What was the first Daw on Windows?

[jabe]

I've got some magazines going back to the late 1980s. They're in storage at the moment, so I'll get them next time I go.

[jabe]

I've retrieved some magazines from the crypt. Details below for anyone interested.

I ought to delve more deeply into some of the earlier ones to see if they help with the questions about the earliest sequencers and DAWs for Windows.


I found the box for Sound2MIDI by Audioworks. I've mentioned this on another thread.
(http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 5#p6397438)


So, to the mags...

1986 July - Electronics & Music Maker [subtitled "The Music Technology Magazine"] volume 6 number 5
Front cover & main feature: Tony Banks
Articles with Tony Banks, Douglas Adams, Harold Budd...
Review of AKAI S900, Shadow Guitar-to-MIDI (GTM6)...

1986 November - E&MM became Music Technology, so this is issue 1
Front & main feature: Paul Hardcastle

1987 September - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Wally Badarou

1988 January - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Yes

1988 February - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Brian Eno

1988 April - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Jellybean

1988 August - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Jean Michel Jarre

1988 September - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Techno Music
Article with Norman Cook

1988 December - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Techno from Detroit

1989 January - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Yello

1989 February - Music Technology
Front & main feature: S'Express

1990 July - Music Technology
Front & main feature: Propaganda

1993 March - Music Technology (now calling itself Music Technology Magazine)
Front & main feature: The Beloved

1994 April (now headed) MT The Music & Technology Magazine
Front & main feature: New Order

*

1990 July - Sound On Sound
This contains a review of Prism by Magnetic Music. This was my first PC sequencer and ran under DOS.

*

2003?-4 Digital Music Maker
Regular issues: 1, 2, 5, 6, 7
(2-7 from 2004; can't find a date on #1, but there was, IIRC, a long gap between issues 1 and 2)
Specials
1 Cubase SX (2003)
2 Sampling (2004)
3 Mixing (2004)
5 Synthesis (2004)

*

Micro Music
1989 April
This has a feature on a new Steinberg product called Cubit.
1989 June-July

[jabe]

Software mentioned in E&MM July 1986

1. Full page advert:
PRO-24 "A new concept in multitracl recording"
Steinberg Research products, including Pro-24, Pro-15, Pro-Creator, TNS (score writer and music editor), various sound libraries, etc. These are all for Atari 520/1040 or Commodore(?) C64/128 and SX64.
The ad is from a company called OSCLtd (Oxford Synthesiser Company Ltd).

2. Force Ten, from a Swedish company called 10 Systems was a sequencer (ie: MIDI) for the Sinclair Spectrum. In mid-1985 XRI Systems had produced the Micon sequencer for the Spectrum. The Force Ten software was about £75 and the hardware £125. Apart from the feature, there was a half-page ad later in the magazine.

3. Neither a DAW or a sequencer, this one. Commodore UK produced the Mixdown Music System to turn the Amiga into a "sophisticated musical instrument". Hmm.

4. Another ad:
Rod Argent's Keyboards advertised MOTU's Professional Composer for Apple Mac. "A recording studio at your fingertips". Also DigiDesign, software to create sounds for Apple Mac, Prophet 2000, or Ensoniq Mirage.

5. XRI's system (see 2 above) for Spectrum. Sequencers.

[Gonga]

Somebody feel free to correct me if I'm wrong because I'm no expert, but my impression is that there were already multiple midi sequencers running on DOS before Windows arrived. Therefore, there was no one "first" sequencer on Windows, since there were a number that were all already there. Furthermore, none of first versions were "DAWS" because they didn't record audio - they were sequencers. Hard disks had to grow before audio recording to them was feasible. Even after they were large enough, most studios continued to use tape for quite some time.

Musicians like me, who didn't own midi gear, only older analog stuff, had no use for sequencers at first. I myself was still using my 1975 TEAC A-3340S tape deck right up until I bought my first midi keyboard, an Alesis QS8, in 1999. That was the same year I tried a free version of Cubase which came with the Alesis, then purchased Cakewalk Pro Audio 8, my first sequencer and DAW.

[jabe]

There were, as you say, sequencers running on DOS and other OSes before there were any for Windows, but that doesn't stop there being a first sequencer and a first DAW that could run on Windows.

[Big Busker]

The answer can be more accurately pinpointed when we understand that Windows itself didn't start as an OS -- originally it was a program running on MS-DOS.

The first true Windows OS was Windows 95. With "Chicago" (Win 95's code name during product development) and August 24, 1995 (the commercial release date) as a starting point, we can then define the phrase "digital audio workstaton".

As the phrase is currently used, I believe it implies both (a) recording, mixing, playback and manipulation of sound, and (b) capture and manipulation of MIDI messages.

If we can agree on the points above, we can then choose among the first commercial products (rather than user-written programs, of which there were many) -- that were actually written for Windows 95 (which had become an OS in its' own right).

Samplitude Studio v 2.05
Soundforge 4.0a
Cakewalk Pro Audio 4
Cubase VST 3.5 For Win 95
Logic v 2.5.3
(original) Sonic Foundry Vegas
Ableton Live 1.0
Goldwave
Nemesys Gigasampler
and does anyone remember N-Track Studio?

Of course, many of the "user-written programs" became successful commercial products later on, like Cool Edit.

This thread was a big source --
http://www.oldschooldaw.com/forums/index.php?topic=83.0

Of course, I expect some consideration and discussion. Feel free to correct me (please be gentle).

[jabe]

I get your drift, sort of, about the possibility of Windows 95 being the first version that was an OS in its own right, but that doesn't mean previous music software wasn't running under Windows 3.1 or sooner. They may well have been using the Windows UI and other features.

So, on balance, earlier ones may have still run under Windows, whether it was or wasn't an OS in the strictest sense, and thereby qualify as answers to the original question.

I agree about the commercial aspect.

The link looks thorough.

Hope that's gentle enough!

[TheKid]

I still got this.


I won't forget how Apple killed my beloved Logic for PC.

[Gonga]

There were, as you say, sequencers running on DOS and other OSes before there were any for Windows, but that doesn't stop there being a first sequencer and a first DAW that could run on Windows.

I bet most of the 16-bit DOS sequencers ran on 16-bit Windows just fine. Windows has always focused on being backward-compatible, and 3.1 was just a shell for DOS. My guess is very few if any DOS sequencers weren't running on Windows 3.1 as well, which really was DOS 6.2.

[Big Busker]

I still got this.


I won't forget how Apple killed my beloved Logic for PC.

I hear you. I still have my MT4 MIDI interface. Runs like a train on an '07 HP laptop (Vista 32-bit).

[jabe]

There were, as you say, sequencers running on DOS and other OSes before there were any for Windows, but that doesn't stop there being a first sequencer and a first DAW that could run on Windows.

I bet most of the 16-bit DOS sequencers ran on 16-bit Windows just fine. Windows has always focused on being backward-compatible, and 3.1 was just a shell for DOS. My guess is very few if any DOS sequencers weren't running on Windows 3.1 as well, which really was DOS 6.2.

Prism, the first one I had, ran on a PC just under DOS. It had a massive 20MB hard drive, partitioned into two of 10MB each. I was forever copying stuff onto floppies to create space.

[D-Fusion]

yamaha music computer cx5m (Was made together with Microsoft).