New Musigy Maker Beta Released!

stan — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:54:00 GMT

A week ago we pushed to the site the new 1.1.22.5526 release of Musigy Maker. As always the new release is available at http://www.musigy.com/download

We have significantly improved the setup experience - so you are welcome to try it out :)

With the now Musigy Maker you can record yourself or your distributed jamming session - and upload it to www.musigy.com! You can record both videos or just sound. See how much staff Nick has recorded recently! :)

We already see people recording and sharing stuff. We've also been in chat conversations with several Musigy makers (nightchild, ai, mariachiviper and others) and we are very grateful for all your feedback, especially like this:

http://www.musigy.com/videos/snoopy/380

Many other small features were added like the improved Settings dialog:

the long-awaited System Tray support, new network and audio algorithms in Musigy Core, let alone the improved audio wizard which helps you set up Musigy Maker to work with any audio card out there!

Last but not the least I want to share with you one of my favorite videos recently recorded by saloutch. Enjoy!

P.S. I want to say thank to all of the Musigy team especially Tim and Vad who have been programming very hard to deliver these new features for Musigy Maker.

VIRTUAL JAMMING: an IEEE Spectrum Article Featuring Musigy

stan — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 23:16:00 GMT

Mark Anderson's article in the July 07 issue of IEEE Spectrum magazine explores state-of-the-art technologies for live jamming over the Internet.

Read it online at http://spectrum.ieee.org/jul07/5297

Musigy on NHK in Japan

stan — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 21:29:00 GMT

Musigy was featured in a special episode in "Good Morning Japan" morning show on NHK General TV. Watch NOW:

The TV story tells about Koktebel Jazz Festival, the dorm room on Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology campus where Nick and I live, a live distributed music performance (NHK Moscow Bureau Chief, Mr. Ishikawa Ichiyo sings a Russian XIX century romantic song together with Nick on guitar some 25 kilometers away), Musigy R&D labs (also located on MIPT campus in Dolgoprudny) and episodes from Musigy presentations and demos at CeBIT 2007 in Hannover, Germany.

NHK is the Japanese BBC. It is the #1 TV company in Japan and one of the top 5 largest broadcasting companies in the world.

Besides that NHK is the world's most technologically advanced broadcasting company. NHK has fully switched to digital high-definition broadcasting since 2003, the company is broadcasting its news on the Internet and can even boast its own Broadcasting Research Institute and sending a hi-vision camera to the moon!

Musigy In Gala - A Glossy Magazine About People, Fashion And Style For Women :)

stan — Thu, 03 May 2007 15:59:00 GMT

The photo shoot experience was fun!! :)))

The full article scanned (in Russian)

Visit Musigy Stand At CeBIT 2007

stan — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 02:01:00 GMT

In case you are visiting CeBIT 2007, we encourage you to visit Musigy's stand in Hall 3, Stand D63 (which is part of the Russian Product Software Pavilion).

P.S. Free beer for everyone who has a Musigy account and a free Musigy account for everyone who does not :)))

Musigy Is In the Windows Vista Spotlight

stan — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 01:08:00 GMT

Michael G. Lehman from Microsoft (and also a hobbyist guitar player) writes:

"Musigy from Musigy, Inc. has passed the tests and is being featured on the Project Glidepath Windows Vista Spotlight of MicroISV applications! Their Zune is on-the-way!"

Windows Vista Spotlight Program features software that successfully runs on the brand new Windows Vista, uses Microsoft's latest technology and has passed through a crack team of top experts who are hard at work testing applications.

Musigy To Launch At CeBIT 2007

stan — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 02:19:00 GMT

We are glad to announce that
on March 15-21 Musigy will introduce its service at CeBIT 2007 - one of the world's largest IT expo forums - in Hannover, Germany.

CeBIT participation is going to expose Musigy to new customers and potential partners in European markets. More details to follow, stay in touch.

"Something which has never been done on television before" - Musigy's Internet TV bridge unites Georgia and Russia in a nationwide New Year TV show

stan — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 09:44:00 GMT

Liana Isakadze, the violin player (in Tbilisi, Georgia):
"I don't want to play without Russian balalaikas!" (applause)

Dmitry Kiselev, the show host (in Moscow, Russia):
"Now we will try to do something which has NEVER BEEN DONE ON TELEVISION BEFORE. We will try to play together from Moscow and from Tbilisi. This is not going to be simple because there is a small sound delay but our musicians will do their best. Liana Isakadze and Igor Senin and our trio of balalaikas from Osipov Russian Folk Orchestra will try to do their best. You are welcome!"

Musicians play "Podmoskovnyye Vechera" ("The Moscow Nights", an old famous Russian song) together over Musigy Internet bridge. The balalaikas are in Moscow, Russia and the violin player is in Tbilisi, Georgia 1000 miles away from each other.

Dmitry Kiselev:
"Thank you, Liana! Thank you. Hurrah! Bravo! It was fantastic! Thank you very much."

Read about this nationwide New Year Program on Channel Russia in our previous post.

RE: Microsoft, Google mine for ideas in their own way

stan — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 02:37:00 GMT

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOHN LETZING, a Dow Jones Marketwatch reporter about the article Microsoft, Google mine for ideas in their own way. Musigy believes that John Letzing's article contains wrong conclusions about the ownership of the intellectual property of the company and misinterprets Microsoft's role in the Imagine Cup competition. Read more...

Feedback solicited from Italian users of Musigy

vlad — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:47:00 GMT

Well, of course we want all of our users give us feedback. And I want to thank all of you who installed and tried our Private Beta client -- we want to hear from you what you think.

But I also wanted to mention our Italian users for a couple of reasons:

Using Musigy client in Chat mode, I "discovered" today two jazz guitar players from Italy among our early adopters. Apparently there was a message about Musigy on Italian newsgroups recently and that might have contributed to spreading the news. (If you happen to know where that message was posted, please share with us).

Last year Italians won the World Cup and then they won Microsoft Imagine Cup - the World Cup of Programming. We actually got a good plug in the Press (see for example PC Magazine article ) then:

In 2005, one of the winning teams went on to become the founders of Musigy Inc., an online community music portal. Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, released a statement on Friday expressing hope that this year's winners will see similar success.

and we hope that good karma of engaging Italian talent will continue into this year.

"Innovation is the new Rock'n'Roll": Musigy on Digital Planet radio program by BBC

stan — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 10:46:00 GMT

Last week Stan Vonog, one of the founders of Musigy, was interviewed by Digital Planet, the weekly BBC World Service program that reports on technology stories from around the globe.

This week's program came out on January 29 covering the Innovation Accelerator, an intensive training event and also a prize awarded to the best software design teams from the Microsoft Imagine Cup.

After winning the Imagine Cup in 2005 in Japan Musigy was among 5 other teams which have taken part in the premiere year of the Innovation Accelerator in Reading, UK.

In this interview Stan briefly introduces Musigy and shares his experience of participating in the Innovation Accelerator last year.

LISTEN TO IT NOW! (4 min 45 sec)

Download the audio (2.1MB)

You can subscribe to Digital Planet's podcast here.

New (1.1.2589) version of Musigy released!

stan — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:46:00 GMT

It's much more stable, much cleaner. It's simply better! Request an invitation to private beta, download it and start using it (we've put up several guides to help you). We'd absolutely love to hear from you back. We are particularly interested in you setup experience, bug reports and suggestions. Your comments to this post are appreciated as well.

Take a look at the short list of improvements in the newest version of Musigy.

Musigy at Macworld 2007

stan — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 08:56:00 GMT

Hey, Musigy is in San Francisco at Macworld 2007! All the city has gone crazy, seems like everybody, everywhere is talking about Macworld. Sure, we couldn't have missed such an event!

Macworld is pure magic and Steve Jobs is Macworld's Chief Magician. And boy, his magic is powerful! We are very impressed and excited. iPhone is awesome. It's gorgeous!

Steve Jobs is about to introduce iPhone at Macworld 2007

Apple and Mac are very much about music. Seems like half (or even more!) of Macworld Expo 2007 is about music. Lots-lots-lots of musicians are on Mac.

So it is natural for Musigy to announce our strategic direction for Mac platform support in the future. We believe it is absolutely critical for Musigy to port our award winning Musigy Music Conferencing technology to Mac and make Musigy available to a wide audience of creative people who use Apple's products.

In the meanwhile we are planning to spend the next 10 days of the New Year 2007 in San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. On the weekend we are meeting with our old friend Celso Alberti who lives in the Bay Area and participated in Jazz at the Speed of Light in September 2006 and also with one of our first users :)

The weather in San Francisco is fantastic - very bright, very sunny, not a single cloud. People are saying it's a bit too cold here for this time of the year, but it's never too cold if you compare it with January in Russia :)

Founders Start Year 2007 with Rally at Musigy Headquarters in San Francisco. We have a buena vista (beautiful view) behind us and we are sure we have a bright future ahead!

Music beyond boundaries unites people in Georgia and Russia

stan — Sun, 24 Dec 2006 02:44:00 GMT

Russia and Georgia have lately been in a state of a deep political conflict. Yet, the two countries share a lot in common: history, culture and, most importantly, people. The Old New Year Dmitry Kiselev's program "National Interest" on Russia's biggest national TV channel gathered some of the very famous Georgeans in TV studios in Moscow and Tbilisi.

Famous actors, musicians, writers, film directors, and most importantly, old friends, they were exchanging warm memories, funny stories and were wishing each other love, peace and prosperity. Not a word about politics - yet, the program participants were in fact separated by the political boundaries escalated after October 2006.

The production of Georgia-Russia "National Interest" TV program. December 21, 2006

It was for the first time that side-by-side with satellite TV bridge there was a low-latency Internet audio/video bridge enabled by Musigy Music Conferencing technology. Using this "music" Internet TV bridge the musicians in two studios performed together creating a warm atmosphere of love, peace and mutual understanding with a universal language of music.

The technology room of the studio in Ostankino TV Tower in Moscow. Musigy video feed is the rightmost one in the second row from the bottom.

The quality of Musigy audio and video streams was presumed to be equal to the quality of the satellite's streams. Musigy video feed was shown on the studio's giant videowall without any significant distortions. The latency of streams delivered with Musigy Music Conferencing technology via Internet was much less than those delivered via satellite links while the costs of Internet bridges appear to be significantly lower than those of satellite bridges.

Musigy on YouTube, MySpace and Flickr

alex — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 11:04:00 GMT

To have higher visibility we have created Musigy accounts on YouTube, MySpace and Flickr. Thanks for the Add!

On Flickr we have published the photos from our latest Private Beta Jam Meeting!

And check these videos on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/group/musigy.
By the way, our MySpace account http://www.myspace.com/musigy already has over 150 friends now!

New Musigy Private Beta version

alex — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 11:00:00 GMT

We are happy to announce the new Musigy client is available.

When your friends are not online or you just want to record your own performance - try the Jam Now function.

Download now

We really appreciate your help and feeback and we work hard to include some of the most requested features in the next builds of the Musigy client application.

Musigy named among the most promising companies of Silicon Valley Open Doors 2006 Technology Investment Conference

stan — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 05:52:00 GMT

We are happy and proud to announce that Musigy was named among the winners of AmBAR Golden Lock - the award given to the most promising technology companies at SVOD-2006. Musigy placed 3rd among the 25 pre-selected companies which presented at SVOD!

Over 300 executives, venture capitalists and other technology professionals from United States, former Soviet Union contries and Israel attended second annual technology investment conference Silicon Valley Open Doors, which took place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on November 16-17, 2006.

The conference was organized by the American Business Association of Russian Professionals (AmBAR). AmBAR's conference partners included Russian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association (St. Petersburg, Russia), and Center for Innovations Development of TECHINVEST VC Group (Kiev, Ukraine).

The conference was supported by the venture capital firms Asset Management Company (Palo Alto, California) and Draper Fisher Jurvetson (Menlo Park, California).

The highlight of SVOD-2006 was presentations of the best twenty five private companies from Russia, Ukraine and other FSU countries.

The Panel of Judges comprised representatives of leading international venture capital firms and technology companies. (Alloy Ventures, Asset Management Company, Canaan Partners, DFJ, Doll Capital Management, Google, Institutional Venture Partners, Intel Capital, New Enterprise Associates, Pitango Venture Capital, Rembrandt Venture Partners, 3i, Vivo Ventures, Worldview Technology Partners).

2006 SVOD’s AmBAR Golden Lock Award:

Winner – ApowerCap
First runner up – UltraMotors
Second runner up – Musigy

Musigy meets with Bill Gates

stan — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 05:14:00 GMT

Today Musigy had a meeting with Bill Gates during his visit to Moscow. We had 10 minutes for the presentation and a short QA session. It was really awesome to meet Bill!

Musigy and Microsoft co-organized Web Technology Days in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

stan — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 05:44:00 GMT

Musigy and Microsoft Student Partners program co-organized a series of lectures and a distributed concert of Kseniya Fedulova and The Red Fish at Web Technology Days in Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) on October 26-27, 2006.

All the event's sessions were delivered by Musigy staff. The sessions included:

The Business and Technology of Web 2.0 (ASP.NET 2.0, ASP.NET AJAX)
Next Generation User Experience Design with Windows Presentation Foundation.
Imagine Cup. Innovate. Compete. Win.
The Future of Internet Music.

During Web Technology Days which attracted over 200 technology students of Russia's top academic technology incubator, Musigy has announced the launch of its private beta program available exclusively on MIPT campus.

Stan Vonog announcing the launch of Musigy's MIPT campus beta program

The event's culmination was a distributed live concert enabled by Musigy Music Conferencing technology. The concert featured Moscow-based singer and song-writer Kseniya Fedulova and The Red Fish, a young promising Russian band .

Kseniya Fedulova rehearsing before the concert

Musigy team after the event

"Jazz @ the Speed of Light" Dissolves Boundaries Between Ukraine, Russia and the UK

stan — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 09:59:00 GMT

KOKTEBEL, KIEV, MOSCOW, OXFORD – OCTOBER 18, 2006. Musigy, Promo.UA and European leading telecommunication operators have successfully organized the world’s premiere series of international distributed live music concerts over conventional broadband Internet at Koktebel Jazz Festival 2006.
Read the full press-release.

George Haslam and Musigy on British Central TV

stan — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:10:00 GMT

"Congratulations on the software and the way it's working! It's fantastic, it's incredible!" George Haslam, world-renowned British jazz saxophonist

Check out more JSL videos on http://www.youtube.com/group/musigy

Jazz @ the Speed of Light, Day 2

stan — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 08:40:00 GMT

Did you know how far is Koktebel from Oxford? Want to see what George Haslam answered? Watch this video:

Today was the 2nd day of Koktebel Jazz Festival and we had George Haslam playing from Oxford with Russian jazz legend Alexey Kozlov (saxophone) and Finnish Olli Siikannen Power Trio. It was the longest distance but still everything went like clockwork and everyone was excited both on the shore of the Black Sea in Koktebel and in Oxford Science Park many miles away. The sax duo was just amazing!

Check out more JSL videos on http://www.youtube.com/group/musigy

Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne and Leon Ptashka "fly to Cosmos" as they rehearse their jamming session just before the opening of Koktebel Jazz Festival 2006

stan — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 09:20:00 GMT

September 12. Late evening. After we have run all the tests with Oxford (thanks George, Dima and all the rest) we had Moscow online. Leon Ptashka, a famous Israeli jazz pianist of Russian origin was waiting for Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne from Canada to join him in an Internet jam. Kenny arrived in his tracksuit and took his place in the backyard accompanied by a numerous spectators including ourselves and Dmitry Kiselev, the founder of the festival. The rehearsal generated a lot of emotions and Ptashka even compared the jam with flying to space: so extraordinary, unknown and - at the same time - exciting it was!

Check out more JSL videos on http://www.youtube.com/group/musigy

The sound from nowhere or Internet street jam or 1st rehearsal of Jazz @ the Speed of Light

stan — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 05:47:00 GMT

Today there was the 1st rehearsal of distributed jams. We have connected George Haslam from Oxford Science Park at 15:00 UK Time. There were also some TV guys in Oxford who were filming the event, taking interviews, etc, etc. We were able to see them on our monitors:

Alexey Kozlov who had to play with George had his flight delayed so we were desperately looking for another musician to jam with George while Dima Alexandrov was coming with his bandmates from "Kiev Salsa Kings". Nick and I ran out to the beach and found some random musicians who were playing on the sea-front for money. So they were the first to try Internet jams in Koktebel:

It was absolutely exciting when we heard the sweet sound of George's baritone sax coming from the speakers. It was the sound from nowhere and it was like magic. When Dima came the sax player from the beach took the guitar and they started improvising with George. Watch their jam:

Find more JSL videos at http://www.youtube.com/group/musigy

Musigy Psychoacoustics Testing

stan — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 03:31:00 GMT

This is a musician who does not see and hear anything but his jamming partner who is playing with him over a network connection with some very bad latency and jitter.

Yesterday we invited Peter Chukov and his father Alexander (both of them are pro musicians) for a series of psychoacoustics experiments to find out more about the effect of latency, jitter and packet loss on the jamming experience.

We simulated the parameters of the network in our office LAN with a special software. The musicians were playing different pieces with different tempos over different network parameters (introduced randomly by the intermediary software) and then they rated their experience.

Of course there was not just pure science but also a lot of fun along the way :)

See more photos here.