Music and beyond

[ Cover Story ]
The development and growth of electronic music on the internet has been phenomenal to say the least. What started out as a trend between a couple of individuals to share encoded files, which when played, produced music, turned into an alternative that record labels now consider a huge threat to their revenue and are increasingly considering switching towards it themselves as a medium through which to market their clientele.

Music and computers came together when the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) introduced the first modern-day synthesiser. Originally created for the purpose of industry professionals studying the science of sound, introducing the synthesiser opened a world of possibilities for musicians. The amalgamation of computers and microprocessors meant that comparatively large quantities of music data could be stored on a computer.

Making advancements in music technology Sequential Circuits developed the MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) format in 1981. What differentiated MIDI from the synthesiser was that other then allowing the transmission of sound information, it identified the structure pertinent to the file itself. The creation of MIDI spurted a rapid growth in the development of electronic music and all hell broke loose the moment this advancement found its way to the internet.

The MP3 (Moving Pictures Experts Group-1 Audio Layer 3) format, which revolutionised the way we listen to music, was developed in the 1980s by the Fraunhofer Institute, a German research firm. It is a compression format that condenses audio files, incurring only a small difference in sound quality. The more the file is compressed, the worse the sound quality of the file becomes. The Fraunhofer Institute went on to develop the first MP3 player in the early nineties but the resulting application wasn’t up to the mark and was abandoned.

Around the same time in 1995, the Progressive Networks released, what was then described as, an application enabling internet users to select and play music clips from a menu and listen to them immediately. The application was the Real Audio Player that was integrated the RealPlayer 4.0 into the Internet Explorer 4.0 in 1997.

Also in 1997, Tomislav Uzelac, a developer at the Advanced Multimedia Products created the AMP MP3 Playback Engine which, after being released over the internet, was used by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev who altered it by giving it a Microsoft Windows outlook and renamed, the Winamp. The creation and free-availability of the Winamp is what is believed to be really responsible for the MP3 craze that raged from then on till now. Justin Fankel and Dmitry Boldrev also recently created the MacAMP.

Winamp’s launch into the cyber world boosted the growth of numerous encoders, search engines, players and so on but none could match what Napster had to offer. Napster’s history has been riddled with controversy and court-cases, which rendered it infamous, and as a hero to many MP3 pirates. From the day it was launched on the internet in 1999, Napster was a direct threat to many record labels since by connecting users to each other’s hard drives, it allowed users the opportunity to search and download any kind of popular music within minutes. However, Napster was charged with copyright law violations by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and was ordered to shut down. This move may prove to be ineffective when it comes to MP3 downloads because there are many other application software and websites which are currently offering the same services that Napster did back in 1999.

Another breakthrough when it comes to music over the internet is the online streaming of the internet radio which was first introduced by Carl Malamud in 1993. More important then that, Radio HK, the first full-time, internet only radio station began broadcasting in February 1995. This method of broadcasting used a web-conferencing reactor that would in turn be connected to an audio CD that would move in almost-endless loops. However, pretty soon, Radio HK then converted to using the servers of RealAudio.

What revolutionised online radio and made it accessible for all was when in 1999, when the ability to net-cast 10 minutes of data by anyone was made available by a company called BMP. The software used, MyCaster, was built like an MP3 player which sent a stream to the MyCaster website, while the user would have been listening to the tracks. The MyCaster website would then provide an amplified stream for their users to access. Unfortunately, MyCaster went down with the internet bust in 2001.

Music in all forms has been appreciated by people of all ages. With more and more diverse viewers logging into the internet everyday, the demand for music will constantly be on the rise. With peer2peer file-sharing in vogue yesterday and internet-radio today, who knows what the future brings in terms of trends and mode of transmission that the music of tomorrow will bring.

First Published:
Spider
October 2006