Original Article Written By Kevin Becka on October 6th, 2011
Even though we could all see the inevitable with Steve Jobs looking more and more frail as time went on, his passing is sad and shocking. His impact on consumers is beyond any other CEO’s in history but he also effected audio production in a big way.
Since the early 80’s Apple products have always had a way of making you feel good and like you’re on the cutting edge of technology. Whether its feeling cool about having an iPhone in your pocket to show your pictures and videos to your friends, listening to music on the go, or running audio software on your Apple laptop, iPad or tower, it’s all like so futuristic and COOL.
Although the early apple computers weren’t as cool for music makers as the Commodore 64 running Dr. T software, Apple quickly started moving toward heftier music production ability with the release of the IIgs in 1986 which included a 32-voice Ensoniq 5503, ‘wavetable’ sample-based music synthesizer chip, 64 kB dedicated RAM and 256 kB of standard RAM.
So what would I say to Steve Jobs if I could sit down next to him and have a coffee? I’d start with thank you. Thanks Steve for empowering me, making me feel good, and professional. Thank you for making me think outside the box, making me a better sound professional, musician, and producer. But most of all, thanks for being a hero to the end. At a time when many heroes have fallen due to human weakness, greed, drugs and just plain being stupid, you remained a man of integrity until the end. It was an honor to live during your lifetime.