Passport Brings New Technology and Innovation to
Song Chart Creation with Passport Memphis
July 11, 1997
Passport Designs today announced the introduction of
Passport Memphis, an innovative, entirely new product for Guitarists, Band Members, Lyricists and
Songwriters. Passport Memphis represents a ground breaking new class of music software
developed by Passport's Portland based Advanced Technology Group. The product was designed
to satisfy the needs of musicians, Iyricists and songwriters who prefer to work out musical ideas
and communicate them in a manner less formal than engravers notation. Passport Memphis
provides a quick and easy way to create and print charts for cover tunes and original songs in a
non-MIDI environment. Further breaking industry tradition, the product launched on Passport's web
site during the July 4th weekend, allowing users to download a free
ten day trial version of the product.
This state-of-the art new product brings the kind of interface breakthroughs that the company
pioneered with sequencing and notation, allowing high technology to hide behind an intuitive
working environment. "We are very excited about the release of Passport Memphis. It is the first
public appearance of a whole line of products sprung from a new, very flexible code base created
here in the Portland Development offices," says Gene Ragan, Vice President of Engineering,
Passport Designs. "Over a year ago, we decided as a company to look at the needs of musicians
and create solutions rather than just adding features to existing products or ideas. Added features
really create band-aids to existing technology, not complete solutions or entirely new and exciting
concepts - Memphis as a product stands alone, there is no competition".
Passport Memphis features dedicated guitar chord and Iyric views that let songwriters approach
their craft from the point of view they feel comfortable with. The Song View lets you prepare your
final printout, placing text and aligning words with chord progressions, by simply grabbing and
dragging the objects. Collapsible and movable song sections, similar to outlining controls in a word
processor, allow users to scroll or rearrange songs quickly. Passport Memphis comes with over
700 predefined chords, or enter Passport Memphis' "Fret Foundry" to quickly
create and store preferred fingerings. Aliasing, a innovative new feature, lets you create song
sections once and repeat them with different words, thus enabling global changes to chord
progressions with minimal effort. Quickly highlight and transpose a complete song to any key.
Passport Memphis is the first program to truly focus on the needs of Iyricists by providing a view for
words only, Lyric View. This view is divided into song sections where users can type in and print
out words in couplets or however they wish to view them. Passport has included a spell checker to
catch mistakes plus a rhyming dictionary and thesaurus to inspire creative solutions. You will see
the Iyrics as they relate to the given measures when you switch to Song View. Words can then be
anchored to specific beats and half beats to communicate the rhythm of the song. Passport
Memphis can also receive imported text saved from word processors or other programs saved in
Rich Text Formats (RTF) or as a standard text file.
Features:
-
- Chord View:
-
Shows the song structure along with the guitar chord diagrams, this view allow for fast entry and
editing of
the basic structure of the song.
- Lyric View:
- Works like a word processor for Iyricists, but adds a Rhyming Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Spell
Checker to it's
capabilities.
- Type in and print out words in couplets or in any manner you wish to view them.
- Song View:
- View for final layout of song.
- Allows for moving of lyrics, addition of text and transposition.
- Features
the ability to completely revamp the final alignment of words with chord progressions.
- Song Forms:
- Includes standard song forms to make it easy to write and copy songs using traditional songwriting
techniques
- Song Wizard:
- A quick way to start a new song chart.
- Pick from standard song forms, or type in the song
structure you
want.
- Fill out song name and the names of who wrote the song.
- Allows for predetermining the key
and time
signature of the song.
- Guitar Chord Diagrams:
- Comes with over 700 built-in chords.
- Also has a most recently used chord list, and keyboard
shortcuts for
speedy entry.
- Passport Memphis will handle custom chords played anywhere on the guitar
fretboard, and
print them out so the anyone reading the chart will understand exactly which chord you mean.
- Custom Chords:
- Passport's Fret Foundry allows you to create and store custom guitar chord diagrams with the
exact fingering
you want.
- The chord includes the root, the flavor, over/bass notes, starting fret position, open
strings, muted
strings and harmonics.
- Aliasing:
-
Creates sections that are linked together, either chords or chords and lyrics together, so that
changes in one
section are reflected in the other linked sections.
- Collapsible and movable song sections:
- Allows for quick scrolling through songs, plus ability to expand, move or collapse sections (intro.,
verse, chorus, solo) with a single mouse click.
- System Requirement:
- Windows 95 with 8 MB or more of RAM.
- Windows compatible printer.
- Recommended video
resolution of
800x600x256 colors or more.
- Modem and Intemet Provider for Internet access from Memphis.
The decision to develop Passport Memphis took into consideration the recent Gallup Poll, stating
that there are over 16 million guitar players in the United States alone, and the latest figures from
NAMM show guitars and accessories as the largest and fastest growing markets in music. Other
statistics show that between 60 to 75% of the guitar players listed own a personal computer.
Passport Memphis addresses the needs of the musicians that play out professionally, garage
bands, bedroom guitarists, budding and professional singer/songwriters, or anyone who wants to
communicate a song in a clear and concise manner.
Please note that Passport Designs has gone out of business, and some of their products have been taken over by G-VOX - www.gvox.com. |
