Use Your Mac to Create Unique Ambient Music Tracks

3:03 am, December 4th, 2008, Lonnie Lazar

When you’ve had it with commercial radio, after you can’t take one more suggestion from iTunes’ Genius or Pandora or somebody’s Last.fm playlist, turn to your Mac.

With Bitnotic Chill 1.0 your Mac can create 100% computer-generated, user-adjustable ambient music. Though purely machine made, Chill’s music is both relaxing and listenable.

Chill plays endless songs or, in Radio mode, an uninterrupted stream of unique tracks. Once played, songs can be saved in a variety of audio formats. Albums can be exported straight into iTunes to download to iPod or burn to CD. Each song is unique and royalty free, and can be used in any public space or project without licensing fees.

Nick Vardalos, owner of Cafe Bido in Sydney, Australia uses Chill as a royalty-free music alternative for his cafe and in music projects. He says, “It’s simple enough that you can turn it on and let it go do its thing, but for the electro-geek in me it goes deeper. I can export the songs it creates as MIDI files into pro production software and build on them, replace instruments, edit tracks, collaborate with friends.”

Created with musicians, as well as listeners, in mind, Chill has a variety of features that allow songs to be used in the studio or live. Individual tracks can be saved in MIDI, WAV, and AIFF formats. Count-in, song key and tempo info, and MIDI output allow performers to collaborate with chill in real-time.

Scott Burgess, Bitnotic’s principal, says, “Chill’s music is influenced by Eno, Debussy, and musique concrÃƒÂ¨te, with some New Age thrown in. The songs can be mellow or they can be evocative, but they are always music.”

Available directly from Bitnotic, at $19.95 Chill is a cost-effective alternative to pricey publicly licensed jukebox and canned music alternatives for businesses wishing to provide music for their customers, as well as a cheap tool for musicians and producers wanting to incorporate electronica into their projects.

For the individual user, Chill can provide a welcome respite or a vibe to use for relaxing, meditating, or – ahem – working late into the night on this or that…

Posted by Lonnie Lazar in Music, News, Software | Comment on this article

About the author

Lonnie Lazar is a writer, musician, web designer attorney. He writes about Apple for Cult of Mac and Mac|Life, and about VoIP and telecommunications for Voxilla. Follow Lonnie on Twitter @LonnieLazar, join the Cult of Mac on Facebook, and find Lonnie's photos on Flickr.

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