Digital Music

Ever since the beginning of time the human mind has been puzzled by the perception of what is now called music. The most primitive sound of the early drums had a very particular effect on the members of the neighboring clans and tribes; who took the drumming as a way of long distance communication among other things. But the most important interpretation of the early music had to do with the effect of making people react to the different moods of this drumming, by combining time and sound it was possible for the early artist to create a singular state of mind on his audience. The capability to record the combination of sound and timing are some of the qualities that make the computers the ideal tool for the creation of music.

Some of the very early music tools for the computers were these fabulous programs called sequencers, and their inception were based on the principle of the piano roll, where there is a paper grill, punched with holes, that let the air move in certain direction, triggering a key in an automated piano and mechanically perform a predetermined song. The same principle applied to these computer programs that were able to record the messages generated from a specialized keyboard called MIDI controller. (MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Direct Interface. It is a protocol developed by the major keyboard manufactures in the mid 1980’s; Roland, Yamaha, Sequential Circuits, and Korg). These messages were the events that the sequencers recorded from the performance: Note on, note number, note velocity (the strength of the key stroke), note duration, and note end (when the finger released the key). Please note that these programs recorded the performance executed on the keyboard, not the music.

For the performance...

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...DAWs that started to become very popular was Digidesign’s Pro-Tools, a combination of hardware and software aimed to process audio content with a multi-track approach since its inception in 1984, the original program was capable of 4 channels of audio play-back with the help of a very specialized and expensive line of audio cards. Today a mid-sized Pro-Tools system can cost as much as $80,000 Dollars and it is the music industry standard for recording, editing, final mix-down, and mastering.

There are a number of current programs that have to be in this paper report, Propeller Head’s Reason (with the capability of containing its own sound modules), Logic from Apple, and Adobe’s Audition both with mastering capabilities. The only limits all of these powerful programs have, for the creation of music; are the limits of the musician’s own imagination and creativity.