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Passport Designs Inc. was founded in 1979 by David Kusek and John Borowicz, and incorporated in 1980, with Kusek as CEO and Borowicz as Vice-President of Development.^[1] ^[2] They had previously worked together at Electronic Music Labsfrom 1973-76 and Star Instruments from 1976-79. The company was originally headquartered in Montara, California, moving to Half Moon Bay, California and finally Foster City, California. An engineering office was also briefly maintained in Minnesota.

The company was a pioneer in the field of computer music, introducing the pre-MIDI SoundChaser in 1982. This Apple II-based system included the Mountain Computer Music System, a programmable 8-voice wavetable synthesizer (the first ever commercially availabe) that fit in two Apple II slots, the Soundchaser 4-octave keyboard, and system software that emulated a four-track tape recorder.^[3] In 1983, composer John Melcher developed the SoundChaser Step Editor so music could be entered like a word-processor.^[4] The same year, released a 16-track version of their recording software.

When the first MIDI specification was adopted in 1983, Passport put all of its development resources in this direction, licensing and developing an MIDI interface from Rittor Music in Japan and hiring Melcher to develop the first MIDI recording applications. In 1984, MIDI/2 and MIDI/4 were released, and OEM versions of MIDI/4 were developed for Yamaha and Korg. Composer Phil Stone was also hired at this time, first to develop audio for games on the Commodore 64, and then to port MIDI applications from Apple II to Commodore. Master Tracks was released in 1985, and Master Tracks Pro in 1986.

    and created applications for a variety of early personal computers, including those made by Atari, Commodore and Apple.

Passport was also a developer of the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) standard, which has been adopted by virtually every music software and hardware developer.

Trax was early software that allowed the recording, sequencing, and playback of data produced by electronic instruments. Trax evolved into the MasterTracks and MasterTracks Pro sequencing programs.

Encore was a music notation software package used by composers to create high quality scores. The feature set of Encore was modified and adapted to different markets and sold as Rhapsody, MusicTime and MusicTime Deluxe. There was also a version called music@Passport, an attempt to integrate web-based music publishing into a desktop notation editor. The MIDI files passport.mid and canyon.mid were created by and included with the various distributions of the Passport notation products, and on various versions of Microsoft Windows, located in the C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA\ or C:\WINDOWS folder.

Memphis was a guitar tablature creation application that offered an easy to use drag-and-drop interface that enabled the user to create and print easy-to-read tabs.

Alchemy was created by David Willenbrink and Donny Blank; David Willenbrink was the programmer responsible for creating all products released^{[citation needed]} (he is currently at Digidesign). The name and logo for "Alchemy" were suggested by Caitlin Johnson, now Caitlin Bini.^{[citation needed]} The company was subsequently marketed by Blank Software (owned equally by both Willenbrink and "Blank", a pseudonym for Donald Miele, until the company and product were purchased by Passport. Alchemy was a powerful and highly flexible waveform audio editor^{[citation needed]} that integrated Macintosh computers with digital samplers. Formats supported included the following: Akai S900, S950, S1000, S1100 (MIDI and SCSI), Casio FZ series, E-mu Emax, Emax II (MIDI and RS-422), SP-1200 (MIDI) and EIII (SCSI), Ensoniq Mirage, EPS and ASR10 (MIDI and SCSI), Korg T1, T2 and T3 (SDS), Kurzweil K2000 (SMDI), Peavey, SP/SPII and SX (SMDI), Roland S-50, S-330, S-550. Later versions allowed users to create a library of sounds on their computer, then share those sounds across multiple sampler formats. Because it was the only tool of its kind to support all these formats as well as the Apple Sound Manager 3.0 and Digidesign Sound Accelerator, AudioMedia, Sound Tools and Protools cards as well as any sampling device that conforms to SMDI or MIDI Sample Dump Standard, this product was legendary and sorely missed upon the demise of Passport.^{[citation needed]} The latest version released commercially was version 3.

Passport shifted focus from music software and focused effort on multimedia content creation software, with the introduction of Passport Producer in the early nineties. Competition from Macromind/MacroMedia Director, coupled with the atrophying of the core music product line, led to the sale of some of the company assets to GVOX in 1998. Certain portions of Passport's product line are still marketed under their original names: Encore, MusicTime Deluxe, and MasterTracks Pro. Passport Designs ceased to exist as a company in 1998.

References

External links

GVOX Acquires Passport Designs
GVOX Website
Vintage Synthesizers, Miller Freeman, 2000, pg. 137.

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 {{sections|date=November 2009}}
 {{wikify|date=November 2009}}
-'''Passport Designs Inc.''' was founded in 1979 by David Kusek and John Borowicz, and incorporated in 1980, with Kusek as CEO and Borowicz as Vice-President of Development<ref>[http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=41048&authToken=anoK&authType=name&goback=%2Econ%2Evpf_6704115_1_yT9U_name_*1_John_Borowicz David Kusek LinkedIn profile]</ref> <ref>[http://www.linkedin.com/profile?goback=%2Econ&viewProfile=&key=6704115&jsstate=] John Borowicz LinkedIn profile]</ref>.  The company was founded in [[Montara, California]], moving to [[Half Moon Bay, California]] and finally [[Foster City, California]]. An engineering office was also briefly maintained in [[Minnesota]]. Passport was a pioneer in the field of computer music software{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} and created applications for a variety of early personal computers, including those made by Atari, Commodore and Apple.
+'''Passport Designs Inc.''' was founded in 1979 by David Kusek and John Borowicz, and incorporated in 1980, with Kusek as CEO and Borowicz as Vice-President of Development.<ref>[http://www.linkedin.com/profile?viewProfile=&key=41048&authToken=anoK&authType=name&goback=%2Econ%2Evpf_6704115_1_yT9U_name_*1_John_Borowicz]</ref> <ref>[http://www.linkedin.com/profile?goback=%2Econ&viewProfile=&key=6704115&jsstate=]</ref>  They had previously worked together at Electronic Music Labsfrom 1973-76 and Star Instruments from 1976-79. The company was originally headquartered in [[Montara, California]], moving to [[Half Moon Bay, California]] and finally [[Foster City, California]]. An engineering office was also briefly maintained in [[Minnesota]].
+The company was a pioneer in the field of computer music, introducing the pre-MIDI SoundChaser in 1982. This Apple II-based system included the Mountain Computer Music System, a programmable 8-voice wavetable synthesizer (the first ever commercially availabe) that fit in two Apple II slots, the Soundchaser 4-octave keyboard, and system software that emulated a four-track tape recorder.<ref>[http://www.applefritter.com/node/138]</ref> In 1983, composer John Melcher developed the SoundChaser Step Editor so music could be entered like a word-processor.<ref>[http://www.johnmelcher.net/awards.html]</ref> The same year, released a 16-track version of their recording software.
+When the first MIDI specification was adopted in 1983, Passport put all of its development resources in this direction, licensing and developing an MIDI interface from Rittor Music in Japan and hiring Melcher to develop the first MIDI recording applications. In 1984, MIDI/2 and MIDI/4 were released, and OEM versions of MIDI/4 were developed for Yamaha and Korg. Composer Phil Stone was also hired at this time, first to develop audio for games on the Commodore 64, and then to port MIDI applications from Apple II to Commodore. Master Tracks was released in 1985, and Master Tracks Pro in 1986.
+     and created applications for a variety of early personal computers, including those made by Atari, Commodore and Apple.
 Passport was also a developer of the [[General MIDI|Musical Instrument Digital Interface]] (MIDI) standard, which has been adopted by virtually every music software and hardware developer.
@@ Line 10: / Line 17: @@
 [[Encore notation program|Encore]] was a music notation software package used by composers to create high quality scores.  The feature set of Encore was modified and adapted to different markets and sold as Rhapsody, [[MusicTime]] and MusicTime Deluxe.  There was also a version called music@Passport, an attempt to integrate web-based music publishing into a desktop notation editor.  The MIDI files ''passport.mid'' and ''[[canyon.mid]]'' were created by and included with the various distributions of the Passport notation products, and on various versions of [[Microsoft Windows]], located in the C:\WINDOWS\MEDIA\ or C:\WINDOWS folder.
-[[Memphis (program)|Memphis]] was a guitar tablature creation application that offered an easy to use drag and drop interface that enabled the user to create and print easy to read tabs.
+[[Memphis (program)|Memphis]] was a guitar tablature creation application that offered an easy to use drag-and-drop interface that enabled the user to create and print easy-to-read tabs.
 [[Alchemy (program)|Alchemy]] was created by David Willenbrink and Donny Blank; David Willenbrink was the programmer responsible for creating all products released{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} (he is currently at [[Digidesign]]). The name and logo for "Alchemy" were suggested by Caitlin Johnson, now Caitlin Bini.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} The company was subsequently marketed by Blank Software (owned equally by both Willenbrink and "Blank", a pseudonym for Donald Miele, until the company and product were purchased by Passport.  Alchemy was a powerful and highly flexible waveform audio editor{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} that integrated Macintosh computers with digital samplers. Formats supported included the following: Akai S900, S950, S1000, S1100 (MIDI and SCSI), Casio FZ series, E-mu Emax, Emax II (MIDI and RS-422), SP-1200 (MIDI) and EIII (SCSI), Ensoniq Mirage, EPS and ASR10 (MIDI and SCSI), Korg T1, T2 and T3 (SDS), Kurzweil K2000 (SMDI), Peavey, SP/SPII and SX (SMDI), Roland S-50, S-330, S-550. Later versions allowed users to create a library of sounds on their computer, then share those sounds across multiple sampler formats. Because it was the only tool of its kind to support all these formats as well as the Apple Sound Manager 3.0 and Digidesign Sound Accelerator, AudioMedia, Sound Tools  and Protools cards as well as any sampling device that conforms to SMDI or MIDI Sample Dump Standard, this product was legendary and sorely missed upon the demise of Passport.{{Citation needed|date=October 2009}} The latest version released commercially was version 3.
@@ Line 22: / Line 29: @@
 * [http://www.harmony-central.com/Newp/1998/G-Vox-Passport-Products.html GVOX Acquires Passport Designs]
 * [http://www.gvox.com GVOX Website]
+* Vintage Synthesizers, Miller Freeman, 2000, pg. 137.
 [[Category:Companies established in 1980]]