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Digidesign TDM architecture, which makes it accessible within the everpopular Pro Tools professional soundediting and mixing environment, as well as other programs such as Opcode Studio Vision, Emagic Logic Audio and Mark of the Unicorn Digital Performer. Hyperprism-DAS (Digidesign Audio Suite) is a set of 25 plug-ins for Digidesign Pro Tools 4.0and Powermix architecture. The MMP (Multimedia Producer) version is a series a plug-ins for professional audio and multimedia authoring programs such as Macromedia Premiere, Opcode Studio Vision, Macromedia Deck and BIAS (BerkleyIntegrated Audio Software) Peak. By the time this review is published , a version for Windows should have been released. Hyperprism remains unique: never before have so many high quality, professional standard effects been gathered in a single program. This is why Hyperprism will be of use to all Leonard0 readers who are involved in sound-productionactivities,be they for radio, postproduction, multimedia authoring or even games. Composers will find a great deal of stimulating response to their sounds in this program. What could be better than a computer program that helps develop creativity? In this respect, Hyperprism is indeed a very powerful tool that, in most cases, will bring results that go beyond expectations . Yet, it does all this in a friendly and easy way by means of an interface that is simple and straightforward. Seen in this way, it is both a processing program and a challenge. I MULTIMEDIA GRAVIKORDS, WHIRLIES AND PYROPHONES: EXPERIMENTALMUSICAL INSTRUMENTS Compiled and written by Bart Hopkin. EllipsisArts, Roslyn, NY,U.S.A., 1996. ISBN: 1-55961382-3. Reviewed by Patrick Lambelet, 2879 23rd St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, U.S.A.Email : . With Gravikords,Whirliesand Pyrophones Bart Hopkin rescues from obscurity the works of a wide range of musical eccentrics who invent and make their own unique musical devices.The set consists of a book of Hopkin’s short essays on individual artists and a CD featuring tracks by many of those artists. The inventors described here are by turns fascinating , illuminating and comicallyidiosyncratic . While some stand out as true innovators, others appear to be tinkerers with intriguing ideas but questionable artistic merits. Nonetheless, Gravikords,Whirliesand Pyrophones stands alone as a skillfullywritten but lighthearted document of an outer periphery of musical experimentation, with detailed descriptions and photographs of the instruments and descriptions of how they are played. In the book, Hopkin deliberately avoids extensive coverage of electronic instruments and technology. He writes in the introduction that “...electronic instrument manufacturers have (with some notable exceptions) taken an unimaginative approach” to instrument design; and, indeed, the artists in this collection show no shortage of imagination . Writing with obvious enthusiasm, Hopkin relishes the oddities displayed in the book’s pages-among them, instruments that utilize flower pots, inflatable cushions, cloud-chamber bowls, bamboo, plastic children’s toys and fire. Gravikords,Whirliesand Pyrophonesis intriguing in its documentation of how people step outside the traditionally accepted boundaries of musical instrument design and musical composition, finding beauty, humor and even spiritual solace in their creations. In challenging these boundaries, the creators and their instruments also reflect responses to the cultures from which they emerge. Most of the artists are from technologically advanced Western nations , and they often appropriate technology for their own uses, demonstrating that the “misuse”of technology can yield interestingresults. Qubais Reed Ghazala, for example, bases many of his designs on “circuit bending”-essentially , the use of short-circuited audio devices as sound sources. Ghazala’s track on the CD, “Silence the Tongues of Prophecy,” is composed of a series of electronic sounds and voices that sound somewhat like malfunctioning robots engaging in a lively conversation. Although he uses technology, Ghazala rejects the idea that “newer”is necessarily “better.” Other works exhibit a wholesale rejection of electronics in favor of the use of natural materials and processes . Darrell De Vore sees his use of bamboo in his instruments as a connection to a distant ancestral past, while Turkish-born Nazim Ozel has created a stringed instrument from a section of a branch that he cut from a tree. A strong point of this collection is its treatment of the contributions of several influential innovators in the field of musical instrument design. Hopkin...

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