01:21:00.000-08:00

Well it took long enough, but I've put up the third website on talastudio: created works. On this page, I'm sharing some of the songs I've made (warning they are not really finished!).

Here's what the page looks like:

Better directions for virtual tabla

2007-11-23T01:44:00.000-08:00

OK, so having to go to a new page to view directions was tiresome. What's more, the search engines were indexing the directions more than the actual tabla page! So I've put the directions on the virtual tabla page, and it actually looks way better now. enjoy.

Virtual Tabla uptades

2007-10-06T22:01:00.000-07:00

I just added a new feature: background music. This really puts the tabla in context, try playing some notes with the background tune and it will sound much better! Better yet, play the background tune with some of the prerecorded tunes, and you'll see how the tabla sounds with music*.

*Guitar sounds were made using Cakewalk Kinetic 2 software

Pop India Radio improvements

2007-09-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

Added a status bar that basically tells you if the song is still loading or not - I noticed that sometimes you would have to wait a while for the song to start. Now at least you will know that its just loading and hasn't actually crashed! Also, the application will tell you which language you are listening to (tamil, punjabi, or hindi) .. just in case you can't tell ;)

Finally, added a nice little icon for the website in general. I found a nifty website that helps you make a .ico file from an image you already have:
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/

Upcoming fixes

2007-09-27T18:35:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a lot of traffic coming these days, and pop india radio seems to be getting kind of slow. It's possible that the traffic is the culprit, in any case, I'll be adding some more tools to better the experience (loading bar, status text etc.)

Also, for the Virtual Tabla, I'm thinking of adding a few new sounds. Namely "DheRe" and the "slide" effect for the bayan (bass). If you've ever heard the tabla played before, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about!

For those of you who've never heard all the amazing sounds you can play with the bayan (the bass drum), let the Tabla master show you below! (I know I know, the guy on the flute is a bit funny)

Pop India Radio is up

2007-09-10T21:05:00.000-07:00

It took a while to make, but Pop India Radio is up. You can listen to a variety of popular Indian music (hindi, punjabi, tamil) . More updates to come.

http://www.talastudio.com/popindiaradio.html

tabla updates

2007-08-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

Created a 'virtual tabla directions' page to help those not familiar with tabla. It gives some basic idea of how to play more complicated sounds like "dha" and "tirikite" etc.

Also modified the look of the tabla webpage a bit to make it more navigable.

These days im working on making some of the other elements talastudio.. 'pop india radio' :)

2007-07-29T12:27:00.000-07:00

हिंदी बोलने वालों, मे सोच रहा हूँ कि वेबसाइट हिंदी मे ट्रांज़्लेट करूं।लेकिन मेरी सपेललिंग बहूत खराब है ... देखेंगे !

Big changes

2007-07-28T03:31:00.000-07:00

So I decided to go ahead and buy a domain name: www.talastudio.com, the virtual tabla is now on that website.

I wanted to add more features to the tabla, and make a website on my interest in Indian music in general. The new 'talastudio' (tala means 'beat' in hindi) website will be a place for expansion. Hopefully, it will host some other virtual instruments. I have a dholak so I'll try to make a virtual version of that too, that would be too cool! Basically a bunch of ideas are stirring me up, so I want a new website where I can try some new stuff out. It's gonna be slick, trust me!

New tunes

2007-07-14T17:29:00.000-07:00

Added a new taal to the tune section.. "kherwa"..

Loading Bar..

2007-07-08T22:54:00.000-07:00

Just put a loading bar for the virtual tabla. Hopefully now you might have some idea how long it will take to load! The v-tabla is currently about 146Kb, so at least modem users will know how long they need to wait.

Sample pic:

New design

2007-06-30T19:03:00.001-07:00

The virtual tabla now has a new design, its higher resolution to look better, and has some cool new features. It seems not many people still use 800x600 resolution, so I've decided to optimize the tabla for 1024x800.. sorry to those with lower resos!

Changes:

New "TUNES" tab on the side, where you can have the virtual tabla play various tabla tunes for you!! So far, I have three very basic tunes (boles).
Keyboard shortcuts doesn't bring up a small window anymore, it displays shortcuts right on the tabla itself... Also, the stroke names are placed on the tabla so you can know what sounds you are practicing
New "shaded" interface that appears the first time you view the tabla
Volume control shifted to better location

Old view:

New view: