Need to get my act together

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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