Palo Alto, CA Ð Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) has followed up quickly on its release of Music Kit 3.0 with a Version 3.1. The new version comes well in advance of NeXTSTEP 3.1, living up to CCRMA's promise of more frequent updates.
Version 3.1 offers a slew of bug fixes and enhancements that allow for non-real-time sound-file processing through the digital signal processor (DSP) and limited support for the Ariel Quint Processor. Music applications can now be completely self-contained so they can run on systems that do not have Music Kit development capabilities.
NeXT's decision to exit the hardware business leaves musicians without a sure connection to a DSP, but CCRMA has plans to support a certain minimum configuration for audio on the '486. Price competitiveness in the PC market has resulted in a variety of inexpensive, CD-quality audio boards. And Ariel already manufactures a board that contains the same Motorola 56001 DSP that resides in NeXT computers and a NeXT-compatible connector that will work with existing samplers such as Metaresearch's Digital Ears.
According to Michael McNabb, author of the demo app Ensemble, many in the music community are anticipating a possible port to the SGI Indigo, a music-capable computer with DAT-quality audio and both digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital conversion built in.
Despite the uncertainty, development of music software is continuing. MIDIapolis Systems released SoundHouse, a $69 sound-editing application, and Rhythm King, a $99 program that turns a NeXT into a drum machine.