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You can't buy talent. But you can try. This blog is about music, technology, guitars, synths, keyboard, amps, recording, computers, cubase, logic, sonar, steinberg, roland, korg, fender, gibson, boss.

Keith writes: "Hi, I've been reading your blog for years now and took a break from the internet for about 10-12 months. I'm back on and I noticed you've redesigned the page but it loads really slow and crashes Internet Explorer for me every time. Firefox loads it fine but, again, really slowly." So... Is Music Thing working OK for you? (Click here if you can't see the form)

• It works fine
• It's slower than other sites
• It won't load properly
• I usually just read it on RSS

If you're having trouble, please give me some details. If you're a web developer, please give me some tips. Thanks! UPDATE: Based on the first handful of results, just over 10% are complaining of slow loading. I've cut the number of posts on the homepage from 20 to 10. Might also move that huge Google map. A couple of people asked whether the ads make any money. The Google ones make a bit (about £4k a year, hopefully) but the others are struggling to pay their way, so I'll look again at them. Thanks, by the way, for all the compliments.  

I'm always talking about my name and citysake Tom Bugs, but his cool stuff always sells out within hours of being announced. Meanwhile, Squarewave Parade have a shop full of cool-looking things, like the Safeplace - a $59 handmade metal shaker with a contact mic inside it and a tone control on the outside, the Mole - a $229 filter based on the MS20, Downgrade - an analog pseudo bit reducer and Parade - a $44 kit with a circuit board and various pots, which is six squarewave oscillators to tweak together.  

Here's the first clip of the Chimera BC-16 mini synth in action (covered previously). The synth messageboards have been all over the BC-16, starting with "this is awesome", moving on to "I've ordered mine", then "It hasn't arrived yet", then "It's a hoax" and finally "It's a scam." I don't see any reason to think it's a scam (I can think of about a million easier scams that don't involve designing a tiny circular modular synths) but they're obviously having a hard time meeting customer orders. Still, after seeing this video, I just ordered one myself for £136. Lets see if it turns up...  

Remember Clari-Fi? The $50 passive gadget which makes lots of big claims about improving the sound of MP3? Despite my scepticism, the inventor has kindly sent me one to try. Before I get to cracking it open and posting pictures of the guts, what experiments would you like me to perform? My initial thoughts after five minutes of listening via those fancy Sony PFR-V1 headphones: 1. Quality control = fail. My one has a loose connection so one channel cuts out unless you hold the wire in. 2. It's certainly cutting off a bit of top end, but much more subtly than the 'treble reducer' EQ preset on the ipod. I also felt I was getting a rather different midrange but I have ears of clay and wool, so who knows? 3. I feel I can hear a bit of distortion at high levels - fairly warm, soft distortion that isn't there when the module is absent. The module cuts a lot of volume (maybe 10% of the travel of the iPod volume control), so that could account for this. It certainly overdrives when placed after the headphone booster that comes with the PFR-V1s, but that's probably not a fair test.  

This clip left me laughing so much I was almost unable to breathe at work today. It's Julian Barratt from The Mighty Boosh, in The Pod, a short-lived series from a few years back: "The Pod are a late eighties electronic dance outfit trying to cope with the mid nineties post rave come down." There's a lot more goodness on YouTube, including Techno is not a Joke, a three part animated series, and this bizarre interview with Donna Air. (Thanks Michael)  

View the map at Google (it's much easier than scrolling round this little window. Zoom right in - there are loads more spots than in this view) The most common question asked by Music Thing readers is "I'm visiting London/Tokyo/Doncaster. Can you tell me if there are any good music gear shops?" With the recent demise of Sound Control it's increasingly hard to find real-world shops where you can see and play with music gear, let alone see vintage or boutique stuff. So, here's an editable Google Map. I've started by plotting a (very) few shops around the world - just tiny placeholders, because I haven't been to most of these shops. How to get edit the map yourself: Click to the Music Gear Shops map. If you're logged into a Google account, you should be able to click 'EDIT' and change text, add new points, add pictures, links etc (remember to hit 'Save'!). The 'Edit Rich Text' option lets you add pictures, enliven links etc. Let me know at Music Thing Tips if you have trouble, or add something particularly cool. UPDATE: 150 entries in the first 12 hours - wow! digg_url = 'http://musicthing.blogspot.com/2008/05/help-find-all-surviving-music-gear.html'; digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff'; digg_skin = 'compact'; digg_window = 'new';  

Man takes five metronomes ticking randomly. Puts them on a slightly mobile plank held on two tin cans. Metronomes run in sync. Magic. Now I'd like to see someone really mess up György Ligeti's Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes... (via Kottke)  

Sad (-ish) news for British music gear buyers - Sound Control group, who own a string of enormo-shops and Turnkey, the UK distributors for Moog, DSI, Jomox and more, have appointed administrators after failing to find a buyer: "Following a review of the Group’s operations the Administrators have today made the difficult decision to close 10 of the Group’s trading locations and bring to an end its telesales and internet sales activities. These changes to the Group’s operations have resulted in 163 redundancies with immediate effect." The group has a turnover of £50m and employed 338 people across Britain. Obviously their competitors, like Dolphin Music, are delighted.  

As Create Digital Music reports, Tristram Cary died this week. Here's the first third of the wonderful Australian documentary What The Future Sounded Like, which does more than I ever could to explain why Tristram was important. For me, aside from all the pioneering and inventing and explaining and pipe-smoking and knob-twiddling and making the modern world a little bit more interesting, he'll always be best remembered as the recipient of the world's greatest ever synth-shaped birthday cake.  

These days, I imagine that all musical instruments are made in one Chinese factory the size of Texas, so I was delighted to get an email from Waqas Yaqoob, sales manager of M. Basharat Dolit Maker. The company is based in Sialkot, Pakistan: "We Proudly inform you that M. Basharat Dolik Maker is family owned business, our family is in manufacturing business since last 50 years since our forefathers. Established by late Mr. Mohammed Hussain, who received the woodcraft of making music instruments from his father M M Khuon. Mohammed Hussain had devoted his life in the field of making music instruments and delivered his manufacturing craft to his son, M. Basharat, who is owner of M. Basharat Dolik Maker. We are manufacturers of fine quality Scottish highland bagpipes, smallpipes, harps, pipe chanters, reeds, congas, bongos, Scottish kilts, sporrans and other music instruments ." Sialkot was a British army base from 1849 to independence, so perhaps that's where the sporran connection comes from.