• Ulster Music 101

  1. Ulster Music is inclusive, objective,balanced, professional 2. Ulster Music is genre agnostic [all kinds of music covered - ed] country, christian, blues, jazz, traditional, folk, indie, electronic, pop, punk, rock, dance, metal, orchestral, choral, musical, opera, yada, yada, yada...

• Sign-up for newsletter

  
  

  Enter your email address:

  
  

• Search this website

  

  Custom Search

  
  

• Hello/Hoots mon/Fáilte go

  UlsterMusic.com - "the vortal* for Ulster Music"[TM] - is your gateway to the indigenous music ecosystem thriving within the nine northern counties of Ireland's magical fourth province...
  
  * 1500 unique visitors per month [Google Analytics]
  
  Send news, tips, PR to
  ulster.music [at] gmail [dot] com
  
  follow Ulster Music on Twitter
  
  friend up on MySpace
  www.myspace.com/ulstermusic
  [Tom is nay ma pal, ken? - ed]
  
  
  * vortal = Vertical Portal definition: website that serves as a gateway to most or all players in a specific industry or market such as autos, IT, music, steel, farming, rugby, etc.
  
  

• Top posts

  • Music charity seeks gifted musicians
  • MTV presents: General Fiasco, Yes Cadets, A Plastic Rose
  • OFMDFM honours for Music in Northern Ireland

Daniel O’Donnell has new single on the launch-pad: Mother’s Birthday Song was written by prolific songwriter John Farry. Farry, who hails from Garrison, Co. Fermanagh – and a recording artist in his own right – says the song was inspired by his own mother [not O'Donnell's own "mammy" - ed]. Farry is best known for writing [...]

Amazon has cut a deal with Sony BMG to offer DRM-free tracks from Sony artists on Amazon’s recently launched mp3 music download service. The deal makes Amazon the only e-tailer to offer DRM-free mp3s from all four major music labels, as well as more than 33,000 independent labels. Amazon MP3 was launched in the US [...]

Top up that iPod you got for Xmas with free music downloads from The Guardian’s pick of the best websites: http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/reviews/story/0,,2234937,00.html

Robert Levine writes for Rolling Stone magazine on The Death of High Fidelity: “In the age of mp3s, sound quality is worse than ever… Over the past decade and a half, a revolution in recording technology has changed the way albums are produced, mixed and mastered – almost always for the worse.

BBC News on-line reports: Huge pirate music site shut down
British and Dutch police have shut down a “widely-used” source of illegally-downloaded music. A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only website OiNK. The UK-run site has leaked 60 major pre-release albums this year [...]

Billboard reports that the major recording labels are getting ready to launch the “ringle” which combines the (mostly defunct) CD single format with ringtones for mobile phones. Each ringle is expected to contain three songs – one hit and maybe one remix and an older track – and one ringtone, on a standard CD with [...]

Apple – of Cupertino, Silicon Valley, California – has unveiled new iPods including a model with an iPhone-style touch screen and wireless Internet connectivity, refreshing the product line at a time when its digital media strategy is facing renewed attacks from rivals. Apple also introduced higher capacity versions of the original hard-drive iPod and added [...]

SONY to end its Sony Connect service for music digital downloads in its own compression format known as ATRAC.

According to The Sunday Times, Ireland was one of 12 countries worldwide to increase revenue from sales of music, thanks to on-line downloads and sales through 3G mobile phones. Sales of recorded music increased 6%, including an additional €2.9 million in digital music sales.

US retail goliath Wal-Mart – owner of ASDA – has launched a digital music download service that sells songs from EMI and Universal Music Group without the digital rights management (DRM) copy protection that restricts the range of devices on which tunes can be played.

According to the esteemed Daily Telegraph, e-tailer Amazon.com is seriously considering the imminent launch of an on-line music download store to smite the mighty iTunes. Known for shifting books, CDs and DVDs, Amazon has apparently approached all the major record labels offering to sell DRM-free MP3s. The move could cause controversy in the record industry [...]