Making Waves (MW) is computer software designed to produce professional quality audio from basic Windows multimedia PCs. This application was among the first of the 16-bit digital sequencers that evolved from the MS-DOS WAV trackers of the Eighties to become the

digital audio workstation A digital audio workstation (DAW) is an electronic device or application software used for recording, editing and producing audio files. DAWs come in a wide variety of configurations from a single software program on a laptop, to an integra ...

software available today including

Steinberg Cubase Cubase is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed by Steinberg for music and MIDI recording, arranging and editing. The first version, which was originally only a MIDI sequencer and ran on the Atari ST computer, was released in 1989. Cut-d ...

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture ( sound design, audio post-prod ...

and

ACID Pro Acid Pro (often stylized ACID) is a professional digital audio workstation (DAW) software program currently developed by Magix Software. It was originally called Acid pH1 and published by Sonic Foundry, later by Sony Creative Software as Acid P ...

. Making Waves enabled a small community of independent artists (originally including

Daniel Bedingfield Daniel John Bedingfield (born 3 December 1979) is a New Zealand-British singer, songwriter, record producer and actor. He is the eldest brother of fellow singers Natasha Bedingfield and Nikola Rachelle. He was a judge on ''The X Factor New Ze ...

) to use existing hardware to record, sample, mix and render their own original work creating professional-quality audio with a modest investment of less than $100. This same dynamic user community played a significant role in the application's development, suggesting program revisions and performing extensive beta testing. These users were all organized and mentored by Stephen John Steele, the original programmer and developer of Making Waves as well as a founding director of Perceptive Solutions, Spacehead Systems and Making Waves Software Limited.

Overview

The application's interface integrates a sequencer, mixer, sampler and wave editor compatible with

Musical Instrument Digital Interface MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and ...

(MIDI),

Virtual Studio Technology Virtual Studio Technology (VST) is an audio plug-in software interface that integrates software synthesizers and effects units into digital audio workstations. VST and similar technologies use digital signal processing to simulate traditional rec ...

(VST) and some

DirectX plugin In computer music and professional audio creation, a DirectX plugin is a software processing component that can be loaded as a plugin into ''host applications'' to allow real-time processing, audio effects, mixing audio or act as virtual synthesi ...

s (only effects, not instruments), and the program's key feature is live mixing of MIDI input with VST (instruments and effects) and digital samples including

Yamaha XG Yamaha XG (EXtended General MIDI) is an extension to the General MIDI standard, created by Yamaha. It is similar in purpose to the Roland GS standard. Features Relative to General MIDI, XG gained popularity by increasing the number of avai ...

(EXtended General MIDI) sound libraries. Making Waves Studio renders

mp3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...

wav Waveform Audio File Format (WAVE, or WAV due to its filename extension; pronounced "wave") is an audio file format standard, developed by IBM and Microsoft, for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is the main format used on Microsoft Wi ...

and MIDI files or can be purchased as an inexpensive audio-only wav sequencer. The early commercial success of this embryonic

(DAW) was relatively brief and seemed to build on two significant events, the release of a stable

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

(GUI) version and the production of a "hit" record and album by an independent artist. First, with the release of the 32-bit Making Waves Studio version in April 1998, Perceptive Solutions had a product compatible with the Windows 95 GUI. The version provided a number of audio features never before or since consolidated at that price point. Next,

's number one UK single was created with Making Waves and released in November 2001. His number two first album of the same name, ''Gotta Get Through This'', soon followed. Making Waves began to gain sales and acceptance within the digital audio community as an affordable professional audio platform and VST host, a complete "recording studio-in-a-box".Bryant, Mike
"Making Waves Studio is ... a powerful product with ... good features for the money"
''

Sound on Sound ''Sound on Sound'' is an independently owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, ...

'', Cambridge UK, July 2003. Retrieved on 27 December 2014. " While still available for sale, Making Waves lacks a 64-bit version, is not approved for use on Windows 8 and is no longer being maintained following the death of the original developer in 2011.

References

External links

''Sound on Sound'', August 2002

''Sound on Sound'', July 2003

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Making Waves Windows audio Software synthesizers Digital audio workstation software Windows multimedia software