The MP3

Max Matthews is the "father" of computer music. IRCAM in France in the l950's was a groundbreaking facility of radio broadcast that helped pioneer Music Concrete. C MUSIC and C SOUND are the warhorse computer programs originally used on Unix systems. It was not until the Macintosh came out that "mainstream" music production shifted to the Apple. It made certain things easier, but for the most part didn't provide a crutch for non-musicians to be able to produce music. Max was a particularly Macintosh program that let you graphically connect icons on the screen to produce music. Processing digital audio really is the basis for utilizing the computer in music. Purists to this day still taut the MP3 as a consumer product. Just as audiofiles once heralded the vinyl album as the pinnacle of sound, professional sound engineers might be hard pressed to work with any music in the MP3 format. Mark of the Unicorn actually used an interesting acronym for their plug in for Digital Performer that converts files to MP3. L-A-M-E! Still the ability to stream audio of the internet is a worthy pursuit. It stands to reason that if technology continues to evolve, speeds will get even faster and the probability of streaming a WAV or AIFF file may come to fruition. The looming question is, what are the pluses and minuses of MP3 audio, and will it ever become the "mainstream" form of music consumption?