The Blue Ribbon SoundWorks was a

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

company in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. The company produced several

digital audio Digital audio is a representation of sound recorded in, or converted into, digital form. In digital audio, the sound wave of the audio signal is typically encoded as numerical samples in a continuous sequence. For example, in CD audio, sa ...

products for the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

, including Bars & Pipes, a

sequencer Sequencer may refer to: Technology * Drum sequencer (controller), an electromechanical system for controlling a sequence of events automatically * DNA sequencer, a machine used to automatically produce a sequence readout from a biological DNA sam ...

described by

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, ...

as "the ultimate in Amiga sequencing", and SuperJAM!, a music composition tool. Blue Ribbon also produced the One Stop Music Shop, a hardware

MIDI 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 ...

interface and synthesizer based on the

E-mu Proteus The E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems in the late twentieth century. History E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable Emulator sampler, and s ...

. Other early products included Who! What! When! Where!, a

personal information manager A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...

. It was founded by Melissa Jordan Grey and Todor Fay, who went on to found NewBlue, a video technology company. Blue Ribbon was acquired by

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

in 1995, and Microsoft subsequently merged Blue Ribbon's technology with

DirectSound DirectSound is a deprecated software component of the Microsoft DirectX library for the Windows operating system, superseded by XAudio2. It provides a low-latency interface to sound card drivers written for Windows 95 through Windows XP and can h ...

. After the acquisition, Microsoft made Blue Ribbon's Amiga products available for free download on

CompuServe CompuServe (CompuServe Information Service, also known by its initialism CIS) was an American online service provider, the first major commercial one in the world – described in 1994 as "the oldest of the Big Three information services (the oth ...

while discontinuing official support.

References

External links

Official website
of NewBlue {{DEFAULTSORT:Blue Ribbon SoundWorks 1995 mergers and acquisitions American companies established in 1988 American companies disestablished in 1995 Computer companies established in 1988 Computer companies disestablished in 1995 Defunct computer companies of the United States Digital audio Microsoft acquisitions Defunct software companies of the United States