The software that shaped us

Computer Music has had a 25-year history, and over the life of this magazine, the technology behind music production has changed beyond recognition. Here are the products that set the stage for the modern world…

You might well think that the plugin-stuffed computer you use to make music on has been around forever. But when we launched this magazine, over 25 years ago, such technology didn’t exist, and the world of computer musicmaking was a very different one indeed. You needed hardware to boost your computer processing power, you needed soundcards to plug in to said computers, and you needed cash by the bucket-load to afford all of these extra bits and pieces.

Now, in real terms, making music on a Mac or PC is easier and cheaper than ever, and you have a big and evolving history – and one that ran in parallel to the history of this magazine – to thank for that. Over those two plus decades, there were huge innovations in both hardware and software. There were new platforms, new development tools, the invention of software instruments and hardware controllers, and behind all of it were innovative (and mostly German) companies.

What ties this history together was a passion for creating products that make music production easy, that make realising our ideas and our imaginations as simple as booting up and recording. So it’s time to praise the innovators, and give thanks to them for creating the slick and powerful music-making systems that we use now. Here are the key innovative products that defined computer musicmaking. They changed the game, forever.

Propellerhead ReBirth (and Native Instruments Generator & Nemesys Gigasampler) PC/MAC

OK, so yes, that is technically three products, not one, but issue 2 of delivered this triple punch of historic software in a roundup of softsynths. So why are all three of them worthy of a mention? Well, Generator was NI’s first synthesiser and a modular precursor to Reaktor (see below for more on that).