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.