The Open Door: Macintosh, Midi, and Music (1988)
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- Опубліковано 22 січ 2014
- Apple promo video for the Macintosh's midi capabilities featuring Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, Laurie Anderson, and some of the funkiest digital basslines you've ever heard!
David Rosenthal : "The thing I find exciting about technology is that everything has become more user friendly" - cut to a Yamaha DX7 :)
haha !
🤣🤣🤣
Honest quote would be: "interface is a clusterf*, but it's affordable though"
Brian Eno: hold my beer!
Thanks for finding and uploading this, I thought it was lost to time. I’m in the video, prob about the least known person in it. I was playing with Chris Isaak at the the time, went on to do the Wicked Game récord with him, that was also sequenced on a Mac. Thanks again! Jw
I had this video on VHS when Apple was GIVING THEM AWAY as a promotion. My first adventure into MIDI and keyboards. We've come a long way but a classic video from the early days on MIDI.
I have been told I am a horrible musician but an amazing composer. All thanks for MIDI technology. I love MIDI!
😂
Im self taught musician i learn alot of stuff about midi
😅😅😅
I love midi 😂
My reply was better and funnier, and I have serious doubts your horrible playing sounds worth a futch with MIDI or a ram's horn up your arse! TaHa!
Loving all of that awesome 80's gear: Laurie Anderson's Synclavier, the Xpander, Akai samplers, Emax, Emulators, Kurzweil K250 et al. I miss it in a way, but to be honest I never would have been able to afford all of that kit anyway. The key difference between the world in this video and now is that you can have all of that inside the box, rather than dozens of outboard pieces. Whether or not it sounds as good is another debate, but the convenience and economics for an individual musician are undeniable. Other than that, it all feels pretty familiar. We're not really doing it a lot differently now.
its expensive gear but you get daw software
Everyone of those pices has multisampled libraries, times over. I think the hardware vs software issue is very subjective as well and much of it is psychoacoustics. Such great times we are in! We can capture the essence of any decade on the cheap! (relatively, of course).
the software daw has inspired countless rap artist such as tekashi69, lil durk, sexxy red and tupac
Weird thing is though by the late 80s loads of this gear was out of favour as computer software sequencers came in and did away with hardware sequencers.
Consequently I picked up my first synth (Jupiter 8) for £800.
I was lucky enough to pick up some nice bits for silly money.
You could get a Linn Drum machine for a few hundred quid, my TR909 cost £80 and so on.
It was a mad time when musicians left their hardware for computer based composing.
@@youcantno3963 yeah indeed. I wish I'd had the foresight to pick up a few bits of that kit at the time when they were dirt cheap. That said, my own means weren't that great at the time either!
What amazes me is how much was possible in music tech even back then. I was using Ataris with synths in 1991 but I was just a schoolboy messing around. You can clearly see from this what was coming in the next decade though. Interesting that no program names were mentioned though. It would be interesting to know who was writing all of these programs.
bill gate
@@jessihawkins9116no, not Bill Gates.
But C-Lab (Gerhard Lengeling)-> Crrator->Logic. Und Karl Steinberg (Steinberg Research)-> Cubase
All that equipment went from being expensive on sale, to worth almost nothing, to now worth a fortune.
so true...
You got 40 likes (and me only 4) for your eBay/CL pricing awareness!?
Wow the 80's are such another dimension :'), it's really fun to watch though.
A Mac Plus (1MB RAM) sitting on a MacBottom hard drive (probably 20MB). And they're running Multifinder!
No more swapping floppies once you had that HD20
Love those glorious electronic sounds, and great document of music technology of the 1980s. Just so.... beautiful and nostalgic
I'm sitting here going "OMG a KAWAI K5, I have one of those!"
Terrible sounds in the late 80's.
Crazy how much has improved and yet is still the same 30 years later. Now, most all pop/hip hop/edm etc... is done on midi with software.
This is instantly better than every other video of its ilk simply by virtue of all the awesome jazz musicians they got for this.
RIP Jimmy Wilsey. Found this video after it was referenced in Michael Goldberg's "Wicked Game" (2022).
I actually bought his one solo album, "El Dorado" on I-Tunes/Apple Music recently. I was surprised to find it there (and to see original 14 year old reviews) because it's sadly and undeservedly a bit obscure. But then I remembered his early work with Apple digital music technology and thought, I bet he had fans at the company. I was so happy to be able to easily purchase the album in digital form, since CDs of it are so rare and expensive. RIP Jimmy Wilsey, you were an absolute guitar genius and one of my favorite players of all time. I wish you were still out there making beautiful music.
Thanks for uploading. I worked part time as a session musician in the late 80s/early 90s, creating stock/library music. This stuff sends me back. :)
What company?
I like the carrier bag at 1:30
You can see the disappointment on the other guys' faces; "I thought that was a cooler packed with beers"
Ah, the memories. I had a Mac Plus and Master Tracks Pro. Then later, Alesis MMT 8 sequencer and HR 16 drum machine, with four track cassette. And I loved them.
Alesis MMT is still the king. Hard to come by.
I remember Vangelis taking this concept to the top, conducting a whole virtual orchestra in real time.
vadgeless is dead bruh
Also he composed new ages and film scoring
Thanks for posting this! I used to have this video on vhs from the late eighties and showed it many times in different schools, meetups etc. I loaned it out and finally lost it. The best thing about it is getting insight to the process that these musicians were into at the time with the tools of the time. Everything changes and hopefully evolves. I used Vision, Studio Vision, Alchemy, OMS, phew! good times!
The difference musicians in this video are very good at their craft even without synthesiser.
That's exactly what Tom Coster's point was in this video. And there are musicians today who hold true to the fact that musicianship is more important than technology. Although, I must admit, that all that MIDI gear featured in this video is very desirable. The form factor, the looks, the aesthetics, the feel. You can't get that inside a laptop. Having said that, over my 25+ years affair with keyboards, I must say that technology rather slowed down my musical development. It's fun to interact with all this gear from the '80s, even reading all the manuals is fun. But it doesn't make one a better musician; unfortunately.
These FM sounds really sound like ass.
+James Reeno I didn't even listen to that video because I saw Herbie. Check out some DX7II sounds and way of funky playing on Vangelis' Direct album from 1988. It's incredible.
(1988)
i love that people are doing things like using a guitar as a MIDI controller to sequence a room full of hardware synths and drum machines and they keep on insisting "it's so easy!"
Yea that's what Roland was obsessively trying to push back then. Similar to their insistence on V.A. nowadays.
Hey, that’s me w the midi guitar!
Yeah V-Guitar is crap (dunno about other v-whatever). V-drums though.. Been using them for 15 years. Before that I had to finger-drum on the keyboard. Hated it but I was actually good at it using the GM mapping. Nah. I'd rather hit the pads.
@@jamescwilsey Was the MIDI pickup in the 80s buggy at all? And also, did it sense velocity?
@@brdane I wouldn't call if velocity. That term only makes sense with a keyboard. But yes, you can control the volume of the note based on how hard you play the string.
MIDI pickup just act like normal pickups, but with separate outputs for each string. It must be plugged into a separate device that translates the audio into MIDI notes. I have the Roland GK-2A pickup plugged into a Roland GI-10 (I think those are from the late 80s or early 90s?). It supports soft/loud, bends, chords, etc. I can't speak for all MIDI pickup setups, but mine doesn't seem buggy/glitchy in any way. If you're playing really softly, it might get a little confused, but its pretty dependable for normal volume playing.
OMG THE HAIR
Love it! Such happy and fun styles in the 80's
"The synthesizer and the computer are going to become the folk instrument of the 80s."
Well, most pop (popular) music is folk music.
This is why we do pop covers along with the other stuff. Pop music is really cultural communication.
The Jazz Destroyers
For certain groups of people, yes. I don't get much communication from pop music. Pop music tends to be very simplistic. Nearly 100% of the cases there's nothing to tickle the intellect in pop music. Pop music is mainly for humming in the shower, dance, reproduction, etc. To me music is more important than background for doing things. When I listen to music, it gets my full attention. The issue I have is there's hardly anything to keep my attention on pop music. Yes, watching Nicki Minaj with volume turned all the way down is fine with me, but that's not music :)
Andrew Piatek
I like to think of pop music as a limerick vs poetic prose. They're simple compared to more complex forms of music, but the best still convey universal truth.
Well, he was kind of right.
There is a short 10 year period where he had midi, breakout cables and Bluetooth but everything now comes with the full size midi port just like it used to because that’s what everyone wants. MIDI and SPDIF will stand the test of time for another 200, 500 years. Imagine making a technology that just doesn’t become obsolete because it’s that good. It’s basically like inventing the wheel. It’s just going to last forever.
Nice video. Been playing in bands since 65, lived thru all these years doing all these things, with keys & midi guitars.
That Corea track (”Drum Machine”) was the best of the bunch 😎 It’s also pretty neat to see Tony Williams play a sampler 😄
I wish he ventured to hiphop like Herbie Hancock's Rockit, that "Drum Machine" could've been one sick dance song
6:44 this reminds of the background music I'd hear in kindergarten watching films in 1987
Such a fantastic piece of history. Thank you. Love Santana's no hat look :-)
Thank you for video !
And now we have 100's of midi tracks, vsti's and plugins to totally fuck with our creativity and bring us to a grinding halt. I swear to god, music making back in the 80's was easier (albeit expensive) compared to today. We have too many options now...and most of them get in the way of the pure creative process.
+DIGITALSCREAMS Nothing's stopping you from limiting yourself so you can focus on making music instead of futzing around with patches for hours on end. ;)
+DIGITALSCREAMS I agree with Mike, for me it's all about limiting myself these days to focus on beeing creative. I work with Ableton and a have a ton of plugins but for certain periods of time when I want to focus on creating smth new and interesting I usually only let myself use some build in ableton plugins to draw out ideas. Later on in the process I then get back to my fancy sounding VSTs and polish the sound when necessary.
The only thing getting in the way of the creative process is one's own mind.
DIGITALSCREAMS, I stopped updating my studio from 2013- no ur synths, stick it through old hardware like emu ultra sampler, don't need that many updates,
I disagree, DIGITALSCREAMS,
imo
All of this stuff is just another instrument, like a flute, a guitar, whatever.
And for people in my position-used to play guitar/bass/keyboards-who can't physically play anymore, it's a way to keep on playing.
To each his/her own, I guess.
imo
the quality of this video brings me back to the VHS days :)
This video is amazing
@14:00 over his left shoulder is the Yamaha MT44! I had that model back in the day! still have the metal sensing foil and some tapes used on it.
I felt as if Apple was trying to sell me Macintosh...
still love it!!
and Tony Williams!!
I don't want to revive another flame war but i'm pretty sure that almost everyone in 1988 were using an atari ST+ Pro24/Cubase or Notator/Logic. They had MIDI by default unlike the mac.
The Commodore Amiga was also popular, especially for music trackers. Macintosh was probably 3rd place but much more common in pro studios.
I'm pretty sure this was partially funded by apple.
in professionnal studio, Amiga wasn't. Because of its support from the musical industry, the ST was the machine to use.
me too.
Right, Amiga was the computer of choice in the demoscene, which is not the music industry.
i really like these type of video remind me of who paved the way for what i make today with software based sampler and the various synth i use and well of course midi enabled gear
Honestly I’m watching this right now in 2020 for the first time and I’m a producer , I’m beyond grateful for how far gear has advanced this is crazyyyy I never really tried imagined the first daws etc
me too bro, all these vst plugn synths we have in our DAWs today was a phenomena to them.
Fascinating video and #$%&ing godlike soundtrack. Damn, that soundtrack.
I want the soundtrack to this video, like right now!
Doogie Howser MD.
yes, I remember this era quite well and also remember the significant expense required to go full-on with the technology of the time. the only way I could afford getting started was after I received a very modest inheritance that I used to finance my foray into what was then a new area.
Still. MIDI-only compositions were a function of the samples and synths being used which themselves were quite expensive. Sure, it made it possible for one person to score soundtracks, training films, commercials though it had that certain production sound that cemented it to that era. Then there were the "module" wars of the 90s when Roland, Yamaha, Ensoniq and particularly EMU had sound modules and samplers such that you would walk into studios and see racks of these things. The money spent then in pursuit of "their sound" was over the top.
Geweldig voor de producers onder ons. Midi en de Mac voor het eerst.
I thank God for Logic ProX in 2017
Very interesting documentary. I fully appreciate how this technology has evolved to what we have available now.
Love sounds ☺♥♪
I remember wanting to give an Atari user's group info on MIDI since the Atari ST had it built-in and I sent Korg USA a request for information...they actually sent me a bundle of 30 or so MIDI information pamphlets, which I thought was pretty cool of them.
Tom Coster! Love his style so much!
Love my Apple and Logic❤
"You can do whatever you can pretty much imagine.... so now the problem is trying to imagine something clever." - that is even more relevant nowadays haha
Yeah I actually laughed out loud at that one. I think anyone who's ever messed with a synth has felt this way. lol
priceless! all of it.
Analog sounds so good
Now this is the norm. How times change!
Not really. You don't get the form factor, looks, aesthetics, feel, and build quality of the '80s MIDI gear inside of a laptop.
hmmm Thats all BS imho! Its about the craftsman
Nyakz
I agree, using laptop is a BS. Playing back clips in Ableton (EDM mainstay) is as compelling of a musicianship as pressing play button on a CD player. Not very compelling. Playing keyboard, guitar, drums, woodwinds well, that's musicianship.
loool..
I'm not sure it's the "norm"
There's still a lot of bands making good albums together in a room....
....like us
That's it! I'm buyin' one of dem Macs, they lit! Music future, here I come!
Remember my first sequencer OctaMED on Commodore 64 about 20 years ago :) Awesome upload!
+NoFuk As far as I know, OctaMED was only available for the Commodore Amiga ;-). Awesome program!
yes i just remember octamed being on the amiga as well
Yeah! Motu Performer!
I had one......and still can moonwalk better than a teen!!!!
That's the animation 'Polly Gone' @24:51.
Supposedly, it was popular in the vaporwave scene. I'd never heard of it until now. The original soundtrack is pretty cool too.
"The keyboards and sequencers were instrumental, I think..." - An accurate disembodied voice
Un video promozionale di Apple del 1988 della durata di 32 minuti sul perchè usare un Mac per suonare...con molti ospiti famosi.
what an interesting video. Now millions have a Mac and making music.
I can't find any of the demo songs...I love that shufflin one by Rosenthal and the frank sarafine I am my job....but joyce imbesi still looks great to this day 😍.....makes me wish I wasn't in kindergarten at the time missing out on this stuff
Man you should see whats available now! It would blow these peoples minds...
We did understood what the craft was all about. It wasn't just a toy for Christmas.
Condensed version: ua-cam.com/video/DIYC5Y-BVoc/v-deo.html
I love the 80's
I'm a 80s baby
this why Mac the goat.
Iv got Alan and heath 32 channel 8 bus studio master classic 8 mix-down now own it built it 2 times in my studio along with two other desks
i love watching this but it makes me kind of annoyed that they didnt give credit where credit is due.. the program they are using is MOTU PERFORMER. (the original version before the audio recording capable version renamed *DIGITAL* PERFORMER)i cant beleive that at no point in the program do they mention mark of the unicorn at all. it just highlights thier intention was not to really educate someone on the subjects but this is meant solely as entertainment to amaze some couch potatos back in the late 80s. "ooh thats neat" - they keep illogically attributing credit to "the mac" when its not the mac they should be praising at all but rather the programmers behind the application's design + development.
I agree. Started with Performer 2.XX way back then, and still use DP today. I still remember those tiny black and white screens. I don't think these older eyes could handle it now.
I'm only three minutes in to this but really seems this was a promotional and sales tool to sell Macs and the 'scenerio' was the music industry and they were trying to sale directly to musicians and writers. So they probably had them locate sales reps that sold them packages that included MOTU. Just my thoughts.
Santana really committed to that bandana.
would love a copy of that Joyce cassette
Thank You Mr. Dave Smith + Steve Jobs to provide us the entire new world of Music industry..
this is the time everybody thought analog sucks
BEST.COMMENT.EVER
Yep...listen to all those shitty FM presets and crap samples. At least now we have better samples and wavetable synths to go along with the warm analog sounds.
I'd take a Yamaha DX7 over a Minimoog any day.
I'd love both the DX7 and a Minimoog, but if I could only choose 1 I'd have to go with the DX7 as well.
dx7 is difficult too program has polyfoni and is digital the minimoog is easy too program is monofornic and anlog they is ups and downs
Where can we hear that awesome Frank Serafine track at 23:17?
This is great. Now all of that capability and then some resides in my little iPhone.
And not that easy to pull off on the iphone either.
no it doesnt , if that would be the case nobody would seach for the original vintage gear and thy would all try to buy your iphone , A CHEAP SUBSTITUTE is what resides in your phone generating cheap results
i just wonder the price of the midi converter for guitar in 88, awesome
17:12 did anyone else notice that it didn't actually change the key (as she described the operation)? Still in Bb Major (or G minor)..
Very nice video can you help me my friend i want to make music with vintage staff ..can you suggest any programs to use with the classic mac?
Damn hella wavey.. bruh like the prince of tides. Damn near jerrycurled. Digital pimpin
Does anyone know which was the main sequencer program for the Mac back then?
20:37 ... gunna sample that later making a note to myself.
Hey folks. Anyone here has the old TASCAM MIXPILOT software or has an idea how to use the automation of our TASCAM M 5000 mixing console?
Is that Tony Williams on there!? With a SIMMONS kit!? lol
dude awesome catch :-) and he's making that awful violin sound. priceless.
This probably was the only time he was even seen with a Simmons.
All those Simmons toms sound the same, just a windmill flash of t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t
Used to make amps for Simmons.
And now I use the iPhone with midi
Its hard to believe that computer technology on the mac was that
advanced already way back in 1988 where they already had
music production daw software and midi .
The funny thing was even after Windows being out for
a few years after 95 , its not like it was that reliable for
music production , at least the cost benefit ratio wasn't there like
Atari or mac because Windows always did need more external low
latency expensive setups .
I had a Macintosh, still used the sequencer in my Ensoniq...for notation maybe, but 9" monochrome screen was never impressive.
@24:52 anyone recognize that video on the projector? Common vaporwave anyone?
Hah, Tony Williams! That was unexpected.
+Steve Raff His "composer" side is under appreciated. He really evolved a lot over the years.
21:37 Street Fighter 1!!
I hope it works like it says, if so it will be very good for me!
To be a working adult in those days… when musicians abandoned good old cv/gate and analog synths - system 100m, system 700, moogs, pro ones, and Jupiter 8s were going for nothing. Nothing wrong with cv/gate and an MC-4 sequencer (which go for $5k now). What’s funny is Fairlight page-r and Cubase on the Atari ST were better for midi back then too.
Só me lembrou os games de antigamente, que dlç
RIP Tony Williams, if only he could see what has become of midi drum sets
It’s crazy how you still needed to know music & theory to use this programs and tools then...
they could do anything, only not getting the sound right
In Germany it was the atari
Yeaaaa
Si con un poco potente MAC de 1988 llegaron lejos, si hubieran utilizado un Sharp X68000 ¿A dónde hubiera llegado la música? Hubiera sido algo alucinante.
What machine had better timing, the Atari ST or those macs?
Why can't I find David Rosenthal's "Shufflin'" anywhere on the web? I'd really like to buy it.
There's no guarantee that any of these songs were officially released (or still in print). Apple probably just asked him to play an unfinished project he had saved on the Mac.
I'd say check which projects David Rosenthal was working on around 1987-1989, but I don't know if it would reveal any answers.
avec des macs 2... génial
Do you still own the VHS promo tape of this?