 MusicWorks for Macintosh was one of the first music software programs for home consumption (ca 1984); it takes up a whopping 69K of memory. I still use it: it acts as a primitive sequencer, letting me cut and paste loops that I write into some kind of coherent (hopefully catchy) song or composition. It gets a nice, unsophisticated video game sound, with about 10 "instruments"--e.g., piano, organ, trumpet (uggh), chime, synth 1, synth 2--and controls for the attack and decay as well as tremolo and vibrato. The pieces I did in '88, when the computer was relatively new, are more structured (i.e. songlike) than the most recent stuff, which is more "tracklike" and features found sound (other folks'
lock grooves from turntables, etc.). A new composition will be posted soon, something I'm pretty happy with--a score for another artist's video--that's more in the '88 spirit. Unfortunately the ancient Mac SE I run MusicWorks on seems to be dying; it takes longer and longer to save and I've lost some work. I like this little music program a lot--it's sort of the aural equivalent of MSPaintbrush, which I'm also fixated on--and I'm hoping it can be run on the newer Macs. If it can I'll plunk down and buy one.
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MusicWorks for Macintosh was one of the first music software programs for home consumption (ca 1984); it takes up a whopping 69K of memory. I still use it: it acts as a primitive sequencer, letting me cut and paste loops that I write into some kind of coherent (hopefully catchy) song or composition. It gets a nice, unsophisticated video game sound, with about 10 "instruments"--e.g., piano, organ, trumpet (uggh), chime, synth 1, synth 2--and controls for the attack and decay as well as tremolo and vibrato. The pieces I did in '88, when the computer was relatively new, are more structured (i.e. songlike) than the most recent stuff, which is more "tracklike" and features found sound (other folks' lock grooves from turntables, etc.). A new composition will be posted soon, something I'm pretty happy with--a score for another artist's video--that's more in the '88 spirit.
Unfortunately the ancient Mac SE I run MusicWorks on seems to be dying; it takes longer and longer to save and I've lost some work. I like this little music program a lot--it's sort of the aural equivalent of MSPaintbrush, which I'm also fixated on--and I'm hoping it can be run on the newer Macs. If it can I'll plunk down and buy one.
- tom moody 4-22-2004 5:55 am