Digital Music Studio and Recording Archives

The Digital Music Studio dates back to the early 1970’s and was located at the Computer Center.  Earlier, William Skelton established a small studio with a Moog synthesizer in the Dana Arts building.  Joseph Zingheim of Stanford University built a digital/analog converter in 1972 and the studio moved to the computer center, next to the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-10 mainframe computer.  During the 1970’s Leland Smith installed much of the Stanford University music software and the studio received several NEA support grants in the late 1970’s.  Colgate hosted several summer workshops for computer music and for many years composers from the United States, Canada and Europe worked at the studio as visiting composers.  Many of these composers produced new works for loud speakers and performers (featuring computer generated tapes).  The Director of the Studio, Dexter Morrill produced a series of concerts at Colgate and toured extensively in the United States and Europe with these compositions. Several musicians joined him on these concerts, including Neva Pilgrim, Bruce Pennycook, Klaus Ager, Pamela Jordan, David Demsey and Chris Chafe.  About 1980 the studio acquired a Digital Music Systems real time signal processor and a PDP-11 system.   In 1985 the studio moved to its new home in MacGregory Hall, where the Computer Science Department is located.  During the 1990’s sound conversion was done using NEXT computers and after 1985 the studio acquired a great deal of MIDI equipment.  Since 1973 the Music Department has offered courses in Computer Music and a number of students have carried out student research projects.