Project Review: 1996 through 2001
- Basic System Infrastructure
- Multi-channel Support: involves enabling CDP programs to write (and display) multi-channel soundfiles, and to support this wherever appropriate in the CDP System. Partially completed: the Multi-Channel Toolkit, by Richard Dobson. Implemented in SoundShaper.
- File Formats: increasing the range of file formats the CDP System can handle, and solving a variety of compatibility problems. Richard Dobson (partially completed).
- PLAYSFX immediate playback: a new version of PLAYSFX is now completed with a -i flag for immediate playback. This makes it possible to play a soundfile from another environment, such as a MATLAB script.
- SNDifying CDP Code: changing the whole of the CDP code set from the 'SF' (byte) to the 'SND' (block) storage method. Dobson/Wishart (partially completed).
- Floating Point: implementing the ability to write floating point soundfiles throughout the CDP System. Richard Dobson (partially completed: -f flag in PV and FILTER programs).
- Extending the CDP Software Base
- Reverb Program Set: user-configurable reverberation facilities, with multi-channel options. Richard Dobson (completed).
- SoundShaper Graphic User Interface: comprehensive graphic interface for CDP for PC users. Robert Fraser (completed).
- Sound Loom Graphic User Interface: comprehensive intelligent and integrated graphic interface for use with TCL/TK – initially on PC, but should extend to other platforms. Trevor Wishart (completed).
- Support for Public Domain Software
- SNDAN alternative approach to spectral analysis by James Beauchamp –ported to PC, with additional documentation. Richard Dobson, funded by Sonic Arts Network. (NB: – This approach is ideal for pitched sounds and has various excellent display modes and a number of sound editing functions.
Available from http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~rwd/).- Documentation
- Re-write on entire CDP Reference and Tutorial Documentation, and conversion to HTML format (Endrich).
- Writing the long-awaited reference documentation for Trevor Wishart's TEXTURE program set (Endrich).
- Website
- Create CDP Internet Website (Endrich).
Internet Access Project at the University of Salford
Louisa Yong at the University of Salford is an expert in web development, and she has been working on access to a selection of CDP programs via the Internet. This means that anyone can use the Internet to access this site, hear sounds made with CDP software, audition from a library of source sounds and select one for processing. They can then interactively provide parameters for and run a CDP sound processing function. It is also possible to upload your own sound to the site for processing.
This project – with far-reaching implications – is called 'ComeXos' ("The Composers' Experimental Online Suite" (ComeXos). It is one of a series of projects in GEMISIS 2000. The project aims of ComeXos are to develop a central music resource for local schools and Universities, to provide a more effective and more efficient service to users utilising music software via the Internet and to allow users to share their ideas and musical works with others through the ComeXos community.
To demonstrate its potential, ComeXos provides fourteen sound transformation modules (including Phase Vocoder) from the Composers Desktop Project (CDP) which can be accessed via a graphical World Wide Web browser. With online tutorials and reference materials, ComeXos aims to be a user-friendly sound manipulation primer.
In ComeXos, there are sections for users to upload and download audio samples, post and read messages online. Users can also conduct Internet Relay Chat (IRC) sessions via the IRC service provided.
The trial version of ComeXos is up and running and she is looking for user-feedback so that it can be improved. The web address of ComeXos is http://www.music.salford.ac.uk/ceos/index.html.
CDP functionality is necessarily limited at this point, but you will find that the overall mechanism works well, and the graphical interface and supporting library of sounds, user hints, glossary and other documents are well designed to assist the user. Trials of the setup also includes secondary school level pupils. CDP very much supports this project and wants to extend the range of CDP functions available.
SNDAN ('Sound Analysis')
CDP has from the beginning been as interested in bringing others' software to public awareness and accessibility as it has in developing its own. On the first Atari platforms, we provided Csound, The CMU MIDI Toolkit, Formula, Score-ll, Score-ll Input, and Cmusic. Some of this work has been put aside due to the amount of work involved in moving to PC, creating GUIs, rewriting documentation in HTML and generally trying to keep up with the incredible rate of development in computing.
However, in principle, this 'midwifery' role is still an important part of what CDP is about, and has begun again in the form of a port of James Beachamp's SNDAN ('Sound Analysis') program suite to PC. This package provides its own form of spectral analysis, which is optimised for pitched sounds, and contains both numerous display options and various ways to process the analysis data. Suggested to and supported by Sonic Arts Network, this project brings to CDP users another powerful program suite, and in the process kick-starts new initiatives in our midwifery role. SNDAN will be available via the Sonic Arts Network website, and will soon be on a Bath Website, where Richard will be posting continuous updates. James Beauchamp has been immensely cooperative and helpful in this work, for which we are very grateful. His programming skill and enthusiasm has been pleasantly contagious!
Last updated: 4 September 2002