News

May 23, 2013

Jeff Pearce and Robert Rich AMBIcon concerts on YouTube

As previously announced, we are posting free full length videos of all AMBIcon 2013 events on YouTube in the next two weeks. There are 8 concerts and 2 conference sessions, ten total. Here are the first 3:

MUSICIANS’ PANEL DISCUSSION :
http://youtu.be/T5LC5Y6boTU

JEFF PEARCE Concert :
http://youtu.be/jbgZ9n1PToo

ROBERT RICH Concert :
http://youtu.be/c5FZH2Yen-8

Coming soon: TIM STORY and MICHAEL STEARNS!

May 12, 2013

First AMBIcon video up on YouTube!

Over the next two weeks we’ll be posting full-length videos of all 10 of the scheduled events at the AMBIcon 2013 conference: 2 morning sessions and 8 concerts. In the interest of getting them out sooner than later, these are simple fixed camera videos with clean stereo sound from the mixing board.

If you missed the live stream during the event, this is the best way to see and hear what happened until we are able to release the full multi-camera/surround sound versions of the concerts later this year.

Here’s the first session Saturday morning, the Artists Panel Discussion and Q&A:

https://youtu.be/T5LC5Y6boTU

April 17, 2013

AMBIcon Update: New Low Cost Ticket Tiers!

With less than 2 weeks to go before the event, we're busy tying down all the many details of the production, and focussing on selling the rest of the tickets!

SINGLE CONCERT SALES : Most of the people who will be attending the full conference have already registered and made their travel arrangements, so we are zeroing in on ticket sales for the 4 "double" concerts over the weekend. To that end, the word is going out on multiple performance mailing lists, print and online publications that cover Northern California.

To help this effort we've established NEW LOW COST TICKET TIERS FOR THE CONCERTS. In
addition to the $65 Premium Seating, we now have $35 General Admission
for the first three concerts, and a $25 General Admission for the final
one.

We've created new pages on our ticketing site for each of the 4 double concerts:

CONCERT 1—DEEP AMBIENT : JEFF PEARCE / ROBERT RICH
SATURDAY May 4th, 2PM INFO and TICKETS

CONCERT 2—DEEP SPACE : TIM STORY / MICHAEL STEARNS
SATURDAY May 4th, 8PM INFO and TICKETS

CONCERT 3—DEEP JOURNEY : STEPHAN MICUS / STEVE ROACH
SUNDAY, MAY 5th, 2PM INFO and TICKETS

CONCERT 4—DEEP WORLD : HANS CHRISTIAN / STELLAMARA
SUNDAY MAY 5th, 8PM INFO and TICKETS

GENERAL CONFERENCE INFO: http://ambicon.hos.com

April 15, 2013

A Rave Review for Stephan Micus

The Guardian (UK) has reviewed the latest album and London
concert by AMBIcon performer Stephan Micus. Any musician would die happy for
press like this. For Stephan, it’s almost routine:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/apr/11/stephan-micus-review

Stephan will open Concert #3 of the conference on Sunday afternoon, May 5th, followed by STEVE ROACH. This will be a unique occasion by two of the most prolific and accomplished Ambient artist in the world.

CONCERT 3 : STEPHAN MICUS / STEVE ROACH : SUNDAY, MAY 5th, 2PM INFO and TICKETS

All four AMBIcon concerts on one page:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/371527

March 9, 2013

AMBIcon Update, March 9th

NEW TICKET OPTIONS!

The big news is that we've put SINGLE DAY tickets and INDIVIDUAL CONCERT tickets on sale now! The effect of this is to give potential attendees a lot more options, especially if you live within driving distance of Northern California.

On the other hand, some of the concerts will sell out much sooner, so if you've been on the fence, now's the time to review the options and decide. See our event page at Brown Paper Tickets for details:

heartsofspace.brownpapertickets.com

BIG WRITEUP ON AMBIcon

Our longtime colleague JOHN DILIBERTO of the Echoes Nightly SoundScape program is a veteran music writer and reviewer. On the Echoes Blog he's done a major preview of the AMBIcon event and profiled the artists who will be appearing in concert:

http://wp.me/pgATL-1Wy

AMBICON SCHEDULE and GETTING HERE

We've added a comprehensive schedule and a detailed guide to Airports, Shuttles, Buses and Taxis to the AMBIcon event page on our web site, including printable versions:

Schedule: http://www.hos.com/#ambicon-schedule

Getting Here: http://www.hos.com/#getting-here

February 28, 2013

AMBIcon Update, February 28th

With just a little more than two months to the event (May 3-5) we will be posting more frequent updates here.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE POSTED : For those who have been asking for a more detailed schedule, it's now available on our website at http://www.hos.com/#ambicon-schedule. There's also a PDF version for printing here.

TIER 3 PRICE INCREASE POSTPONED : The full conference ticket price was set to increase by $30 on March 1st. We've postponed this one month to April 1st to encourage more to attend the entire event.

SINGLE DAY and SINGLE CONCERT TICKETS : While we have given preferential access to Full Conference attendees since the beginning of ticket sales, we have enough seats left that we can offer some lower-priced alternatives for Bay Area and California residents:

A limited number of single day tickets will be available in early MARCH.

Tickets for the 4 individual concerts will be available in early APRIL.
See the detailed schedule to choose.

DISCOUNT ROOMS AT EMBASSY SUITES HAVE SOLD OUT : We had the biggest block they offer and they're gone. You can still reserve individual suites at higher rates online at Embassy Suites Reservations, or by calling 415-499-9222 or 1-800-EMBASSY and asking for Reservations for the San Rafael, CA location.

MORE ROOMS, LESS MONEY : For an alternative, we've contacted the nearby FOUR POINTS SHERATON SAN RAFAEL Hotel and arranged for another block of discount rooms at $119/night. You can call 800-325-3535 for reservations; mention AMBIcon 2013 to get the special rate. We will post a link to their reservations page as soon as they provide it. The overflow hotel is across the highway from a large shopping mall with good restaurants and services. It's an easy 10 minute walk from the conference, or a short shuttle ride.

THE MAN WHO WROTE THE BOOK ON AMBIENT — veteran English music writer MARK PRENDERGAST, is now confirmed for a special 2 hour presentation at the Sunday morning session. He will be giving an overview of Ambient music with slides and musical examples. This is the first time Mark has appeared in the U.S. and we're really excited to have him!

More details as they become available. :: SH

March 2, 2012

ALMOST SPRING UPDATES

iPhone: new main screen

IPHONE VERSION 2

Several weeks ago we launched Version 2 of
the HoS service and added some powerful new
features. The main innovation was expanding
from the single full-time "Radio Channel" to eight full-time channels.

We also rebuilt our main menu bar for easier
operation, added additional features to the
MY PLAYLISTS section, and rewrote parts of
our custom Flash web player for smoother
and more reliable operation. A full rundown
of all the new stuff is in What's New in V2?

Until March 1st those features were only available
on the web site. Now we've added those new
features and more to our iPHONE app, and the
update is available free in the App Store if you've
already bought the app for 99¢. If you haven't
tried the iPhone app yet, now's the perfect time
to cough up the big bucks and give it whirl 😉

Our new iPhone app gives you on-the-go access to all 8 full-time channels — the eclectic All Archive Mix channel, plus seven genre-focused channels: Electronic Space, Ambient/Downtempo, Contemporary Instrumental, Orchestral/Chamber/Choral, Classic HoS Mix, World Fusion Mix, and Celtic Space.

In addition, personal playlists you create on the web site can now be played in the iPhone app.

Not only that, we've added on-demand access to programs within channels and playlists, so you can select any individual program in any of the full-time channel playlists or your personal playlists and go from there.

To answer the obvious followup question: no, you still cannot create personal playlists in the iPhone app. We had to defer that feature to Version 3. Nor can you navigate directly to any program in the archive like you can on the web site — that's also coming in Version 3. But anything you add to one of your MY PLAYLISTS is now available in the app.

So if you are determined and take the time to put all 973 programs into playlists (they're limited to 100 items each and you can make up to 100 playlists), then you can have mobile access to the entire archive now. Sweet!

Caveat user: if you make large playlists (more than 25 items) they will be very slow to load, and you will have to be very, very patient. We are testing a new back end architecture for the service that will speed things up, but for now you've been advised.

To answer the next followup question, we will be releasing a parallel update to our ANDROID app as soon as possible. We love our Android users as much as they love Hearts of Space, but for some reason there are a lot fewer of you, so our iPhone users get priority.

UPDATE, JUNE 9, 2012: Since the paragraph above was written last March, it has unfortunately become more difficult to justify the expense of releasing native Android applications. Some of the reasons are technical — Android devices are far less standardized than Apple's iOS devices, and a program that runs fine on one phone or tablet may not work in part or at all on others.

Furthermore, it is now clear that despite the large numbers of Android phones out there, only 1/5 as many people actually use the HOS Android app compared to Apple devices. Since the cost of developing it is the same as an Apple app, investing in the Android platform for a company our size no longer makes financial sense.

To solve the problem of offering mobile service to Android users (as well as other platforms like Windows Phone and RIM/Blackberry), we are now discussing developing a mobile version of our web site that will allow subscribers to run the service in the web browser of their mobile phone. There are compatibility problems using this approach as well, so we can't promise 100% support for every combination of phone/tablet and operating system like we can on Apple mobile devices. Nor can we give you a solid date for release beyond saying 'as soon as possible.'

:: SH

Our thanks to stalwart programmer PAUL YAGO for some serious midnight oil burning and even a last minute fix while on vacation! The man is driven to get it right and we love that.

MORE FLASH GOODNESS

Our second announcement is that we've launched an update to our custom Flash web player. First, the little green triangle "play" icons next to programs were too subtle for some users. They have grown up and now tell you unambiguously what they do:

You can also see which program is playing in any playlist and pause the active stream:

Clicking the CHANNELS or MY PLAYLISTS tab itself will refresh the list of channels or playlists. Clicking the PLAY icon next to a channel or personal playlist will start it playing it from the top; to see the contents of any channel or playlist, click the name.

Within any full-time channel or personal playlist we've taken a feature from the iPhone app and now allow you on-demand access to each of the programs. So in addition to being able to switch channels, if you don't care for the show that's playing in a channel you can play any other, and the playlist will continue from there.

Last but not least, we rewrote some of the hidden plumbing in the Flash player for faster operation, and also fixed several obscure bugs that no one but our ace Flash programmer ALEX BURROWS understands for sure. Nevertheless, they are gone.

Enjoy the new software, and let us know about anything you don't understand or would like to see improved in the comments or by emailing help@hos.com.

July 21, 2011

Hearts of Space Mobile Apps

We introduced our iPhone app in December 2010; a virtually identical Android app was released in late April 2011. If you are looking for Hearts of Space on-the-go, follow these links and download the app of your choice for just 99 cents.

iPhone App Store Android Market

Both these apps currently have a reduced set of features when compared to our main web site with its custom Flash player. To be specific, after free registration you can play

a selection of free introductory content
the current week’s program (as often as you like)

Subscribers who purchase our “Radio Channel + This Week’s Show” combo plan ($5 to $7 per month, depending on term and billing options) OR our “All Archive Access” plan ($10 to $13 per month, depending), also get unlimited access to our full time radio stream — the “All Archive Channel” — in both the mobile apps and online in all major web browsers. If you turn off the program voiceovers, this service is ideal for uninterrupted background music.

OUR NEXT UPGRADE

We have begun work on the next upgrade to both our mobile apps and our main web service. The enhancements include seven new full time “virtual radio channels” in addition to our current “All Archive Channel.” Here’s the list of channels:

ALL ARCHIVE MIX (aka “All Archive Channel” — same as the current “Radio Channel”)
ELECTRONIC SPACE
AMBIENT/DOWNTEMPO
CONTEMPORARY INSTRUMENTAL
ORCHESTRAL/CHAMBER/CHORAL
CLASSIC HOS MIX
WORLD FUSION MIX
CELTIC SPACE

Per user request, the next version of our mobile apps will also show and play MY PLAYLISTS that you’ve created on the web site.

One enhancement already being enjoyed by mobile users is that HOS programs in the ALL ARCHIVE MIX channel always start from the beginning — rather than being joined in progress, traditional radio-style. We will add this feature to our main web service Flash player in the next update.

LOOKING FORWARD

Our development roadmap for the near future is committed to supporting all features and services on both the web and mobile platforms. This means that whether you use the HOS music service on your desktop, laptop, tablet or mobile phone, the same content and features will be available to you — depending, of course, on the service level you choose. However, we won’t get there until the revision after next.

Look for our upgraded mobile apps and upgraded web service with 8 full-time channels this fall. Our “full featured” mobile apps will follow, hopefully in the first quarter of 2012.

:: Stephen Hill and the HOS team

April 29, 2011

HOS Android App

UPDATE: Our Android beta testers really proved themselves this week as we discovered incompatibities with certain models of Android phones like the HTC Eris. And we found one tester with a "jailbroken" phone where the app just didn't work at all. That's where we draw the line, folks: we really can't support "rooted" or jailbroken phones. Look for the finished app early next week.

Now, y'all been very patient about this, and we appreciate that.

Turns out that even when you have a finished iPhone app to model the design, building an Android app is different enough that you wind up doing 90% of the work over again. So naturally, it takes longer than you'd like, but we wanted to get it right. Thanks to our ace programmers PAUL YAGO and JOHN ZORKO, who burned the traditional midnight oil to make it happen.

The app has been in the hands of our beta testers for a week, and we've been discovering and fixing the "device-related" bugs, where it works on one model of phone, but not another. As of today we're pretty much past this, and just waiting for the last few reports to come in to confirm that everything is working as intended. We even managed to make a few improvements here and there.

If all goes well, we'll make the app available in the Android Marketplace next week. We'll announce it here in our blog, on our home page, and via email if you contacted us about the app in the past. GO ANDROID!