Working as a researcher at the University of Glasgow, I surveyed all the free digital signal processing (DSP) and music software available on the Internet. In those days you could – there were about 120 references to “music software” if you did an Archie search…
Glasgow was ‘quite unusual’ that we had a lab of over 30 NeXT computers networked across the music, comp sci and engineering departments, and the recording studio – and I was one of only 3 people who knew how it actually worked. We were doing ‘realtime audio over the internet’ in 1993.
Such early days…funny to think that years later it’d be so relevant to my later work.
Copy for archive below:
Music ftp sites
The information in this document was derived from: a file maintained by Piet van Oostrum who is setting up a midi archive at ftp.cs.ruu.nl [131.211.80.17] and would welcome submissions; from the results of searches carried out on behalf of the Music TLTP Project by Gavin Starks of the the Dept. of Music of the University of Glasgow; and from information provided by colleagues here at the University of Leeds: Dr. David Cooper Director of the Electronic Studio in the Department of Music and Kia Ng of the School of Computer Studies. (See also Music FTP Sites without information about contents). Neither file is actively maintained by me though I welcome any corrections and additions that I am sent by readers.
- plaza.aamet.edu.au/ contains basically mirrors of Simtel-20- IBM compat; info-mac – Macintosh; aminet – Amiga.
The relevant directories for music and sound are Simtel-20 /micros/pc/oak/music: all sorts of sound, midi, music type progs; info-mac /micros/mac/info-mac/snd; basically System7 sound files of lots of movies etc; and /micros/mac/info-mac/snd/util – utilities for sound manipulation, midi sequencers etc; aminet – /micros/amiga/aminet/mus – lots of stuff for amiga sound format translation, midi stuff etc - alfuib.no/: music kit
- atari.archive.umich.edu/atari/Music at atari.archive.umich.edu [141.211.164.8].
- sounds.sdsu.edu/: Large amount of samples (8-bit Mu-law)
- biome.bio.ns.ca/: Lyrics
- stjohn.gsfc.nasa.gov contains some Macintosh stuff and the EMUSIC-L mailing list archives.
- cattell.psych.upenn.edu/pub/Music.Research [12128.91.2.173] Archives of the Music-Research Digest
- ccrma-ftp.stanford.edu/ See Note 5
- cs.utk.edu:/pub/martin/K2000 Kurzweill samples (maintained by martin@cs.utk.edu).
- cs.uwp.edu/ Databases of interviews, pics, press etc,
- cs.uwp.edu/pub/music/programs has Roland canvas editors, Proaudio-Spectrum+ 1 6 software developer kit.
- einstein.mse.lehigh.edu/ Scores
- elof.iit.edu/pub/drum/acoustics
- emx.cc.utexas.edu/music56k/ has 56000 music language plus read/write midi transfer from Csnd-Midi
- emx.cc.utexas.edu/pub/music/NeXT/
- euler.math.usma.edu/pub/acoustic
- f.ms.uky.edu/pub/atari/music Note 1
- ftp-ls7.informatik.uni-dortmund.de/pub/tx16w/samples TX16W samples, maintained by one of the TX16W list-members, while there are back issues of the TX-16W newsletter in pub/tx16w/mail with a mirror site in the U.S.A. at ftp.aii.com:/pub/midi/tx16w
- FTP.CICA.INDIANA.EDU/pub/pc/win3/sounds A shareware sequencer called WinJammer for MS-Windows
- ftp.cwi.nl/pub/audio/ Audio file format specs, or you can read them with this browser;
- ftp.eu.net/comp/mac/sound
- ftp.udel.edu/pub/midi/software
- ftp.uwp.edu:/pub/music/lists/kurzweil Kurzweill samples (maintained by jbuckman@aas.org)
- Garbo.Uwasa.fihas NoiseTracker/SoundTracker MOD files, and Soundblaster things in /pc/sb and /pc/music while you can find more at:
- Simtel20.Army.Mil
- snake.mcs.kent.edu/pub/SB-Adlib/ntmods
- Wuarchive.Wustl.Edu
- and in the following directories at nic.funet.fi: /pub/amiga/audio, /pub/atari/sound, /pub/unix/sound, /pub/msdos/sound.
- ux1.cso.uiuc.edu/amiga/mirror/mods
- At ftp.brad.ac.uk in directory /misc/mods and in /incoming/mods
- In ftp.uni-kl.de in directory /pub/amiga/mods and in /pub/amiga/ianet/mods
- impaqt1.mem.drexel.edu/pub/files/ibm/midi [129.25.10.1] has a couple of msdos files.
- interviews.stanford.edu/dist/2.5/iv/doc/composition interviews.
- IR5/contrib/lib/andrew/atk/music/ “play”:A package that provides an interface for playing notes and tones on an IBM/RT/PC keyboard
- (The following may no longer apply. IRCAM now has a Web server here from which you can obtain newer information.)
IRCAM has an anonymous ftp site at ftp.ircam.fr. Since they are connected to the Internet via a 9600b line, please try to do your bulk transfers between 10pm MET and 8 am MET as a courtesy to their users. Please use, don’t abuse! Its contents include:- music/ Computer music software and info
- archives/ List of directories of some well-known comp music ftp sites
- databases/ Music databases
- doc/ Documentation
- FAQ/ FAQ about audio, dsp, etc…
- MIDI/ MIDI standard definition
- papers/ Papers on music
- OMR/ Bibliographies in Optical Music Recognition
- programs/ Repository of public domain computer music programs
- irus.rri.uwo.ca:/pub/music contains a Cubase demo.
- liasun3.epfl.ch/pub/audio The Csound Manual.
- lotus.UWaterloo.ca/pub/sgroup directory A Roland Sampler archive that includes introductory information, useful utilities (read Roland disks on your computer), archives of the mailing list, and some samples.
- louie.udel.edu/pub/midi [128.175.1.3] has various patches, samples, sequences and software.
- mac.archive.umich.edu/mac/sound/midi [141.211.165.41].
- mcsun.eu.net/comp/mac/sound
- media-lab.media.mit.edu/music/midi at MIT media-lab.media.mit.edu [18.85.0.2].
- nextweek.reed.edu/pub/samples [134.10.2.20] has EPS-16+ samples. A list is in /pub/docs/samples/sample.index.txt. There are some programs for the EPS in /pub/utils(Atari ST and MSDOS). See /pub/docs/utils for info.
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music includes:
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music/DAT, All text files, score, sounds and papers.
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music/ethnomusicologists,
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music/indian,
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music/lyrics,
- sunsite.unc.edu/pub/multimedia/chinese-music contains Chinese Music (Beijing Opera, Revolutionists etc.)
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music/middle-eastem,
- nic.funet.fi/pub/culture/music/samples
- nic.funet.fipub/msdos/sound/cakewalk [128.214.6.100] Cakewalk files.
- nic.switch.ch/ Scores/sounds
- nuri.inria.fr/ mac,sparc,atarist,unix,ibmpc,Next
- pinus.slu.se/msdos.nfs.sunet.se/mirrors/msdos/music MBLOCKS.ARC-musical blocks: graphical music creation program.
- plains.nodak.edu/ az.shk, gsirc.sh, msg.bxy,mathemusic.shk,sndsmithl0l.shk No documentation
- potemkin.cs.pdx.edu/ ravel: a C-like interpreted programming language that directly supports MIDI music constructs. It combines C-like features with MIDI facilities built into the language. The system is intended to be used for building algorithmic based music systems; also pip Music to graphics for IBMPC
- princeton.edu/ Note 3
- qiclab.scn.rain.com/pub/music contains various conversion programs.
- scam.berkeley.edu/misc/netjam/submissions at scam.berkeley.edu [128.32.138.1] contains netjam submissions on midifiles.
- sol.cs.ruu.nl/midi/ATARI:midi/mmm Midi Music Maker, V2.21
- sol.cs.ruu.nl/midi/perfpich Pitch training for MIDI users, V 1. I
- src.doc.ic.ac.uk/dist/2.5/iv/doc/composition interviews
- src.doc.ic.ac.uk/usenet/comp.archives/musicsweaty.palm.cri.nz (161.66.1.11) EMAX (I and II) FTP sitewith some samples, FAQ, archives of mailing list and some software to allow sample interchange for PC compatibles
- toklab.ics.osaka-u.ac.jp/ /X/X.Vl
- ucsd.edu .[128.54.16.1] MIDI files, patches and a few programs. See the directory midi
- wagner.musicnet.ua.edu is a site that just started to collect music stuff. Report all problems/questions to root@tbf.musicnet.ua.edu.
