The new 600 Series guitars elicit the best of the inherent tonal properties of maple. In 2014, Master Builder Andy Powers began to experiment with how far bracing, thickness, finish, and new seasoning processes like torrefaction, a wood roasting method, could enhance maple’s tone profile.

I played one of these yesterday and the tone was so warm. I’d definitely buy one of these.

VanCity Buzz:

In her attempt to pursue the Universe’s crown, Miss Universe Canada Chanel Beckenlehner of Caledon, Ontario has certainly captured the world’s attention as her flamboyant, hockey-inspired costume has gone completely viral.

The 26-year-old strutted out on the stage Wednesday night wearing a costume that may have very well been designed by Lady Gaga, Hudson’s Bay Company and Roots. Altogether, the costume is said to have a weight of 25 pounds.

This is how much Canadians love hockey.

iMore:

Apple detailed the earnings of its top executives in the filing. Apple CEO Tim Cook – $9.2 million. Eddy Cue and Jeff Williams – $24 million each. Angela Ahrendts – $73 million.

Apple also announced board member Millard Drexler will be retiring after the company’s annual shareholder meeting on March 10 and that it managed to generate a staggering $182.8 billion in sales over the course of 2014.

Nice gig if you can get it.

Wait. You can add subtitles to a DVD rip, even of a DVD that didn’t come with subtitles? Kirk McElhearn tells you how.

Dave Aiello spotted this new bracelet from Leatherman, makes the pitch that Leatherman should turn this into a watchband for the Apple Watch. A solid premise, especially with a bit of design assistance from Apple.

9to5mac:

Apple initially wanted the Apple Watch battery to provide roughly one full day of usage, mixing a comparatively small amount of active use with a larger amount of passive use. As of 2014, Apple wanted the Watch to provide roughly 2.5 to 4 hours of active application use versus 19 hours of combined active/passive use, 3 days of pure standby time, or 4 days if left in a sleeping mode. Sources, however, say that Apple will only likely achieve approximately 2-3 days in either the standby or low-power modes.

Apple has also been stress-testing the Apple Watch’s battery life with pre-bundled and third-party applications. Our sources say that Apple is targeting 2.5 hours of “heavy” application use, such as processor-intensive gameplay, or 3.5 hours of standard app use. Interestingly, Apple expects to see better battery life when using the Watch’s fitness tracking software, which is targeted for nearly 4 hours of straight exercise tracking on a single charge.

The early adopters will live with any battery life constraints and, ultimately, the power problem will get better over time as Apple R&D finds ways to shave power usage, create more efficient components, and battery technology becomes more efficient.

Back in November, AppLovin.com reported a China iPhone 6 to 6 Plus sales ratio of 65 to 35 and a US sales ratio of 80 to 20.

In AppLovin’s latest report, the China ratio moved to 60 to 40, while the US ratio changed to 75 to 25.

Why is this important?

Morgan Stanley ran an estimate of gross margin of the various models of the iPhone 6 versus the iPhone 6 Plus and found the iPhone 6 Plus profit margin to be higher across the board. More iPhone 6 Pluses in the sales mix means more revenue for Apple.

Note that these numbers represent aggregate sales (the mix of all phones in the market, versus only the latest sales). This means that the mix of more recent sales is even higher (to bring up the average). Bottom line, this is good news for Apple, ahead of Tuesday’s FQ1 results.

I’ve listened to a lot of headphones over the years, from high-end models to in-ears, but none have sounded as good as the Mo-Fi. The Mo-Fi are made by Blue Microphones, a company that I’ve respected for a long time, but I had no idea their headphones would be so good. If you’re in the market, you have to try these out. You’ll thank me.

There are a ton of new features and licensing options available in the new version. Good day for Pro Tools users.

Avid today unveiled Pro Tools | First, a free version of the industry-standard Pro Tools that offers many of the same music creation capabilities used by top artists and recording studios worldwide. Delivering on Avid Everywhere and built upon the Avid MediaCentral Platform, Pro Tools | First is simple enough for beginners to learn, yet sophisticated enough for the experienced musician. Pro Tools | First enables anyone to experience the industry’s most trusted digital audio workstation at no cost, so they can turn their musical ideas into fully realized, professional productions that stand out from the crowd.

What a smart move from Avid.

The Firehawk FX multi-effect processor combines world-class tone with intuitive app-based editing, so you can get the perfect sound faster than ever before. The Firehawk Remote app for iOS and Android gives you the power to sculpt great tone, right in the palm of your hand. Choose from over 200 legendary amps and effects—including 50 HD models—and wirelessly control every detail of your sound. You get access to 128 internal presets plus a massive online tone library, making it easy to find the right sound for any recording session, rehearsal or gig. With 1/4” and Variax Digital (VDI) inputs, two outputs, FX loop, USB connectivity and ultra-low latency, Firehawk FX is also an ideal guitar recording interface for PC, Mac and iOS.

I love that Line 6 is going after the entire market here—mobile and desktop. I haven’t tried the Firehawk, but it’s reminiscent of an HD500, but with more color and options.

Addictively playable with classic looks, Variax Standard gives you exceptional handcrafted quality—plus incredible Variax HD technology that puts it in a class of its own. Inspire your playing with a collection of the world’s most coveted vintage electrics, classic acoustics and exotic instruments. Switch up your tunings on the fly.

I had a chance to play one of these yesterday and it is truly a step above the Variax guitars of old. The problem I had with the older models was the digital artifacts that you heard in the models and when changing tunings. These guitars have regular magnetic pickups, so first and foremost, it is an electric guitar. All of the electronics can be turned off completely if you want to play it like that. When turned on, the electronics give the guitar something really special that you won’t find anywhere else, all with no artifacts.

BlackBerry:

neutrality must be mandated at the application and content layer if we truly want a free, open and non-discriminatory internet. All wireless broadband customers must have the ability to access any lawful applications and content they choose, and applications/content providers must be prohibited from discriminating based on the customer’s mobile operating system.

What BlackBerry’s CEO is talking about is forcing companies like Apple to make their software available on BlackBerry’s devices and OS.

The CEO of BlackBerry has lost his mind.

The new service is expected run on Sprint and T-Mobile’s networks, two people familiar with the product say. Google is expected to reach deals to buy wholesale access to those carriers’ mobile voice and data networks, making it a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, they say.

I’m kind of ambivalent about this, to be honest. Google has never done a very good job selling phones, so I don’t know how they will make this work. I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

In addition to VST plug-in format support, v6 includes a complete upgrade to the entire McDSP product line. New user interface features, faster loading times, and algorithm optimizations across all formats are just some of the improvements in the v6 release. Pro Tools users will appreciate v6 additions such as enhanced support for the Avid S6 and S3 control surfaces. Artist presets from the likes of Dave Pensado, Kevin Churko, Joe Barresi, and many others are also included.

This looks like a solid release from a great company.

Apple has acquired British startup Semetric, which runs the Musicmetric analytics tool, as part of its plans to relaunch its Beats Music streaming music service later in the year.

It will be fascinating to see what type of plan Apple has for Beats. Will it be integrated into iTunes as a technology, or will Beats get some Apple touch-ups and continue on as it is.

“It’s a fantastic product, an incredible achievement,” he said. “I’m not just living in the tradition and culture and the past, I also want to be connected to the future. The Apple Watch connects me to the future. My watch connects me to history, to eternity.”

Oh boy, this is going to be an interesting year.

iMore:

NBC will stream 11 continuous hours of live content on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 1 to desktops and iPads. The “Super Stream Sunday” event will run from noon EST and to around 10 p.m. and include NBC’s pre-game coverage, Super Bowl XLIX itself, the halftime show, and the post-game show, and the episode of The Blacklist that will air following the game. The stream will take place through the NBC Sports Live Extra app.

That’s a lot of talking about football.

Apple captured a record 33 percent market share in South Korea in November, the highest ever for a foreign brand, according to a monthly report released by Hong Kong-based market research company Counterpoint on Wednesday. In contrast, Samsung’s share slipped to 46 percent after hovering around 60 percent for five months.

The quarterly iPhone numbers are going to be incredible.

It really does. You can’t buy advertising like that.

Jim and Shawn talk about quoting Steve Jobs, Google Glass, Mac magazines and NAMM!

Sponsored by Squarespace (use code GUITARS for a free trial and 10% off) and lynda.com (Visit the link and do something good for yourself in 2015, sign up for a FREE 10-day trial to lynda.com).

The Verge:

While Khan Academy has had an iOS app since 2012, it has typically not offered the full experience found on its website. All of its videos were available, but none of its thousands of training exercises were offered to iOS users.

That all changes today with the introduction of a completely redesigned app for the iPad — now, everything that lives on the site is also available to iPad users. That includes some 150,000 learning exercises.

I’ve checked out a few of the Khan Academy classes and am fairly impressed with them. A great tool for learning.

Vox:

Consumer Reports’ testing processes, scientific rigor, and commitment to independence are commendable. But it’s difficult to take them all in without asking an important question: does Consumer Reports have a future?

Even though I don’t completely trust Consumer Reports because of some of their tech and Apple coverage, their testing process makes for an interesting read.

Seth Clifford:

When Steve Jobs famously made that comment— the “if you see a stylus, they blew it” one—it’s pretty clear that he was talking about the general use cases involving touch screens and human interaction.

Latching on to the core of an single statement in its most literal sense prevents us from growing bigger and better ideas. To come back to the comment specifically, even if Apple decided “hey, you know what… maybe we were wrong about the stylus thing” it would likely be because it took the idea, observed how the world applied it and made a judgment call.

Requiring a stylus in order to use a device would be wrong. That’s what Jobs meant. But using a stylus for specific uses but not be required for that use is not a bad idea. It’s simply offering additional flexibility.

iMore:

Literally every time I work in the computer store, we’ll get a customer whose Mac is plagued with problems they don’t understand: Their Mac is acting slow. It crashes. And more. And in more cases than not, we find that they’ve installed a program called MacKeeper. Removing MacKeeper fixes the problem. So what is MacKeeper and why should you avoid it? Read on for details

It’s definitely “crapware” and the company’s tactics are sleazy. As Peter says, avoid and warn others.