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Reviewed by:
  • Composers' Desktop Project Version 5.0.1
  • Jon Forshee
Composers' Desktop Project Version 5.0.1 Composers' Desktop Project 5.0.1, from US$ 300 (various options are available, depnding on platform, GUI choices, and site licensing); available from Composers' Desktop Project, 12 Goodwood Way, Cepen Park South, Chippenham, Wiltshire SN14 0SY, UK; telephone (+44) 124-946-1361; electronic mail archer@trans4um.demon.co.uk; Web www.bath.ac.uk/~masjpf/CDP/CDP.htm.

We make only the music we are able to make. As we choose our music-making environments it is often the case that we seek an environment that imposes the least restrictions upon our music-making activity; or, expressed another way, we may seek an environment that enables us as agents of our self-determined compositional guidelines.

The release of version 5.0.1 of Composers' Desktop Project (CDP) realizes the latest installment of just such a music-making environment. Initiated in 1986, the Composers' Desktop Project is a cooperatively developed software system, based in the UK, "designed specifically to transform existing sound samples for musical purposes, mostly via offline processing." Sound sample transformation is achieved through a broad diversity of more than 500 command-line programs, and CDP includes two Graphic User Interfaces (GUIs): Sound Loom and Soundshaper.

Version 5.0.1 provides powerful additions to CDP's gamut of functions and utilities, including more than 40 new programs for soundfile transformation and speech processing, support for the 24-bit/96-kHz sampling rate (DVD quality), expanded documentation, and revision of the iconic Sound Loom interface. Notably (and finally!), CDP and Sound Loom now exist in a port for Mac OS X. In this review, I demonstrate some of the advantages of this new version from an actual work session; I shall also mention a few peculiarities unique to CDP. I am assuming the reader has some familiarity with CDP and the Sound Loom interface, as a detailed discussion of each procedure used would be prohibitive in the present context.

I am using the new Mac OS X port of Composers' Desktop Project, with the Sound Loom interface, version 9.2b, with the new color scheme by Dale Perkins of Leeds University. [Note: during the writing of this review Sound Loom version 9.7.3 was released by Trevor Wishart, and is available from his Web site (www .trevorwishart.co.uk/).] My current musical work concerns an electroacoustic composition, in four channels, which uses recordings of readings by poet Charles Stein as source material. I have a general outline, sketched beforehand, of the musical terrain of this composition, including some of the ways in which the piece will highlight unique properties of Mr. Stein's voice.

The Soundfile Editor

My source samples exist as large files containing entire readings; I intend to work with smaller portions of the sources, so I select one of the recordings and set the target directory containing the file in Sound Loom. Once Sound Loom has loaded the directory, I "grab" the file and add it to the workspace portion of the interface. When the file is listed in the workspace [End Page 90] window, I invoke Sound Loom's new Soundfile Editor by clicking on the file. Sound Loom's Soundfile Editor offers all the basic functions of a graphic soundfile editor, plus features for superimposing and editing amplitude and pan breakpoints. I quickly locate the passage I want to trim and select the area by shift-selecting the region with the mouse. Selecting regions draws a solid block around the region, obscuring the graphic representation of the soundfile behind it. Saving the trim involves giving the file a new name and pressing "Savesnd."

Throughout this process some differences between the Windows- and Macintosh-platform versions of Sound Loom become evident. For example, the layout of the Soundfile Editor is the same, but to accommodate the familiar feel and style of the Macintosh OS, the button text is abbreviated: where the PC Sound Loom reads "Save Sound," the text in the Macintosh-platform Sound Loom is abbreviated to "Savesnd." Similar abbreviations appear throughout the Mac interface, and for those who are familiar with Sound Loom on the...

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