CrunchGear

Got a spare $35k? Buy a real Tron light cycle
My brush with the good life: Wearing a $77,000 watch
Review: I dig the iRig
The REAL first video shot on an iPhone 4

Got a spare $35k? Buy a real Tron light cycle

Posted: 03 Jul 2010 04:42 PM PDT

Ok, this is a couple of days old, but it’s too cool not to share. There’s a company that makes custom motorcycles, and they are currently building a total of 5 functioning TRON light cycles. They are expensive as hell because everything is custom of course, but you have to admit – pretty damn cool.

You can customize the bike with whatever color you like (but there’s only 1 of each color being made, so hurry), the wheels are hubless, and you can pick between gas or electric engines. The cool thing is, this isn’t going to be like the Batpod either, where only one man in the entire world can ride it without killing himself, this is a real, functioning motorcycle. Hit up the Ebay auction for all the details, and if you actually buy one please send us pictures.

My brush with the good life: Wearing a $77,000 watch

Posted: 03 Jul 2010 07:37 AM PDT

In the literature of watch geekdom we often bump up against watches that cost well into the six figures, some even in the seven. I take a populist stance on the purchase of watches and encourage the intelligent watch collector to purchase what they can afford or, better yet, save up for a nice watch they can wear forever. I also, for the most part, scoff at any watch over, potentially, $20,000.

A few weeks ago I went to the JCK show in Las Vegas, a strange trade show for jewelry manufacturers where I learned a few interesting things. There I was given a glimpse at the real underpinnings of the jewelry world and came away with a few insights. First, most jewelry is literally marked up 100 percent. That $5,000 wedding ring? It cost the shop $2,500 or less. That gold ring for $400? It probably cost $50 to make and sold to the jeweler for $150. The second thing I learned is that the difference between expensive and ludicrous can quickly be crossed when when talking about highly engineered, bespoke wristwatches and that, when wearing a $77,000 on the subway, you often concern yourself not only with not scuffing the watch against a metal pole but also with the possibility of being stabbed for the hunk of steel and precious metals on your wrist.

The watch in question was the MB&F Horological Machine 3. It’s a handmade horological novelty with separate minutes and hour hands – in those little domes – and a date window next to the rotor. If you turn it on its side it looks like a little happy frog. The rotor itself is 22K rose gold and therefore worth more than my car.

These sorts of watches are owned by the rich and the super-rich alike. One prominent customer works for one of the major firms in the valley while Sultans and Oligarchs are also a target market. Generally, they make only one or two of these watches and they’re rare by dint of their scarcity, their engineering, and their materials.

First, we need to answer the question as to what makes this watch, among all other watches, special. The watchmaking world is a stratified place. On the low end you have Swatch and Timex and the like. Prices between $10 and $1,000 usually indicate a lower-end brand using mass-produced movements and assembled by robots. Then you have a dead zone between $1,000 and $8,000 populated by the mid-range purveyors like Omega, Tag Heuer, and the like. These guys sell watches the way computer manufacturers sell PCs – you’re basically always buying the same thing but you get a little value-add (or perceived value-add) to jack up the price. Every watch in this range has exactly the same movement, using an ETA or Valjoux mechanism inside.

Then you have the manufacture watches that are ostensibly made by hand from stem to stern. These range in price from $10,000 to about $40,000, depending on complexity and materials. Then you have something like the MB&F HM3. This is essentially a custom piece with a very limited run. Built for very rich collectors, think of this as a piece of artwork you wear on your wrist instead of hanging on your wall. It is, in a sense, condensed wealth and an investment although, in another sense, it is ostentation defined.

I had a blast wearing it and you sort of understand the lure of a $77,000 watch when you strap it your wrist. First you can tell the world “Hey, I’m wearing a freaking $77,000 watch” but there’s so much more. For example, it’s an excellent conversation starter (“Did you notice my $77,000 watch?”), a fun way to meet girls (“I’m wearing a $77,000 watch. What’s your name?”) and an excellent way to smuggle drug money out of Panama without carrying cash – you simply convert your cash into a watch and carry it over the border!

Watches of this pedigree and price are rare and wonderful things. This watch was designed and made in a way that is absolutely impossible to do on a budget and everything about it, from the crystal to the case, is first rate. Is it absolutely my cup of tea and, were I not a watch journo, would I buy one? Probably not this specific model (I like more complications). However, to quote Ferris, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

Needless to say when I shipped this thing back I felt the weight of 77 big ones slip off my shoulders but I did, for a few brief moments, grill my FedEx delivery guy about how quickly and quietly he could get this back on his truck and out of my life.

Review: I dig the iRig

Posted: 03 Jul 2010 07:15 AM PDT

Anybody out there remember the Rockman? It was this little personal guitar amplifier, about the size of a Sony Walkman (adding “man” to anything portable was all the rage in the 80s, you know).The Rockman let you play distorted guitar through headphones and it curiously made everything you played sound like BOSTON.

The AmpliTube iRig combo for the iPhone is kind of like the Rockman except WAY cooler. WAY, WAY, WAY cooler. We first told you about it a couple of weeks ago. I finally got my hands on one and while it’s been reviewed once or twice since that time, I thought I’d give you my view on it anyway since it ships this week – July 6 to be exact.

First lets talk about the iRig dongle. What is it? The iRig is a special connector that has an input for a 1/4 mono guitar cord as well as a headphone output jack. It showed up in the mail a few days ago and I was immediately impressed by the solidness of it. It’s still plastic, but the cable cover and coupling are pretty solid. It feels like you could pull on it pretty hard, or it could get ripped out of the iPhone many times and would not be damaged. That’s pretty much all it does; it connects the instrument to the iPhone.

AmpliTube is the amplifier modeling software that runs on the iPhone. It looks and sounds as good as you could expect for something this small and portable. The interface design is pretty great. Seeing all the stomp-boxes on your iPhone screen, complete with working LEDs and tactile knobs and controls, is a fun and natural way to conceptualize the effects. The tones they produce are pretty realistic too. Heck, just having a guitar tuner on board is a nice feature to note.

The software also lets you transfer songs to the app over wifi from any host computer on that wifi network. Once you transfer a song over, you can play along or set sections to loop. The loop triggering is pretty intuitive and works well.

Come to think of it, if I had to sum up the AmpliTube iRig combo in one word, that would be the word I would choose – intuitive. You don’t have to read one instruction manual or download a single PDF to figure out how to use AmpliTube for iPhone. Just plug your guitar or bass in and start fiddling with it. In no time you will have some serious guitar fuzz flowing past your little eardrums.

To get a sense of how this thing works and sounds in a real situation, I recorded some of its tones and compiled them into the video below (just skip to the middle, if you want to hear the effects only and not my commentary).

Sure, a few of the buttons are a little small, but over all IK Multimedia did a pretty bang-up job with this little setup. The total price of $60ish (iRig plus full version of AmpliTube) may seem a tad steep if you are a casual or infrequent player, but if you are a songwriter or serious guitarist who is tracking little ditties all the time, I’d say this duo is worth the full price just for its small footprint. Rocking out on your back porch was never so easy my friends.

The REAL first video shot on an iPhone 4

Posted: 03 Jul 2010 06:48 AM PDT

As you recall, some guys did a music video entirely on an iPhone. They claimed to be the first. However, these guys claim they are first. Who’s right? Who cares? The music is pretty good and the video is funny.

Also, what kind of name is Doctor Pants? And who drinks sarsaparilla anymore?

Click through to see a making-of video.