Computer-Music.com contains articles and product reviews related to making music using
computers and creating 3D computer animation in sync with music.
Computer-Music.com is also the home page of Donald S. Griffin, an
experienced professional composer, sound effects designer and audio consultant
with an emphasis on computer games, video games and internet music and
sound effects. For pricing and contract availability send email to: DGriffin
(@) Computer-Music (.) com
Home
What's Here?
If you've been here before then check out What's New?
to see how the site has changed since your last visit. New articles, sounds, music,
reviews, and great links are constantly being added. The 'What's New?'
section will soon be expanded into a more comprehensive News area with bits
and pieces of industry news in addition to the usual site update
information. I am still trying to determine the most visitor-friendly format
so you can visit the site often and grab the latest headlines in a few
seconds.
Click Quick Picks to find
links to computer music and 3D computer graphics related products that are
worth a quick look. The 'Quick Picks' section is brand new but it will
grow very rapidly. Since a Quick Pick is just a Name, Comment, and Link they are
easy for us to post and easy for you to read. So they will be updated often.
Possibly as often as every day. You can read more about Quick
Picks on the Quick Picks
page.
Click on Spot Reviews to read reviews of
computer music and 3D computer graphics related hardware and software while they are still being reviewed.
There are so many cool products piling up that we found it necessary to
create the Quick Picks page to take
some of the load off the 'Spot Review' section. The advertising on this site was
added to help pay for the time it takes to review these products but ad revenues
are very low all over the web so this has not panned out. Therefore, though Spot
Reviews will not be as plentiful as originally planned. The new Quick Picks page
will try to take up some of the slack and its information will be more timely. People who know me will tell you that I have a tendency to say exactly what
I think and I am pretty bold about it. Visitors to this site often say I
explain difficult concepts in ways that make those concepts easy to
understand. I hope these two things you will keep you coming back to this
site. Some visitors have pointed out that some of the Spot Reviews look like
advertising copy from the makers of the products. We never cut and paste
information from press kits. Some visitors even get confused and think we are
selling these products. We are not. One reason they tend to look like ads is
that they are much more brief than a typical magazine review just as an
advertisement usually is. The reason many of these reviews look so positive is
that no product even begins the review process unless preliminary investigation
shows it to be very promising. There is no time for reviewing products that show
no promise in the first place. In that sense you could consider it a 'brownie
point' for a product to appear in a Spot Review at all.
Click on Articles to read technical articles on
making music using computers. The numbered articles #1, #2 & #3
start you off at the very beginning but contain some information that may be helpful even
for advanced users. For computer music professionals Musical Techniques for Interactivity
is an advanced article about how to make interactive music for computer games and other
interactive products. I, like so many other musicians, have been looking for
ways to create visuals to go along with my music. Over the past year this
has caused me to dive much more deeply into my long interest in 3D computer
graphics and animation. This has lead me to spend many long hours with many
different 3D software packages and online with users groups and even
collaborating in design and testing of plug-ins to add capabilities to 3D
software including music and sound effects synchronization and even allowing
music to control the graphics directly I quickly found that many computer
graphics artists are musicians also. Many computer musicians are also
interested in 3D computer graphics. So many musicians want to create
something visual to go along with their music or music video that articles
for beginners about how to make 3D computer graphics will start appearing on
this site. They will be just as easy for beginners to understand as the
numbered computer music articles for beginners already on this site. During
my experimentations I often discover things that may not fit neatly
as beginner or advanced topics. In email groups they have garnered a lot of
interest so I plan to start writing those of and adding them to the site. I
am just not sure what to call them, maybe case studies, and where to
put them, maybe in their own section. Let me know what you think. Additional articles for beginners, professionals and even a few for
the rest of you will be added as time goes on. Several are already in the works.
One reader pointed out that computers have changed so quickly that some of
the comments in the numbered articles (pertaining to CPU speeds and hard disk
sizes) are out of date so they will soon be checked and updated.
Click on Sound to hear examples of original music and
arrangements by Donald S. Griffin as well as a recorded radio interview on
Gig-A-Bytes.
Take a look at the new Graphics
section. A launching pad for all 3D computer graphics related material on
this site. Much of this material will have an emphasis on integrating music
and sound effects with 3D computer animation. Here you will eventually
find news, reviews and articles about 3D computer graphics for beginners and
for composers who want to integrate their music and sound effects with
animation. There I also share my experiments with various CG (Computer
Graphics) applications in a sort of laboratory gallery format.
An article (or series of articles) is planned outlining my computer
graphic odyssey of discovery in order to show the things I learned as I passed
from one graphics package to the next over roughly 10 years.
The Links page has been slated for renovation
very soon. I have a lot of plans for it. In the past I have had
difficulty finding the time to maintain this site so I thought you would be
more interested in my maintaining this site's content than pointing you
towards other sites. However there are many, many neat sites out there with
useful products, services, tutorials and even a few that are very good
resources for specific programs. Search engines never seem to work as well
as you would like and I have often benefited from a well organized links
page. In the near future I hope to provide the same at this site. Especially
useful should be links to specific product tutorials and examples of their
use as well as the home pages for plug-in designers who are often given very
little attention on the pages of the products which their plug-ins are
designed to support.
Click on Services to learn what Computer Music
Consulting can do for you. Here you can also find many cool links to
software, hardware, people & organizations in the computer music and 3D
computer graphics industry and just
plain cool sites on the internet. Some of the products listed here will be moved to the
new Spot
Review area as soon as their reviews are finished.
Click on Credits for a page listing and
showing many of Donald S. Griffin's music, sound effects, and consulting credits
including comments about many of these projects.
Coming Soon: Look for answers to your most difficult questions or post
a question to be answered publicly in the new Letters To The Editor section.
I previously tried a Forum format but it became to difficult to maintain due
to the state of the software at that time. It also occurred to me that I
would have to constantly monitor it for language or subject matter
inappropriate to the young children whom I encourage to share in this
wonderful new technology. So I decided a Letters To The Editor format would
be easier to maintain. With all that is happening this new section may take
a while to begin showing up. It will probably appear under the enhanced news
section I am planning right now.
Then, when you are done looking around please send me a note at
dgriffin (@) computer-music (.) com with comments
about your first impressions of or past experiences with this site If you
already know me please say hello. It is fun read comments from
my friends. If you have a specific question that you would like me to answer
then please ask it. Many visitors have sent some very encouraging and heart warming
comments back when we had a guest book. We used to have an active guest book
with many wonderful user comments but abuse by spammers forced us to remove it.
Finally, if you think there is a new feature, article, or resource you would like to see
added to this site or if you have a question you could not find the answer to anywhere
else on this site feel free to send email to the address at the bottom of every page. We
will try to answer your questions via return e-mail as soon as possible so if you are not
sending from your own computer please say so and include your e-mail address with your
question. If your question might have wide appeal and if you do not mind if we use your letter as
a Letter To The Editor then please say so in your email. When that new section of the site
opens yours letter might be one of the first letters listed. Your letter will also
be answered directly via return email as described above.
About Computer Music Consulting
Computer Music Consulting (C.M.C.) has produced lots of great interactive music and
sound effects for many of the best games and game publishers since the days of the PC XT,
including the music for Aladdin for the Sega Genesis and more recently American Civil War
and Destiny for Interactive Magic. Even
more recent projects include music conversion for Rampage Universal Tour for
Game Boy, sound consulting and hundreds of sound effects for a location based
motion simulator game and editing of thousands of voice clips for an upcoming
sports game. Donald S.
Griffin who is the main creative element of C.M.C. has lectured at many conferences
including the Computer Game Developers Conference in '94, '96 and twice in '97. In '95 he
moderated their War Gaming Round Tables and in 1996 he moderated the Music Round Tables.
He has also written several articles for Computer Gaming World and Gamasutra on computer
music software, hardware and related technical issues as well as content production
(that's composing and sound effects design to us normal folks.) The following
magazine quote is typical of the clients reactions "PC
Multimedia & Entertainment rates Destiny sound 94%! "Beautiful Music",
"Superb" Email us at dgriffin (@)
computer-music (.) com
about adding interactive music or sound effects to your next project.
Always Something New.
MIDI Music and Sound Effects are still in the works as I
continue to wrestle with new and intriguing formats that hold the promise of allowing
sound and music to be heavily compressed while retaining a high sonic quality as well as
offering some degree of protection from piracy and copyright theft.
The 'Spot Review'
section is no longer in its infancy but you will see a lot more reviews there as
I ramp up the activity level on this site. Unlike product reviews you are
used to reading a Spot Review it will not try to detail all the features of a product. This can be done
easily by visiting the manufacturer's web site and often by downloading working demos.
I
will be focusing on the key features that are either unique or uniquely well designed that
make you decide to purchase one product over another. Because of this format I will be
able to review a greater number and variety of products and you will be able to spend much
less time reading the reviews. Hopefully this kind of review will be of greater help, in
making a difficult decision, than lengthy feature lists that seem to make all products look
alike. Because of this format you may see a review of only a paragraph. This format will
also allow me to continually update a review as I find new features that are useful or
well implemented. In other words each review may change from time to time as I become more
familiar with the product. (In fact, since I first wrote this several product
reviews have seen several version updates.)
In the past I have attempted to search the web for great computer music related
links. I eventually learned that browsing the internet is a bottomless pit into
which you throw your precious time so I will be relying more heavily on your input as to
which sites I should list. To allow a larger variety of interesting links I will be
creating two separate links pages. One with friends of CMC and links to recommended
products. The other will have links that may be interesting to or useful but have not been
checked by CMC so they do not come with any kind of recommendation. Link to this second
list of sites at your own risk. Sites they you submit for addition to this second list
should be either tremendously cool or very useful as a resource for people making music on
computers or they should advertise a product that is so outstanding as to make it stand
out in a crowd. I am sure these improvements will take a fair amount of my time but I
still welcome suggestions as to how else I might improve this site.
Tell Us About Your Cool Computer, Music, or Gaming Site!
If you have a cool site and want us to check it out then leave us an e-mail by clicking
the address found at the bottom of each page. We will check it and, if we like it, may
give you a link or even a review. Positive reviews only. Trashing people is not what
C.M.C. is all about. If we don't like you site we simply won't mention it.
Tell Us About Your Great New Hardware Or Software!
If you have a product you would like us to review please leave us an e-mail. Donald S.
Griffin has written several software and hardware reviews Computer Gaming World magazine;
was the 'Audio Guru' and the Click Conference on Windows Game Development; Lectured at the
International Interactive Communication Society in San Francisco and Sacramento; Lectured
at the Bay Area Computer Entertainment Developers Group; moderated War Gaming Round Tables
and Music Round Tables at the Computer Game Developers Conference and Lectured there four
times; and is a member of the Interactive Audio SIG of the MIDI Manufacturers Association.
Unsolicited products will not be returned and may not be reviewed. On the other hand we
love to try new games and sound equipment. C.M.C. has a large collection on both counts
(all of it legally acquired.) C.M.C. is not into piracy or theft of any kind so don't even
ask. We know and love computers, computer games, music, MIDI and digital audio.
We Will Help Students And Educational Institutions.
If you are a teacher or a student we will give special consideration to your requests
for information. If you are a student and need information for a school project on music,
computer-music or computer gaming we will do our best to help. If you are over 18 years
old we would enjoy hearing what school you are attending. If you are under 18 you should
never tell anyone on the Internet anything about where you live and that includes the name
of your school or the name of your teacher. If you are a teacher and your class would
benefit from any services we may be able to provide please let us know. A good education
is everything! We would rather donate our time and effort to improving education than
anything else. If you want to be anything in life you have to learn how to do it. In
school you learn how to learn. Then you can begin teaching yourself.
In the past year there have been lots of questions from teachers and students. We have
tried to answer them all in a timely manner but since this is a free service it must
sometimes wait until we can take care of our paying clients. Still it is one of the most
popular features of this site and we will try to keep it going as well as we can.
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