Reviews
[Editor’s note: Selected reviews are
posted on the Web. In some cases,
they are either unpublished in the
Journal itself or published in an ab-
breviated form in the Journal. Visit
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi
/comj and, under “Inside the Journal”
at the left, click on “CMJ’s Website.”
Then click on “Reviews” at the top.]
Publications
Justin London: Hearing in Time:
Psychological Aspects of Musical
Meter
Hardcover, 2004, ISBN 0-19-516081-
9, 195 pages, illustrated, notes, bibli-
ography, index, US$ 39.95; Oxford
University Press, 198 Madison Av-
enue, New York, New York 10016,
USA; telephone (+1) 800-451-7556;
electronic mail orders@opu.usa.org;
Web www.oup.com/.
Reviewed by John Ashley Burgoyne
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
One might call Justin London’s Hear-
ing in Time the Tonal Pitch Space
(Fred Lerdahl, Oxford University
Press, 2001) of meter. Attempting to
formalize meter using perceptual
foundations, its grand conclusion is
the “many meters hypothesis,”
which states that we internalize as
distinct cognitive patterns not only
meters as conceived traditionally but
also patterns of subdivision and ex-
pressive timing. At first, this hypoth-
esis seems to be in conflict with the
generalizing approach of the rest of
the book, which seeks to model me-
ter within a culturally universal
framework. Nonetheless, the ex-
treme specificity of the many meters
hypothesis is precisely what the gen-
erality enables: By exploring the con-
sequences of empirically derived lim-
its of human perception of meter
exhaustively, Mr. London demon-
strates that the many meters hypoth-
esis is more manageable than it might
seem. Like any work this ambitious,
Hearing in Time is not universally
successful, but it is a well-weighed
and unique monograph that brings
the tradition of Lerdahl and Jackend-
off (A Generative Theory of Tonal
Music, MIT Press, 1983) to a popular
topic in contemporary music theory
by way of the most recent studies of
metrical perception.
Setting the foundations for a the-
ory based on the experience of listen-
ers, the first chapter describes meter
as a specialized form of entrainment
behavior that directs human attention
to periodic stimuli. This behavior or-
ganizes such stimuli hierarchically,
according to their context, and is ro-
bust to local variations, such as syn-
copation. The number of levels in
this hierarchy can vary, and for Mr.
London, different depths of hierarchy
constitute different meters—e.g.,
slow 3/4 is not the same as fast 3/4.
The chapter draws heavily on psy-
chological research in self-sustaining
oscillators and seeks to differentiate
cycling levels of listeners’ attentional
energy, which cannot bear musical
accent meaningfully, from musical
phenomena, which can.
The second chapter continues to
survey the psychological grounding
for the theory, focusing on the bounds
of temporal perception: What are the
fastest and slowest inter-onset inter-
vals that humans can perceive as
metrical, and which are preferred?
The most novel idea is the “basic
space” of this theory, a hierarchical
map of meters that is organized spa-
tially in a fashion reminiscent of Got-
tfried Weber’s chart of the major and
minor keys. Mr. London’s Pythagori-
cal exploration of the perceptual im-
Publications
plications of this map maintains for-
ward momentum and underlines his
fundamental hypothesis that one
cannot hear a beat as such without
the perceptual possibility of hearing
at least one level of subdivision.
The next three chapters set rules of
interaction between rhythm and me-
ter. Chapters 3 and 5 develop the hy-
pothesis that because meter is a
mode of attention and the human
mind cannot attend simultaneously
to phenomena in more than one
mode, polymeter cannot exist as a
perceptual phenomenon. Meter may
occasionally be ambiguous or vague,
but a listener will nonetheless need
to develop some single mode of at-
tending to it. Chapter 4 insists on a
continuous, cyclical model for meter,
outlining five well-formedness rules
for these cycles. Mr. London deems
preference rules unnecessary because
“very often, there is no single, cor-
rect metrical construal for a given
rhythm” (p. 72). By virtue of the per-
ceptual limits stated in the second
chapter, however, the choice of
tempo can restrict the number of
well-formed meters for a given per-
formance considerably. Chapter 6
puts the principles from the preced-
ing three chapters into practice in a
narrative analysis of the first move-
ment of Ludwig van Beethoven’s
Symphony No. 5.
No theory of meter can claim to be
culturally universal without account-
ing for non-isochronous meters, as
the seventh and eighth chapters do
here. The basic metric space accrues
more subtlety in the form of a new
well-formedness rule that enforces
maximal evenness. This notion is
borrowed from scale theory, and al-
though well intentioned, it is fraught
with uncomfortable conflicts of
metaphor between the pitch and time
domains. Chapter 7 provides a plausi-
ble hypothesis for a perceptual basis
of maximal evenness, but no empiri-
99

cal research is cited that would prove
or disprove it, and the informal proof
that is presented relies on an assump-
tion about interpolation of shorter
metric beats within longer rhythmic
phenomena that is consistent with
but not a direct consequence of the
first six chapters. Chapter 8 qualifies
this tenuous new well-formedness
rule with a caveat that it need not al-
ways apply to metric subcycles after
demonstrating that for several well-
known timelines from non-Western
music, its form from Chapter 7 does
not hold. There is much good reason-
ing in these chapters, but one cannot
escape the feeling that despite its pop-
ularity in contemporary music theory,
maximal evenness is not quite the
unifying rule that Mr. London was
seeking for non-isochronous meters.
Chapter 9 treats theories of expres-
sive timing in performance before
launching the many-meters hypothe-
sis. Here, Mr. London takes great care
to separate what is speculative from
what is not, yielding a plausible and
100
consistent, if yet unproven, hypothe-
sis. The book concludes with a short
“coda” that treats metric and rhyth-
mic complexity, Mr. London’s origi-
nal goal in writing his book.
Overall, the book is well written
and researched. The text is dense and
scholarly without being ponderous
(at only 195 pages, there is no room
for extraneous words); the pace is
even and it reads well. The luminar-
ies of 18th-century music theory fig-
ure alongside the most current
research in music perception and
rhythmic theory, and the bibliogra-
phy alone is a valuable resource for
anybody interested in meter. Mr.
London explains most of his theory
in careful detail with ample and illus-
trative figures and examples, and the
text should be accessible to a wide
audience. Much of the enjoyment in
reading the book comes from its
clever presentation: Having accepted
the surveys of relevant psychological
experiments, the reader is repeatedly
and pleasantly surprised at the conse-
quences of their seemingly innocu-
ous results.
Despite Mr. London’s care, the for-
malisms in Hearing in Time lack the
rigor that an engineer or a mathemati-
cian would require. Although it ap-
pears that it would be possible to
implement the theory in software or
hardware, this process would not be
trivial and would likely uncover am-
biguities and internal contradictions.
(In this regard, the book is also analo-
gous to Tonal Pitch Space.) Likewise,
the fascinating idea of tempo thresh-
olds between different metric inter-
pretations of the same score is treated
only briefly and without the careful
modeling that characterizes the rest
of the book. Anthropologists would
seek a more nuanced identification of
cultural universals: Whereas the com-
ponents of the theory that rest on em-
pirical psychology are less debatable,
Computer Music Journal
the equally foundational assumption
of hierarchy is a more open question.
Hearing in Time is a valuable sur-
vey of the work researchers in music
cognition have written on meter from
the perspective of a music theorist,
and it shows that these sometimes-
separate communities still have
many ideas with which to inform
each other. The ambition of the work
is commendable, and I can forgive its
shortcomings for its novel and
provocative ideas. Mr. London has a
strong command of his most impor-
tant sources in both music cognition
and music theory and excels at com-
bining them. One should applaud
him for engaging non-isochronous and
non-Western meters, and although
there remains work to be done, this
book inspires one to undertake it. I
expect that before long, readers of
this journal will have implemented
many components of the theory, and
I look forward to the results.
Recordings
Mario Davidovsky: Flashbacks
Compact disc, Bridge 9097, 2000;
available from Bridge Records, Inc.,
200 Clinton Avenue, New Rochelle,
New York 10801, USA; telephone
(+1) 914-654-9270; fax (+1) 914-636-
1383; electronic mail bridgerec@
bridgerecords.com; Web www
.bridgerecords.com/pages/catalog/
9097.htm.
The Music of Mario Davidovsky,
Volume 3
Compact disc, Bridge 9171, 2005;
available from Bridge Records, Inc.,
200 Clinton Avenue, New Rochelle,
New York 10801, USA; telephone
(+1) 914-654-9270; fax (+1) 914-636-
1383; electronic mail bridgerec@
bridgerecords.com; Web www
.bridgerecords.com/pages/catalog/
9171.htm.
Reviewed by alcides lanza
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Flashbacks is the first of a series of
compact discs that Bridge Records is
devoting to the music of Mario Davi-
dovsky. Volume 2 in the collection,
documenting pieces like Shulamit’s
Dream, Scenes from Shir ha-Shirim,
and Biblical Songs, with Susan
Narucki and the Riverside Symphony
(Bridge 9112), is not reviewed here be-
cause it does not contain any electro-
acoustic elements. Volume 3, the most
recent release, is reviewed below.
The composition that gives its
name to Volume 1 of the series, Flash-
backs, written in 1995, is scored for
flute (doubling piccolo and alto), clar-
inet (doubling bass clarinet), violin,
cello, piano, and percussion. It was
commissioned by Meet the Com-
poser for the New York New Music
Ensemble (NYNME), together with
the San Francisco Contemporary Mu-
sic Players and California EAR Unit.
It was premiered in New York City
by NYNME, and is performed by
them in this recording. Flashbacks is
instrumental music having all the
angular aspects of electronic music:
quick, sudden changes in dynamics,
fast appoggiatura passages, and a pro-
found exploration of the textural and
rhythmic domains. Mr. Davidovsky
succeeds with clever duplications of
notes and decays between two or
more instruments, which together
with a “percussive” approach in the
writing for all instruments, achieves
this quasi-electronic atmosphere. The
percussion part is brilliantly played
by Daniel Druckman. The ensemble
delivers this piece with assurance
and imagination under the effective
leadership of Jeffrey Milarsky.
This mostly instrumental CD in-
cludes one of the Synchronisms se-
ries, the set of pieces for instrument(s)
and electronics for which Mr. Davi-
dovsky is renowned. Synchronisms
No. 10 (1992) is scored for guitar and
electronic sounds, and features a
stunning performance by David
Starobin. The music is good, with
some magical moments, but it is also
a bit predictable due to some well-
profiled phrases, attacks, or idioms in
the Davidovskian style.
Romancero (1983) is a song cycle
based on old Spanish texts, some re-
lated to stories from the Old Testa-
ment. Romancero, written for the
Speculum Musicae ensemble, is sung
with conviction by soprano Susan
Narucki. The ensemble, conducted
by Donald Palma, provides an ideal
accompaniment. The second and
third songs—!Arriba canes, arriba!
and Seguidillas—are splendid.
The accompanying booklet, written
by composer Martin Brody, provides
valuable information on the composer
and his works. The comments are not
directly related to individual works,
and consequently are a bit obscure.
Recordings
The text for Romancero is included
in the original Old Spanish and in an
English translation by the composer.
Bridge continues its releases of mu-
sic by this Argentinean composer in a
well-researched and well-presented
edition. Volume 3 begins with “vin-
tage” Mario Davidovsky, his Synchro-
nisms No. 5 for percussion ensemble
and electronic sound (“sound” being
curiously singular for this one piece),
a stunning interplay between the
realm of noise and clear pitched per-
cussion on one hand, and a “percus-
sive” electronic tape on the other. The
composer takes ensemble writing to
new heights, perfectly matching his
acute sense of rhythm with a rich va-
riety of different textures. The Man-
hattan School of Music Percussion
Ensemble excels in this recording, un-
der the leadership of Jeffrey Milarsky.
More delicate is the writing in the
Duo Capriccioso (2003). The very ar-
ticulate exchanges between the vio-
lin and piano include pizzicatti,
staccato chords, and percussive at-
tacks. More conventional tremolatos
and arpegiattos are also interspersed
along the way. This is a good rendi-
tion by Curtis Macomber, violin, ac-
companied by Aleck Karis on piano.
Mr. Karis also provides a stunning
version of another early Synchro-
101
nisms, in this case the well-known
Synchronisms No. 6 from 1970,
scored for piano and electronic
sounds. This is a classic item in the
Davidovskian catalogue, offering
some exciting moments in the writ-
ing for both instrument and tape.
Some tightly synchronized exchanges
between piano and tape makes one
think of a “super” hybrid-instrument.
The Quartetto, written in 1987, is
definitely more down to earth. The
writing is strictly instrumental, and
sounds expressive and lyrical, with
(non-electronic) excursions into the
composer’s typical “precipitato quasi
percussive series of attacks” mode.
In Synchronisms No. 9, written in
1988 for violin and electronic sounds,
much that happens between the in-
strument and the electronic media is
rather predicable—too many of the
usual trademarks. The violin sonori-
ties and modes of attack play a mod-
est role compared with the richer
palette of electronics—a solo violin
singing line sounds like a violin sing-
ing line. However, good and ani-
mated exchanges do occur, the
writing is skillful, and there are
plenty of good things to hear. The
disc finishes with Chacona from
1971, scored for violin, cello, and pi-
ano. The writing is more conven-
tional, although—even if idiomatic
for the instruments—the composer is
still seeking novel sonorities. More
traditional in phrasing and structure,
Chacona is a good piece to wrap up
this CD, and is well performed by the
members of Speculum Musicae.
The liner notes by composer Eric
Chasalow are well-researched and
written in a lucid and entertaining
style. We can only agree with Mr.
Chasalow: “it seems obvious that
Mario Davidovsky is one of the truly
original voices to have emerged from
post-war America.” This is a highly
recommended compact disc.
102
25e Concours International de
Musique Electroacoustique,
Bourges: Prix Quadrivium
Compact discs (2), Cultures électron-
iques 11, LCD 278 065/66, 1998;
available from Institut International
de Musique Electroacoustique de
Bourges, Place André Malraux, B.P.
39, 18001 Bourges Cedex, France;
telephone (+33) 2-48-20-41-87; fax
(+33) 2-48-20-45-51; electronic mail
administration@ime-bourges.org;
Web www.imeb.asso.fr/.
Compendium International
Bourges 2001
Compact discs (2), Chrysopée Elec-
tronique 20, LCD 278 11 22/23, 2001;
available from Institut International
de Musique Electroacoustique de
Bourges, Place André Malraux, B.P.
39, 18001 Bourges Cedex, France;
telephone (+33) 2-48-20-41-87; fax
(+33) 2-48-20-45-51; electronic mail
administration@ime-bourges.org;
Web www.imeb.asso.fr/.
29e Concours International de
Musique et d’Art Sonore
Electroacoustiques, Bourges:
Lauréats du Magisterium et du
Trivium
Compact discs (2), Cultures électron-
iques 16, LCD 278 076/77, 2002;
available from Institut International
de Musique Electroacoustique de
Bourges, Place André Malraux, B.P.
39, 18001 Bourges Cedex, France;
telephone (+33) 2-48-20-41-87; fax
(+33) 2-48-20-45-51; electronic mail
administration@ime-bourges.org;
Web www.imeb.asso.fr/.
Reviewed by Laurie Radford
London, UK
Computer Music Journal
The renowned electroacoustic music
festival and competition held yearly
since 1973 in Bourges, France, con-
tinues to provide a point of reference
for many practitioners of the sonic
arts. From the early days of tape
works to the currently expanding cat-
egories of programmatic work and
work involving technology and live
performance, the Institut Interna-
tional de Musique Electroacoustique
de Bourges (IMEB) has championed
experimental sonic art and has dili-
gently documented and promoted the
activities of the institute, festival,
and competition by means of jour-
nals, composer portraits, audio com-
pilations, and, of course, the
illustrious prizes awarded to each
year’s competition winners. The an-
nual CD compilation of prizewinners
offers an overview of international
compositional activity and has for a
number of years included a retrospec-
tive of works from the early years of
the competition and festival. This
format, with master composers of the
genre placed beside young upstarts in
the prize categories and compilation
recordings, has fostered a sense of
breadth and commitment with regard
to its practitioners and offers evi-
dence of the historical context and
development of the art form.
Each year’s compilation is pre-
sented as a double CD and includes

approximately ten to twelve works.
(This is admittedly a small sampling
of the more than 400 works typically
submitted to the festival and compe-
tition and reflects the decision of that
year’s jury.) This review will give a
brief overview of some of the works
that were deemed worthy of distinc-
tion in the competitions of 1998,
2001, and 2002 as well as several of
the early works included in the Coda
Mémoire addenda of these recordings.
The 1998 compilation offers eight
works representing prize-winning
composers from England, France,
Sweden, USA, Spain, and Italy, as
well as winning works from the
1970s and 1980s. Natasha Barrett’s
Little Animals garnered an Electro-
acoustic Music Studio prize in the
1998 competition and is a good ex-
ample of this accomplished com-
poser’s detailed, sensitive approach to
sound and sonic design. The work is
at moments playful and boisterous,
at others reflective and serene, al-
ways animated by rich sound materi-
als and masterful unfurling of sonic
textures. There is in this work an in-
fectious sense of curiosity and
amazement at the glorious world of
sounds, their shapes and colors, their
trajectory and mass. Two other works
offered from the Electroacoustic Stu-
dio category are Paul Koonce’s Walk-
about and Voz Oculta by José Man-
rique. Mr. Koonce’s work is a study
in the juxtaposition of environmental
and traditional musical sound mate-
rials. It navigates an eclectic path of
everyday sounds in collision or com-
bination with materials and manner-
isms of various musical traditions.
Despite the dated sound of some of
the synthetic materials and pro-
cessing, it is an engaging work that
propels the listener with sharp con-
trasts and bold sonic images. Mr.
Manrique’s much shorter work
adopts a similar approach to combin-
ing environmental recordings with
studio-based sound generation and
transformation, but to a much more
abstract end result. Waves and im-
pulses of sound carry the listener in a
state of suspension, fractured briefly
by changes of texture and density,
with only fleeting suggestions of the
sources from which the sounds arise.
The Electroacoustic Music with
Instruments category is also repre-
sented on this compilation by three
works. Vifs Instants by Gilles Racot
combines a small instrumental en-
semble (here the Archeus Ensemble
from Bucharest) with carefully modi-
fied recordings of these same instru-
ments in a work that draws acoustic
and electroacoustic sound worlds
into a highly convincing interplay
and exploration of “mobility, rapid-
ity, suddenness, and impact.” Al-
though moments when the distance
between acoustic and electroacoustic
evaporate into pure spectral pulsation
are frequent and alluring, there is evi-
dent and successful attention to the
balance of instrumental performance
and sonic fusion with an insistent
percussion solo staking out the en-
semble’s territory before the instru-
ments are subsumed in the massive
textures and frenzy of the conclud-
ing minutes of the work. Emanuel
Casale’s 4-min Studio pits a solo horn
Recordings
with warped and garbled reflections
of itself in a fervid series of call and
response episodes, whereas the much
lengthier Games by Fabio Cifariello
Ciardi ably offers a tantalizingly
raspy, amplified contrabass part as a
capable contender amid a whirling
storm of rich, eruptive sound events,
at times in conflict with, at others
supportive of, the solo instrument.
The Programmatic Electroacoustic
Music category of the Bourges com-
petition offers a nod to the art form’s
radiophonic roots as well as provid-
ing composers with the opportunity
to explore the narrative strengths and
potential of electroacoustic art.
Prizewinners in 1998 in this category
include Jonas Broberg’s Conversation
in Cadaqués and We, we the waves
by Love Mangs. The distinction be-
tween works submitted in the pro-
grammatic and studio categories is
rather vague with the criteria of a
program or narrative as the basis of
the programmatic work, whether
overtly present in the work or not,
being the only identifiable difference.
(Given that many purely electro-
acoustic works rely on similar strate-
gies, this distinction is somewhat
suspect in all but the most blatant
cases.) Nonetheless, Mr. Broberg’s
work is uplifting and suggestive of
movement and travel with a conver-
sational underpinning punctuating
highly developed and constantly
varying sound textures. Mr. Mangs’
20-min piece (subtitled “an acoustic
poem”) is more exemplary of a pro-
grammatic work. Its highly delin-
eated formal design admirably
controls the emotional weight and
imagery of the August Strindberg
poem upon which it is based. A few
words of the poem, hesitantly spo-
ken, appear near the beginning of the
work and set the desolate tone of the
work which is made up predomi-
nantly of swaths of undulating waves,
103
distant pulsations, and unsettling
turbulence. Vocal materials, now
stretched and shaped to bind with the
poem’s images of water, flames,
wind, and waves reappear midway
and drive the work to a stormy cli-
max and an appropriately desolate
conclusion.
The Coda Mémoire works included
with the 1998 Bourges compilation
are Barry Truax’s Sonic Landscape
No.3 (1977), Klaus Röder’s Mr
Frankenstein’s Babies (1982), Patrick
Kosk’s Nebula-Prospekt (1985), and
Ton Bruynel’s Chicharra’s (1986). Mr.
Truax’s piece harkens back to the
early days of computer music, having
garnered first prize in that fledgling
category in 1977 with long evolving
and short chattering FM materials
distinctive of the time. Mr. Röder’s
piece is a tour de force of vocal
recording manipulation with a hyper-
choir jumping from highly rhythmic,
chattering textures to abrupt, some-
what cheesy synthesizer harmonic
blasts. Mr. Bruynel’s work is an ode
to Spain with the over-present buzz
and hum of cicadas wreathing the
voice of Lino Calle de Segovia inton-
ing an homage to this captivating
landscape.
A change to the title for the com-
petition in 2002 (International Com-
petition of Music and Electroacoustic
Sound Art) is reflected in the compi-
lation Cultures électroniques 16,
Bourges 2002 and indicates a reaction
on the part of the organizers to the
growing diversity of styles and strate-
gies in the sonic art community and
the need to acknowledge this at the
festival and competition. The 2002
compilation consists of six works
from that year’s competition and
four retrospective works from earlier
competitions.
Two works by Ricardo Mandolini
figure here, La noce en que los peces
flotaron, which was awarded the
Magisterium Prize in 2002, and an
104
early work from 1979, El cuaderno
del alquimista. La noce . . . is an illu-
sive, fleeting piece that teases the lis-
tener with wisps of sound, isolated
pulsations, slowly accumulating
masses of undulation and an ever-
present disarming calm. Midway
through the work, a frantic, sus-
pended choir leads the piece towards
the first of two climatic moments.
Mr. Mandolini’s El cuaderno del
alquimista clarifies the rarified char-
acter of La noce . . . as a distinctive
compositional trait, already in evi-
dence and extensively explored in
this earlier work. The voice appears
in this work as a favored source of
sonic material and concept. Dense
slabs of sound are abruptly juxta-
posed with faltering particles, both
vying with a heavy, intervening si-
lence that regulates the ponderous
pace of the work.
John Christopher Nelson’s Scatter
lives up to the implied energy and
spatial concept of its title (and would
surely be even more engaging in its
multi-channel version). The particu-
lar textures, grainy rasps, and careen-
ing punctuations fill the soundstage
in an impressive display of spatial
composition closely aligned to tem-
poral and timbral function. Baoding
by David Berezan is a highlight of
this collection with its athletic, ges-
tural character and bountiful timbral
palette ably controlled and molded
into a terse, engaging piece in three
short movements.
All of the works cited so far were
winners in the Electroacoustic Music
category of the 2002 competition.
Joao Pedro Oliveira’s Labirinto is one
of the two winners of the Electro-
acoustic Music with Instruments cat-
egory featured on this compilation.
This work features the Arditti String
Quartet in combination with an
electroacoustic component, the two
closely allied in gestural energy and
character. Mr. Oliveira excels in
Computer Music Journal
string writing and electroacoustic de-
sign that meet in a common territory
of sonic impulse, contrapuntal tex-
ture, delicate exploration of extreme
registers, and a confident regulation
of harmonic and inharmonic, all ar-
ticulated and shaped convincingly
over the piece’s 16-min duration. The
other prize-winning work in this cat-
egory, To walk the night by Marco
Marinoni, integrates the performance
of four instrumentalists seamlessly
into the nervous, frenetic fabric of
electroacoustic chatter and explosion.
The sole work in the newly intro-
duced Sonic Art category from the
2002 competition is Vibratility.Mozaik
by Eric La Casa and Slavek Kwi, a
collaborative work constructed from
many hours of recordings made in a
bell foundry in France. Despite the
sequential nature of the collabora-
tion (with each of the two artists pro-
viding independent versions of the
selected and transformed source ma-
terials which were subsequently com-
bined and mixed), the work is a
coherent, rich aural voyage through
clouds of humming drones, industrial
collage, and finely crafted punctua-
tion. The temporal frame and propor-
tions are entirely convincing in this
grand fresco of soundscape capture
married to skilled intervention.
Three lengthy works are included
on this compilation as part of the
Coda Mémoire retrospective of ear-
lier Bourges competition winners.
Tim Souster’s The Transistor Radio
of St Narcissus (1984) is a 24-min
work for bugle, live electronics, and
electroacoustic component based on
a passage from Thomas Pynchon’s
The Crying of Lot 49. The long arcs
of this work are remarkably assured,
exhibiting diverse timbral evolution
and demarcated by effective points of
articulation. The bugle is a motivat-
ing force throughout the work serv-
ing as soloist, instigator of cascades
of sound processes, and contempla-
tive outsider reflecting upon the
sonic expanse of the work. An expul-
sive bugle solo embellished by pitch-
bent multi-tap delays hovering above
an ominous drone appears prior to
the somber final section of the work.
Chile Fértil Provincia, also from
1984, by Gabriel Brncic, and also
weighing in at just under 24 minutes,
veers through numerous diverse
sound worlds, from barrages of elec-
tronic chattering to long sections of
string orchestra accompanied by fal-
tering drum punctuations, from the
disassembling of a piano smothered
in the dripping of water to slowly di-
verging glissando driven by beating
drums and mumbling radio-like
voices in its depiction of the epic
poem, “La Araucana,” an account of
the conquest of Chile. Without an in-
timate knowledge of the poem, the
work tends to sound like a series of
unrelated episodes strung together
without any overriding formal design
or attention to mechanisms of struc-
tural coherence.
Ake Parmerud’s 1978 work
Närheter is a text-sound piece origi-
nally destined for radiophonic diffu-
sion. It consists of several long
sections depicting firstly the story of
creation and subsequently the con-
cept of dance. The relationship of
varying states of sleep to the main
structural concepts of the work ap-
parently function as important links
to the (Swedish) text of the piece.
One obviously misses a great deal of
the import of the work if one doesn’t
understand the language that ani-
mates much of its content. Nonethe-
less, there is a sonic interplay and
development between the spoken
word, modified voice materials, and
electroacoustic design that propels
the work and makes clear its formal
and expressive intentions.
From its inception, IMEB has de-
veloped research and compositional
components among its various activi-
ties, and has established distinctive
studio and performance facilities that
have attracted many composers from
around the world to work and per-
form in Bourges. In 2000, IMEB began
issuing a new series of compilations
under the title Compendium Interna-
tional, a collection of recordings
bringing together works that were
composed in the same year at the stu-
dios of IMEB. The Compendium from
2001 consists of eleven works by
composers from France, Sweden,
Spain, Argentina, and Poland, includ-
ing Christian Clozier, Erik Mikael
Karlsson, Eduardo Polonio, Beatriz
Ferreyra, Jacky Merit, Elzbieta
Sikora, Françoise Barriere, Horacio
Vaggione, Adolfo Nunez, Patrick As-
cione, and Philippe Auclair.
With the accessibility of software
and the similarity of the architec-
tures and interfaces of plug-in and
mixing environments, there is in-
creasing interest of late concerning
the impact that particular environ-
ments and technologies have on the
creative act, the tools no longer
viewed as transparent in considera-
tion of the work. The sound of cer-
tain studios and the unique
instruments they often housed in the
1960s and 1970s left an indelible im-
print on many works composed in
those facilities. Although the effect
of certain tools available in the
Bourges studios can be heard in some
of the works in this collection, the di-
versity of individual styles and ap-
proaches to technology and sound
materials guarantees that there isn’t
an overriding “Bourges” sound per se.
Mr. Karlsson’s Lignage/Liaison is
an evocative reflection in six move-
ments on the poem “Chant Nocturne
d’un berger errant d’Asie” by the
19th-century poet Giacomo Leopardi.
Contemplative and finely crafted in
shape and momentum, there is al-
ways a sense of intense, clear purpose
in this work, whether at moments of
Recordings
near stasis or when scurrying frag-
ments of sound dart through the dark
receding textures. Ms. Ferreyra’s La
ba-balle du chien-chien à la mè-mère
takes the listener on a delightful
sonic exploration of the sounds of a
ball, a dog, and a grandmother. The
contributions of the source materials
are rich and varied in their many
transformed guises and an ever-
present poetic tension between origin
and destination provides a convinc-
ing framework for the gestural and
formal design of the piece. 24 Varia-
tions by Horacio Vaggione imagina-
tively expands a small source
collection of sound materials into a
diverse but unified sonic universe,
the variations of the title referring
more to the wealth of subtle grada-
tions of variance from one version of
a sound to another than to distinct
formal units over its 10-min dura-
tion. A similar energy and propulsion
characterize the distinct sections of
the work and lends another interpre-
tation to the variations at work in
this detailed composition. Patrick
Ascione’s Divertissement is, as the
name implies, a light-hearted work
with buoyant timbres, a clearly artic-
ulated formal design, and a sonic
proposition that is deliberately nar-
row in range of expression and explo-
ration. The result is rather uneven
and rambling with a strained avoid-
ance of more engaging use of certain
materials and an over-reliance on
streams of pallid, pulsing materials
devoid of direction. Several other of
the works on this compilation share
this characteristic in regards to tem-
poral proportions. Nonetheless, it re-
mains an interesting overview of the
output of electroacoustic practition-
ers during a short period of time in a
world-renowned studio facility.
Compilations from festivals, com-
petitions, gallery curation, and spe-
cial events afford the opportunity to
sample a cross-section of work from a
105
particular event and within a particu-
lar time frame. The audio compila-
tions published by IMEB give us
access to a cross-section of this yearly
activity of electroacoustic produc-
tion, presentation, and appreciation.
IMEB and the Bourges festival and
competition continue to provide op-
portunities for electroacoustic com-
posers to submit their work to the
greater sonic arts community for
evaluation and dissemination.
Electric Music Collective:
Incandescence
Compact disc, EMC1, 2003; available
from Electric Music Collective; elec-
tronic mail chris@music.columbia
.edu; Web www.emcollective.org/
EMC1.html.
Electric Music Collective: Defiant
Compact disc, EMC2, 2004; available
from Electric Music Collective; elec-
tronic mail chris@music.columbia
.edu; Web www.emcollective.org/
EMC2.html.
Reviewed by Corey Cheng
San Francisco, California, USA
What if one could have the
whole world as an orchestra?
What if every sound-producing
object could be potentially used
as a musical instrument? (Elec-
tric Music Collective Web site)
The Electric Music Collective (EMC)
is a group of young, New York-based
artists who compose live and com-
puter music in the musique concrète,
or “cinema for the ear,” style. The
group consists of Chris Bailey, Doug
Geers, Tim Polashek, Marcus Bitten-
court, and Fernando Gomez-
Evelson—all graduates of Columbia
University’s program in computer
106
music. Incandescence (2003) and De-
fiant (2004) are EMC’s first two al-
bums, and both are dedicated to tape
music.
The first release, Incandescence, is
a youthful, energetic, and eclectic
collection of pieces that showcases
the variety of different styles and
compositional outlooks of the EMC
composers. This CD is engaging and
even endearing in places because it
allows the young personalities of the
composers to show. Chris Bailey ap-
pears to be the joker of the group, as
his two pieces, Ow, My Head and
Duude, are both hilariously, laugh-
out-loud funny. Ow, My Head, dedi-
cated to the composer’s parents’
“pleasantly cookie-cutter suburban
home,” contains enough creaks and
konks, rattles and zips and zonks,
flapping papers and na-na-na-poo-poo
vocal stylings to put a smile on the
face of even the stodgiest academic
listener. To quote the words of an-
other well-known critic, “This work
is a lot of fun and there isn’t much
fun in computer music” (Jon Apple-
ton, in a Computer Music Journal re-
view of Paul Lansky’s Ride, Vol.
26/1). The pace of the piece is fast,
frenetic, and frustrated, and can leave
the listener a little breathless by the
end. But all in all, it is fun music to
listen to, as the piece has an “every-
thing but the kitchen sink, okay,
what the heck, throw in the kitchen
sink and record it too, it’s all hilari-
ous” style.
Duude, dedicated to Mr. Bailey’s
“ratty apartment [he] first inhabited
in Manhattan,” is just as fast and
funny as Ow, My Head. The wit of
the two pieces is very similar, and af-
ter listening to both more closely, it’s
obvious that Mr. Bailey is doing some
hard work to convince his audience
that these pieces appear funny all the
time. He is careful not to use his ir-
reverent vocal sounds, random
pitches, and sound bites from old ra-
Computer Music Journal
dio and TV programs too carefully as
loaded motivic or overly program-
matic devices. Instead, he cooks up
these bonbons of sound, quickly de-
vours them, and explodes the debris
into other high-octane sonic morcels
(listen for the tasty Rice Krispie treat
in the middle of the piece). Timing
this interchange and maintaining a
tempo which consistently railroads a
listener into thinking everything
everywhere in the piece is funny all
the time is not easy, and Mr. Bailey
does it well.
The only seam I hear in these two
works is the use of pitch as a pacify-
ing, closing device at the end of both
pieces. An ear which is slightly tired
from the pace and musique concrete–
style “wall-of-sound” which these
pieces create might welcome the ex-
tended references to a tonal V-I ca-
dence at the end of Ow or the
soothing string-like pads which de-
scend by whole steps at the end of
Duude. This application of pitch in a
genre that often rebels against pitch
is an effective contrast, although it is
a well-known compositional tool.
Mr. Bailey does add his own signature
to this device, as he introduces and
weaves the timbres of the pitched
material in throughout the piece in
order to soften its full entry at the
end of the piece. A more wry, tongue-

in-cheek humor is in the string pads
at the end of Ow, where the sudden,
jerky volume increases say, “Oh
yeah, it’s the end of the piece, I better
turn up the gain on this tonal part.”
Just as pitch can be a challenging
element to blend into the free-form
world of electroacoustic tape music,
so can the elements of form. In this
sense, Tim Polashek is the neo-
classicist of EMC. In many of his
works, he pays homage to the more
traditional forms in music, from the
classical Western canon, jazz idioms,
and music from the electroacoustic
genre. In Sonata, Mr. Polashek
arranges carefully chosen and rela-
tively sparsely spaced processed pi-
ano sounds into a clearly identifiable
classical sonata form: first and sec-
ond themes, development, recapitu-
lation, coda. To me, in addition to
being a showcase of sounds derived
from a single piano, this piece is a
witty satire on form. How much of a
classical structure, originally evolved
out of the need to organize classical
sounds, should be imparted to non-
classical, electroacoustic sounds? In
this sense, the subject, structure, and
satire of this piece remind me of the
evolution of Alexander Scriabin’s ten
piano sonatas: Classical sonata form
carries Chopinesque motifs in the
earlier works, whereas the form
starts to strain, buckle, and ulti-
mately morph under the weight of
atonal material in the later works.
Doug Geers, another of the EMC
composers, is already well known for
his compositions which pair acoustic
instruments with live electronics. By
contrast, his compositions Ripples
and Soft and Sky Melting, presented
on the Incandescence CD, are pro-
duced purely as computer music,
and demonstrate Mr. Geers’s well-
developed vocabulary along with his
virtuosity and additional versatility
as a computer musician. These two
pieces are constructed from delicate,
exquisitely fine, painstakingly and
microscopically detailed textures.
What is special about these pieces is
that they are beautifully smooth:
They are extremely well paced and
make surprisingly good use of fairly
simple compositional devices mod-
eled on simple yet clearly identifiable
sound processing tools. In this sense,
these compositions are very well
crafted and are, as a result, very en-
joyable to listen to. Ripples is a
tonally oriented granular synthesis
piece which evolves clearly identifi-
able pitched grains into and out of
faster, more blended sounds. Pro-
cessing tools like reverberation, tim-
bre changes in the sources used for
the granular synthesis engine, and
changes in grain density are simple
and straightforward, but are intro-
duced subtly and at well-placed
points. Soft and Sky Melting is a
more extended and varied piece that
draws upon a wider palette of
sparkling, shimmering sounds.
If Incandescence is a youthful in-
troduction to EMC, then Defiant, the
second EMC album, is definitely a
more considered, mature release. By
comparison, Incandescence explores
a wider tessitura of sonic space,
whereas Defiant, assembled from
works composed several years after
those included on Incandescence, is a
Recordings
bit more thoughtful in nature. The
quieter, yet slightly harsher and
noise-like sounds of the second al-
bum will invite you to learn more
about the composers themselves,
some of their compositional thought
processes, how their views might
have changed in some ways, and why
they write the way they do.
Mr. Polashek’s A Miniature
Odyssey is a playful, minute-long in-
troduction to Defiant, written as a
character piece using frequency
modulation (FM) and layered rever-
beration techniques popular in the
electronic music of the 1950s and
1960s. He pays tribute to a different
electronic music tradition in Dry
Weaves, a rhythmic, process-oriented
piece, which gradually and very effec-
tively introduces longer and longer
fricative speech fragments at various
pan positions in an overall stereo
stream that ebbs and flows over six
and a half minutes. In this sense, the
well-structured, process-oriented
form of the piece reminds me of
Alvin Lucier’s I am Sitting in a
Room, and the use of spatialization
in the introduction and measured ex-
pansion of the speech fragments re-
minds me of the slow, processing
phase effects found in Steve Reich’s
Come Out.
Mr. Polashek has a personal inter-
est in, and brings a personal touch to,
the text/sound tradition. Listeners
who understand this might better un-
derstand the title of the piece and ap-
preciate why he chooses his forms
and subjects the way he does, both in
this and his other pieces, including
Minute Percussion, another speech-
based miniature found at the end of
Defiant. As he recounts in a recent
article, he was born with a moderate
hearing impairment that makes
speech difficult for him to under-
stand at times. However, rather than
evoking pity, being exploitative, or
being driven to the passionate ex-
107
tremes of another well-known Ger-
man classical composer having hear-
ing loss, Mr. Polashek simply and
gracefully incorporates into his mu-
sic the humor that the ambiguity of
speech comprehension has brought to
his daily life:
For example, “Good morning
Mr. Doolittle” might come across
as “You’re warming me a little
soup”; when I repeat such mis-
hearings aloud in puzzlement, I
often send my wife into hyster-
ics of laughter. If I get too con-
fused, I usually just “tune out”
and stop trying to understand the
language. Musically inclined, I
tend, instead, to listen solely to
the sound of the babbling voice.
(Tim Polashek. 2005. “Beyond
Babble: A Text-Generation
Method and Computer Program
for Composing Text, Music and
Poetry.” Leonardo Music Jour-
nal 15:17–22.)
Mr. Geers presents two pieces on
Defiant that draw on radio noise and
radio frequency interference noise
popular in 1960s electronic music.
Atomic Tango updates this tradition
by imparting the quickly varying vol-
ume changes characteristic of the
static heard while tuning a radio to
other, computer- or CPU- inspired RF
interference sounds. Formally, the
piece works its way inward, from a
veiled introduction toward a clear
presentation of its source materials,
and then outward again. Twisted Pair
does not do as much up front to hide
the harshness of the sounds and dis-
tortions of RF noise, but does use the
same wide-dynamic volume and
pitch change envelopes to sculpt
distortion-inspired sounds through-
out the piece. Although these pieces
show a different, edgier side to Mr.
Geers than can be heard in the shim-
mering works on Incandescence,
what is consistent in all of these
108
pieces is the careful blending and
transitioning which give the pieces
an expertly balanced pace.
Mr. Bailey also shows another side
of himself on EMC’s second disc. His
OOOGaah: Dungeony Specimen
Spaceship has the same structure
and one-sound-tripping-over-the-
next laughability as his earlier pieces,
but the pacing in the second half of
the piece is slower and more con-
trolled. His other piece on the album,
Conceptual Study, concentrates on
delay loops and is more of a medita-
tive piece. Similarly, Fernando
Gomez-Evelson’s 745-Bit Cycle,
composed with guest Jun Mizu-
machi, is a quiet, serious piece that
contains more noise-like, Xenakis-
inspired sounds.
Marcus Bittencourt, another of
the EMC composers, produced the
industrial sounding Lupanar from
“machine instruments” of “click-
clacking-screaming monsters” for
EMC’s first CD. On Defiant, his piece
Chimaera is a less literal work
which, while sharing the same indus-
trial sound as Lupanar, reveals itself
more slowly and deliberately. Both of
Mr. Bittencourt’s works encourage an
active imagination to conjure up
vivid portraits of large creatures with
even larger egos and personalities. To
me, Chimaera sounds like the sound-
track from an old 1930s horror
movie, where, instead of King Kong,
the monster of the film might be a
100-foot tall oboe which, with 20-
foot legs and arms, marches down
Fifth Avenue with heavy, leaden-
sounding feet intent on terrorizing
Manhattan . . .
Incandescence and Defiant are
good collections of electroacoustic
music composed by a group of emerg-
ing young composers. The Electric
Music Collective represents a diverse
set of styles, and it will be interesting
to see how these composers continue
their collaborations in the future.
Computer Music Journal
Music From SEAMUS, Volume 13
Compact disc, 2004; available from
SEAMUS Online; electronic mail
webmaster@seamusonline.org; Web
www.seamusonline.org/seamuscd
.html.
Reviewed by rachMiel
Rochester, New York, USA
SEAMUS, lovely acronym for the So-
ciety for Electro-Acoustic Music in
the United States, was co-founded in
1984 by Barry Schrader and nine other
composers. Since then it has grown
from a private, salon-like group of ten
into an acclaimed national organiza-
tion of over 500 members. SEAMUS
promotes the development and dis-
semination of electroacoustic music
through its Web site, annual confer-
ences, publications, performer data-
base, and CD series.
Once a year, at the SEAMUS Na-
tional Conference, a vote is held for
the best compositions presented at
the conference. The pieces with the
most votes are then released on a
compilation CD. The nine pieces on
the SEAMUS, Volume 13, CD were
presented at the 2003 SEAMUS con-
ference at Arizona State University.
Dreams in the Desert (2001) is an
electroacoustic piece produced by
Elainie Lillios, music technology and
composition professor at Bowling
Green State University. Ms. Lillios
sets out to explore the abstract
essence of sound in her work, and to
take listeners on free-flowing audio-
emotional journeys. Dreams in the
Desert is a finely nuanced piece, rich
with electronically modified acoustic
sounds, some recognizable (sloshing
water), others not (abstract sound
essences). The flow is gentle, like wa-
ter, inviting, understated, often beau-
tiful. The tactile sensuality of the
sounds and the excellent sense of
musical drama (tension, release)

keeps one engaged, body and spirit,
throughout.
Nocturne/Doubles (2001), for pi-
ano (played by Daniel Koppelman)
and computer, was composed by Ben-
jamin Broening, professor and Direc-
tor of Music Technology at the
University of Richmond. It is the sec-
ond in a set of pieces built around the
notion of doubles, a type of musical
ornamentation popular in 17th–18th
century French works. Mr. Broening’s
algorithms respond in real time to
the music generated by the piano, in
his words, “confirming and summa-
rizing, extending, altering or recon-
textualizing the melodic and
harmonic material.” The slow and
dreamy flow of the piece, together
with its use of lush anachronistic
tonality, effectively evoke a sense of
hazy melancholic remembering in
keeping with the composition’s sense
of looking back in time.
Sheremetyevo Airport Rock (2002),
for tape, was composed by Jon Apple-
ton, professor at Dartmouth College
and one of the true giants of electro-
acoustic music, prominent in the
field for over 40 years. Sheremetyevo
is the third in a series of pieces col-
laging recorded responses to the ques-
tion: “What do you think of the new
electronic music?” In Newark Air-
port Rock (1969), the first in the se-
ries, the responses are played back
over a classic Moog synthesizer-based
background. In San Francisco Airport
Rock (1995), the responses overlap a
quasi new-age MIDI soundtrack. In
Sheremetyevo Airport Rock, the re-
sponses (in Russian and Russian-
accented English) are combined with
a whimsical collection of vocals,
sound effects, and Russian orchestral
music. Sheremetyevo is a delightful
little piece: fun, funny, short and
sweet, homespun electroacoustic
storytelling with tongue firmly
planted in cheek.
De Ligno Chalybeque (2003) is an
electroacoustic piece composed by
Konstantinos Karathanasis, currently
completing a Ph.D. in composition at
the University at Buffalo (UB). Draw-
ing upon the mythology of his Greek
homeland, Mr. Karathanasis cites
several ingredients “necessary for the
recipe of the piece,” including: Fire,
Sulfur, Quicksilver, Dionysus, Sisy-
phus, Chaos, and Katharsis. All
sounds were derived from cello and
modified by custom Max/MSP algo-
rithms. De Ligno Chalybeque is a
compelling piece, by turns medita-
tive, explosive, lyrical, and, on occa-
sion, violent. The cello sounds are,
for the most part, very abstracted,
fodder for Max/MSP processing. Mr.
Karathanasis uses silence as an active
presence, rather than an absence, in
keeping with the legacy left by long-
time UB composition teacher, Mor-
ton Feldman.
Gerrymander (2002), for B-flat clar-
inet (played by Gerard Errante) and
Max/MSP, was composed by Russell
Pinkston, professor and Director of
Electronic Music Studios at The Uni-
versity of Texas at Austin. The title
is a double pun, referring both to the
name of the person who commis-
sioned the piece, Gerry Errante, and
to the bizarre images created by polit-
ical gerrymandering as reflected in
the unexpected turns in the flow of
Recordings
the piece. In addition to creating the
foreground layer, the clarinetist is re-
sponsible for most of the background
sound, which he creates in real time
with the assistance of Max/MSP pro-
cessing. Gerrymander is an engaging
and dramatically satisfying musical
journey, marked throughout by sinu-
ous melodic lines and, in the second
half, dynamic staccato rhythms.
The Sundering Seas (2002) is an
electroacoustic tape piece composed
by Noel Paul, graduate student and
lecturer at DXARTS (Center for Digi-
tal Arts and Experimental Media) at
the University of Washington. Per-
haps the most abstract of the sound-
worlds on the CD, The Sundering
Seas uses a set of acoustic sounds as
its generative material, including
keys, bowed electric guitar, paper,
and ambisonic recordings (a stereo
variant of 3-D surround sound).
These sounds were processed using
frequency and amplitude data derived
from recorded samples of water; in-
terestingly, the original water sounds
are clearly audible only in the last few
seconds of the track, an audio-ironic
coda. The flow of the piece models
the flow of water: fluid, unpulsed, in-
evitable. Like many abstract elec-
tronic pieces, this comes off as a rich
study in shifting textures and tim-
bres, rather than an exploration of
melody, rhythm, or counterpoint.
Pre-Composition (2002) is an eight-
channel tape piece (reduced to stereo
for the CD) composed and performed
by Mark Applebaum, professor of
composition and theory at Stanford
University, jazz pianist, and electro-
acoustic instrument builder. The
piece is, in the composer’s words, “an
ironic exorcism of the ‘council of eld-
ers’ in my head.” It consists of eight
channels of spoken conversation be-
tween multiple instances of Mr.
Applebaum’s voice. This council of
Applebaums discusses, sometimes
hilariously, the process of creating
109
the piece. Thus the piece’s composi-
tional planning process becomes the
piece itself. Occasionally, Applebaum
instances come together and perform
synchronized phrases and passages;
these are welcome in that they
underscore the musicality of the
piece. But, for the most part, Pre-
Composition remains a talk piece,
and a bit of an insider joke, some-
thing that might appeal mostly to
composers and artists.
Ascension (1988), for the Univer-
sity of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC)
Conservatory Wind Ensemble (con-
ducted by Gary Hill) and electro-
acoustic tape, was composed by
James Mobberley, professor and Di-
rector of the Musica Nova Ensemble
at the UMKC Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Mobberly dedicated Ascension to
his college roommate, who was
killed in action in the Persian Gulf in
1988. His friend’s complex and enter-
tainingly volatile personality inspired
the piece’s musical content, while
Mr. Mobberly’s personal reaction to
the death shaped the structure. The
result is a very energetic and com-
pelling roller coaster of a musical
ride, presenting idiomatically Ameri-
can expressionistic wind-ensemble
writing.
Larry Austin’s Threnos (2001–
2002) is a piece for real and virtual
bass clarinets. Mr. Austin’s distin-
guished musical reputation precedes
him: composition student of Darius
Milhaud and Andrew Imbrie, work-
ing colleague of John Cage, Karlheinz
Stockhausen, and David Tudor,
founding editor of avant-garde music
periodical Source, creator of the New
Music Ensemble at the University of
California. Mr. Austin is now retired,
though seemingly active as ever.
Threnos is a lament for the victims of
the 9/11 World Trade Center bomb-
ings. It consists of three continuous
sections: real bass clarinet (played by
Michael Lowenstern), followed by
110
virtual bass clarinet, followed again
by real bass clarinet, all over a haunt-
ingly sensuous chordal background
drone. The piece is gorgeous and un-
abashedly emotional, evoking the
sorrow of 9/11 in understated dark
tones and plaintive melodic lines.
Music from SEAMUS, Volume 13,
is an excellent CD, “must listening”
for any fan of cutting-edge electro-
acoustic music. The quality of perfor-
mances and audio is high, and the
8-page liner booklet is informative
and well-written, with program notes
and thumbnail composer bios for
each piece. 2003 must have been a
good year, because all these pieces,
culled from the 2003 SEAMUS Na-
tional Conference, are engaging. And,
perhaps best of all, the variety of
styles and moods makes for fascinat-
ing, entertaining, and sometimes
quite moving listening.
Joel Chadabe: Many Times . . .
Compact disc, EMF CD 050, 2004;
available from CDeMUSIC/Elec-
tronic Music Foundation, 116 North
Lake Avenue, Albany, New York
12206, USA; telephone (+1) 888-749-
9998 or (+1) 518-434-4110; fax (+1)
518-434-0308; electronic mail
cde@emf.org; Web www.emfmedia
.org/catalog/em150.html.
Reviewed by rachMiel
Rochester, New York, USA
Joel Chadabe, one of the founding fa-
thers of interactive electroacoustic
music, has been active worldwide as
composer, performer, and writer
since the late 1960s. A student of El-
liott Carter, Mr. Chadabe is a very
busy man: Professor Emeritus at State
University of New York, Albany; Di-
rector of the Electronic Music Studios
at Bennington College and Manhattan
College of Music; Adjunct Faculty
Computer Music Journal
member at New York University; and
founder and President of Electronic
Music Foundation (EMF).
Mr. Chadabe’s compositions and
articles are published by EMF Media,
Deep Listening, Lovely Music, Opus
One, Folkways, Computer Music
Journal, Leonardo, Electronic Musi-
cian, and others. His book Electric
Sound, a comprehensive historical
survey of electronic music, is pub-
lished by Prentice Hall. He has been
involved in the development of sev-
eral seminal musical-processing
programs, including M, Max, and
TouchSurface, a touch-sensitive
computer input device. In 1977 he
co-authored Play, the first software-
based sequencer. In 1967 he and
Robert Moog co-designed CEMS (co-
ordinated electronic music studio), a
programmable analog music system.
Mr. Chadabe’s approach to musical
composition is process- and performer-
oriented:
When people ask me what I do
as a composer, I explain that I do
not compose pieces, I compose
activities. A “piece,” whatever
its content, is a construction
with a beginning and end that
exists independent of its listeners
and within its own boundaries
of time. An “activity” unfolds
because of the way people per-
form; and consequently, an ac-
tivity happens in the time of
living; and art comes closer to
life. (“A Statement,” www
.chadabe.com/statement.html)
The album Many Times . . . is very
much in keeping with this approach.
It consists of a set of five solo inter-
pretations of the composition Many
Times . . . , the ellipsis being a place-
holder for the name of the per-
former: Many Times Chris (for Chris
Mann), Many Times Jan (for Jan
Williams), Many Times Esther (for
Esther Lamneck), and so on. Many

Times . . . is thus a kind of composi-
tional template to be filled in by the
sounds and personalities of the per-
formers: spoken voice, percussion,
woodwind, slow and dreamy, upbeat,
kaleidoscopic, etc.
The title Many Times . . . contains
a double entendre. It refers both to
the succession of many performers
who will interpret the composition
and to the central techno-musical is-
sue the piece addresses: that of a live
performer interacting with several
processed-sound images of him- or
herself. Mr. Chadabe uses computer-
driven electronics to realize this solo-
driven polyphony. The performer sits
at a microphone, and the sounds gen-
erated are modified by a Kyma Sys-
tem (Symbolic Sound Corporation) in
real time and are then distributed
throughout the room through a ma-
trix of loudspeakers.
Along with the notion of the indi-
vidual being expanded electronically
into an ensemble, two themes in-
spired Mr. Chadabe’s composition of
Many Times . . . . The first is the
transformation of acoustica to elec-
tronica: playing an acoustic instru-
ment, the performer effectively plays
an electronic instrument. The second
is the interactivity of this meta-
electronic instrument: to use the
composer’s words, the original
(acoustic) and processed (electronic)
layers are “mutually influential.”
The soloist in the first track, Many
Times Benjamin, is percussionist and
video artist, Benjamin Chadabe.
Through virtuosic bowing of cymbals
and gongs, he manages to achieve a
fluid study in complex, noise-rich
timbres. Lines are long, as expected
with bowed metal, and there is no
counterpoint, no pulse. The result is
oceanic and outside the strictures of
metronomic time. The audible
boundary between acoustically gen-
erated (bowed) sounds and computer-
processed versions of same is
minimal; in fact, it’s often difficult to
tell where one ends and the other be-
gins. This is a hauntingly beautiful,
if somewhat icy, piece (due to the
bowed-metal timbres).
Many Times Chris is performed by
Chris Mann of Machine for Making
Sense fame. Mr. Mann is a composer
and performer whose main realm of
compositional exploration is linguis-
tics, the technology and philosophy
of human speech. In this track, he
renders a highly idiosyncratic narra-
tion of his text piece, “Theories of
Surplus Value III,” a wild and bril-
liant stream-of-consciousness exege-
sis on the potential of language. Mr.
Mann’s interpretation of his text is ir-
reverent and playful; his voice speeds
up, slows down, chops apart, and
teases at the boundaries of his pitch
range. Combined with the Kyma-
processed images, the mix is dense
and baroque, scherzo-like, dipping
occasionally into full-blown, formant-
shifted chaos.
Cellist David Gibson is the inter-
preter of Many Times David. Mr.
Gibson, who teaches cello at Mount
Holyoke College and theory and in-
strumental music at Rensselaer Poly-
technic Institute, creates a haunting
soundworld: slow-motion, pulseless,
timbre-driven. It is similar in flow
and affect to the world of Many
Recordings
Times Benjamin, suggesting that Mr.
Chadabe’s software processing might
lend itself to long, free-flowing lines.
One striking difference is that Mr.
Gibson’s playing is filled with id-
iomatic and recognizable cello ges-
tures, which results in a more
clear-cut distinction between the
original and the processed sounds.
Many Times Jan is performed by
percussionist Jan Williams, Professor
Emeritus at the University of Buffalo.
Mr. Williams plays conga, djembé,
and assorted hand-held percussion in-
struments in his interpretation of the
piece. The result is a delightfully tac-
tile field of percussive impulses and
rhythms, very welcome on the disc
as a foil to the lugubriousness of
tracks 1 and 3. Through his sparse
and delicate playing, Mr. Williams
manages to create a soundworld that
has a natural feel to it, a sense of
electroacoustic rain forest. This is
due, in no small measure, to the very
effective interplay between original
and computer-processed sounds.
The final piece, Many Times Esther,
is performed by clarinetist, Esther
Lamneck, director of Instrumental
Studies at New York University and
director of the NYU New Music and
Dance Ensemble. On this track, Ms.
Lamneck plays the tárogató, a Hun-
garian single-reed woodwind instru-
ment with a rich, mournful sound,
part english horn and part saxophone.
The soundworld and flow of Many
Times Esther is similar to that of
Many Times Benjamin and Many
Times David, resulting in a symmet-
ric “club sandwich” form for the CD:
tracks 1, 3, and 5 are adagio-paced
timbral studies, tracks 2 and 4 are up-
beat rhythmic scherzos. The sounds
Ms. Lamneck urges from the tárogató
are lamentful and strikingly organ-
like. In fact, the piece is strongly
reminiscent of György Ligeti’s eerie
cluster-based organ solo, Volumina.
This is a very enjoyable album,
111
well produced with generous liner
notes: composer remarks, performer
bios, and the full text to Chris
Mann’s “Theories of Surplus Value
III.” It’s fascinating to hear five differ-
ent interpretations of the same com-
position, or perhaps more accurately,
of the same set of software algo-
rithms as developed by Mr. Chadabe.
The performers are all top-notch and
bring their idiosyncratic musical per-
sonalities to bear in their interpreta-
tions. The aforementioned five-track
symmetry lends a sense of complete-
ness to the experience of listening to
the entire CD, a sense of being pre-
sented with five movements of a
single long piece. My only reserva-
tions are that there is not a 5.1 sur-
round sound version of the CD
available to convey the sense of dif-
ferent processed sound images sur-
rounding the listener, and that tracks
1, 3, and 5 sound a bit too similar.
Richard Karpen: Solo/Tutti
Compact disc, Centaur Records CRC
2716, 2004; available from Centaur
Records, Inc., 136 St. Joseph Street,
Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70802, USA;
telephone (+1) (225-336-4877; fax (+1)
225-336-9678; electronic mail
info@centaurrecords.com; Web
www.centaurrecords.com/.
Reviewed by Frances White
Princeton, New Jersey, USA
Richard Karpen has one of the most
individual and powerful voices in the
world of computer music today. The
compact disc Solo/Tutti presents a
collection of his works, selected from
a span of 15 years. The CD consists of
four pieces for electronic sound with
live performers, and one for electronic
sound alone. All are beautifully
recorded, performed, and mastered.
Of the pieces including instrumen-
112
talists, two involve real-time com-
puter processing and two are for
pre-recorded computer realized
sound—instrument and “tape.” In
his liner notes, Mr. Karpen acknowl-
edges that the genre of instrument
and tape is a thing unto itself, not to
be replaced by interactive or real-
time systems. It is refreshing to see
this recognized: it has always seemed
to me that the use of pre-recorded
sound can produce sonic landscapes
that give the temporal aspect of mu-
sic an almost spatial quality. A lot of
interesting possibilities can be cre-
ated by then placing live instrumen-
talists within this space. On the
other hand, real-time processing is
sometimes, unfortunately, treated as
an end in itself. There seems to be an
assumption that it is necessarily bet-
ter than the tape model, and that it is
inevitably more capable of true hu-
man expression because it is modeled
on the way instrumental music
works. This assumption strikes me
as somewhat old-fashioned: Can’t
(and shouldn’t) electronic music try
to explore and encompass new ways
of thinking about what it means to
produce expressive music?
Mr. Karpen’s approach to “real-
time” has a unique and poetic
strength: It seems to be based on the
idea of creating human/instrument/
electronic musical hybrids. This is a
beautiful and haunting image, as if
the performer, the instrument, and
the electronics are all merging into a
new being. Disturbing too, perhaps,
but really only an extension of what
great instrumentalists already seem
to do. The roots of this idea can cer-
tainly be heard in his earlier “tape-
and” pieces. In both of these works,
the sound world encompasses the
idea of the live instrumentalist peri-
odically fusing with the sonic land-
scape created by the tape, then
separating from and contrasting with
it. However, in the tape-and pieces,
Computer Music Journal
the fusion seems to be more specifi-
cally about the sound created by the
fusing/separating, while in the real-
time pieces, it is more about the sound
of the performance of the merging of
human/instrument/electronics.
The first piece on the disc, Solo/
Tutti, is for amplified viola and real-
time computer processing, and is
magnificently performed by virtuoso
Garth Knox. It opens with a vast, ag-
gressive flurry of viola, out of which
emerges electronic haloes. Gradually,
the music settles on the low open-
string double stop, getting slower and
slower, repeatedly pulled back to the
fifth as if by gravity, until the fifth be-
comes sustained in both viola and
electronics, with subtle harmonic
shifts appearing in the electronic
part. This is a very powerful stasis—
it has the effect of inevitability, that
this is where the music is fated to be.
For me, this stillness becomes the
crux of the piece. Because it is so pro-
longed, it has an extreme quality, an
uncompromising insistence on being
exactly what it is, unadorned. Here is
a composer who has the courage to
do nothing! (It can be difficult to
avoid the urge to “keep things inter-
esting,” and all too often this urge
muddles perfectly good composi-
tions.) This section ends in a brief si-
lence, which is then followed by a
new character, a sharp pizzicato at-
tack. A quiet pizzicato section fol-
lows, with delicate electronic sound
surrounding the live player. As the
viola returns to arco, shadowed by
images of itself, the delicate elec-
tronic sounds become huge and the
whole texture crescendos, achieving
a kind of terrifying mass, as if ready
to explode. It culminates in a repeat
of the pizzicato attack and a chaotic
flurry, which here becomes genuinely
ferocious before returning to silence.
The viola comes back, inevitably,
to the double stop. This time, it is
surrounded by the delicate electronic
sounds—a truly beautiful texture.
Here, the viola edges toward a more
singing tone. The piece ends in this
space, which has a dark, mysterious
character. It is almost as if the viola
were trying to resist the inevitability
of the double stop: This ends the
piece with a very moving sense of hu-
man struggle.
The next piece, Exchange, is for
flute and tape. It is the earliest piece
on the disc, composed in 1987, and in
his liner notes, Mr. Karpen describes
the electronic sound as a complex of
spectral components that sometimes
“unfuse and are perceived subtly as
separate moving parts” while the
flute “rides on the surface of this am-
biguous sonic texture . . . sometimes
dissolving into the computer-realized
sound.” The result is a beautifully
evolving kind of landscape, where
multiphonics in the flute really do
fuse with the electronic sound in a
magical way. At other points, lovely
melodic writing or virtuosic passage-
work puts the flute in the foreground,
almost like a line drawing in ink
against a rich painted background.
The flute comes across as a kind of
entity that sometimes morphs into
being part of the setting it finds itself
in, then re-emerges: The setting and
the protagonist not only changing
places, but becoming part of each
other, then separating.
The human/instrumental/elec-
tronic hybridization is perhaps at its
most unmistakable in Anterior View
of an Interior with Reclining Trom-
bonist: The Conservation of Energy,
for amplified trombone with photore-
sistor slide and real-time computer
processing. Here the instrument it-
self is extended by attaching photore-
sistors and LEDs to the slide of the
trombone. This allows its position to
be tracked, and its position, speed,
and direction are all used in real time
to create and process the electronic
sounds that are heard in the piece.
Mr. Karpen explains that there is no
score for the piece, but rather a
“script,” worked out with the trom-
bonist, Stuart Dempster, during a se-
ries of rehearsals.
The resulting work is much richer
and more dramatic than this rather
dry explanation might suggest. It
opens with a mesmerizing, other-
worldly “wind” sound, that is actu-
ally the trombonist snoring and
whistling into the instrument. This
passage has an ethereal, timeless
quality that ends with clouds of
trombone sound, from which text ap-
pears: Richard Feynman’s “Introduc-
tion to Physics” lecture. The speech
is heavily inflected with trombone
timbre and other processing, so that
it cannot be clearly understood. It is
followed by a deep drone-like sound
reminiscent of the harmonically rich
chanting of Tibetan monks, along
with a reference to the opening tex-
ture: a beautiful, mysterious, and
powerful moment. Long trombone
tones take over, and a dark, almost
choral texture begins to evolve.
When speech returns, it is com-
pletely garbled, so although there is
such a strong vocal feeling, it is as if
language has been completely super-
seded by sound. And then, dramati-
cally, the speech by itself comes
through more clearly, followed by
low vocal/trombone drones from
which beautiful harmonics emerge.
But it is only towards the end of the
piece that the speech, particularly the
phrase “the conservation of energy,”
is completely comprehensible. A
haunting return to the otherworldly
“wind” space of the opening, this
time accompanied by sounds that
evoke crickets or other insects, closes
the work.
Mr. Karpen mentions that in live
performance there is a strong dra-
matic element to the piece. I feel that
this element also comes across in the
recording. It is almost like an abstract
Recordings
play, where different sonic spaces are
the events of the narrative, which we
are able to follow and understand in
an intuitive way.
The fourth piece on the disc, Life
Study # 5, is the only piece on the
disc that is for computer-realized
sound without an instrumentalist.
Mr. Karpen places this piece in the
genre of “aural cinema,” and it is an
apt term for this music. The piece
contains hyper-realistic real-world
sounds, along with various synthetic
and processed sounds. As the work
unfolds, it is impossible not to get
the sense that there is some kind of
an unspoken narrative beneath the
sounds, that you can almost, but not
quite, touch an underlying story. The
sharply presented real-world
sounds—a flag in the wind, footsteps,
a car starting, etc.—have a rather
strange effect on the listener: you
find yourself, almost inevitably,
“naming” the sounds as they appear
(“those are footsteps”; “there’s a dog
barking”). After a while, more explic-
itly “musical” sounds begin to sur-
face. This trend toward the musical
culminates in the appearance of an
excerpt from J. S. Bach’s Art of the
Fugue: It is a very strong moment,
made perhaps even more so by the
fact that the Bach is abruptly cut off,
leaving the sound of a squeaking
door, dripping water, and a distant
dog barking to end the piece. It is al-
most like a journey from reality, to
music, and back to reality. One fasci-
nating aspect of this piece is the way
the real-world sounds go together—
why do they work so well in conjunc-
tion with each other, since they don’t
have any specific relationship? (What
do the chattering monkeys have to do
with the car engine?) Although you
can’t cite clear reasons for why this
works, the fact that it does is myste-
rious and engaging. Also, the total
lack of repetition of materials gives
the piece a kind of forward-moving
113
urgency, and pulls the listener in
solidly as we inevitably try to infer
connections between the sounds. Mr.
Karpen states that while Life Study
#5 is an abstract work, it has a narra-
tive quality. I agree with this assess-
ment: I hear in it a kind of implied
drama that is particularly effective
because it is not explicit.
The disc ends with Life Study #1,
for clarinet and computer-realized
sound, from 1993. This piece, like
Exchange, is a piece in the “tape and
instrument” genre. Mr. Karpen de-
scribes it as “a single frame of a nar-
rative which, in its frozen state,
highlights perspective and context.”
Thus we might think of this as a
single frame of aural cinema. And in-
deed it is the most static piece on the
disc, which makes it a rather medita-
tive place to end. Mr. Karpen states
that the piece is a departure from his
previous compositions: However, to
me there is a certain resemblance to
Exchange in the way that clarinet
multiphonics appear to fuse with the
electronic sound. This texture opens
the work, and predominates through-
out the piece, sometimes contrasted
by sections of multiphonic-like
sounds in the tape while the clarinet
plays simple phrases which juxtapose
angular leaps with extended held
tones. Because the clarinet and the
electronic part share so much of the
same sound world, this piece might
also be thought of in terms of the fus-
ing of instrument/instrumentalist
and electronic sound.
Mr. Karpen frequently refers to sci-
entific research in relation to compo-
sition, stating for example, that “just
as scientists and other scholars and
thinkers create new knowledge
through innovation and discovery,
artists must also add to the body of
human knowledge and experience.”
The complex, beautiful, and thought-
provoking works on Solo/Tutti surely
fulfill this requirement.
114
Products
Waves Audio Restoration and
Noise Reduction Toolkit
Waves Restoration TDM version,
US$ 2,400; Native version,
US$ 1,200; available from Waves,
Inc., 306 West Depot Avenue, Suite
100, Knoxville, Tennessee 37917,
USA; telephone (+1) 865-909-9200;
fax (+1) 865-909-9245; Web
waves.com/content.asp?id=59.
BIAS SoundSoap Pro Pro-Audio
Restoration Software
SoundSoap Pro, US$ 599; available
from BIAS, Inc., 140 Keller Street,
Petaluma, California 94952, USA;
telephone (+1) 707-782-1866; fax (+1)
707-782-1874; electronic mail
sales@bias-inc.com; Web www
.bias-inc.com/products/soundsoappro/.
Reviewed by James Harley
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Both Waves, Inc., and BIAS, Inc., are
companies known for producing
high-quality audio software. Waves
has concentrated on signal processing
suites of plug-ins and stand-alone ap-
plications, and BIAS has developed
what has become the primary audio
editor for the Macintosh, Peak, along
with Deck, a multi-track audio
recording/editing application (and, to
be fair, signal processing utilities to
go along with these, such as equaliz-
ers and compressors). To complement
these products, both companies have
released restoration and noise reduc-
tion software suites. As it happens,
BIAS SoundSoap Pro and Waves
Restoration Toolkit are quite similar
(aside from the price): Both suites
contain four individual plug-ins de-
Computer Music Journal
signed to reduce various kinds of
noises. This review is not intended as
a point-by-point shoot-out, but given
the close match of features, it is im-
possible to avoid comparison.
The Waves Restoration Toolkit
comes in two versions: for TDM (de-
signed exclusively for Digidesign Pro
Tools systems, including the new HD
standard), where the signal pro-
cessing is carried out on dedicated
DSP chips; and for Native systems
(Macintosh or Windows, in conjunc-
tion with any audio editing software
supporting RTAS, AudioSuite, VST,
MAS, or DirectX plug-in protocols),
where the signal processing is carried
out on the host computer. The host
requirements are not particularly in-
tensive: The software will run on
Macintosh G3 computers or on Win-
dows Pentium machines (266 MHz or
faster). For this review, the software
was tested on a Macintosh G4 Power-
Book (1 GHz CPU, 1 GB RAM), run-
ning Peak 4 as the host application.
Installation of the software is
straightforward, with the installer
placing the plug-ins into the appro-
priate folder to be recognized by host
applications. Authorization can be
undertaken either by means of a
challenge-and-response process or by
registering the software to an iLok
key. If loading the software as VST
plug-ins, one accesses the toolkit by
opening the WaveShell and selecting
individual applications from the
menu of available utilities (each is
given with the option of choosing
mono or stereo formats). If accessing
them through Audio Units format,
the list of individual plug-ins is im-
mediately available for selection.
Different plug-ins can be applied si-
multaneously, either by selecting
them through the BIAS Vbox appli-
cation for loading a chain of VST ef-
fects, or by loading them as Inserts
under the Plug-ins menu in Peak (in
multi-track applications such as Pro

Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase,
etc., plug-ins are normally loaded as a
chain of Inserts in the Mix window).
Waves plug-ins all conform to a
similar interface design that works
well and will likely be familiar to
many readers. Suffice it to say that
each interface presents a graphic dis-
play of the signal (where appropriate),
often with input and output signals
both being represented in order to see
how the processor affects the signal.
The various parameters are labeled
and can be adjusted, either by click-
ing, dragging, or typing in numerical
values. Settings can be saved, presets
can be loaded, and A/B comparisons
can be quickly accessed. In multi-
track software environments, all fea-
tures of the plug-ins can be automated.
The Restoration Toolkit comprises
four individual utilities: X-Click,
X-Crackle, X-Hum, and X-Noise.
Each is designed to remove some un-
wanted element from an audio signal.
For this review, I applied the software
to a couple of recordings: 1) a transfer
of an old vinyl recording; 2) a casually
produced cassette recording done on
a cheap, portable deck. The user’s
manual (clearly written and well pro-
duced) recommends that the plug-ins
be applied in the order as listed
above, using whichever of them is
necessary and/or applicable to the
restoration project being undertaken.
X-Click is intended to, as the man-
ual states, “reduce strong, impulsive,
transient noise.” When cleaning up
vinyl transfers, X-Click is intended to
remove the noise of larger scratches,
and X-Crackle can then clean up
subtler, unwanted transients. X-Click
is very simple to use, as it contains
just two controls (see Figure 1). The
Threshold parameter sets the ampli-
tude of the targeted clicks, and is
scaled from 0 (no effect) to 100 (maxi-
mum effect). The Shape parameter
sets the width (time window) of the
clicks to be removed, again scaled
Figure 1. User interface for
X-Click tool from Waves
Restoration Toolkit.
from 0 to 100 (this scale does not
seem to correspond to milliseconds).
The software apparently interpolates
amplitude values from neighboring
regions of the signal to patch over the
spots where noise has been removed.
The graphic window included with
the X-Click interface shows an am-
plitude display of the audio as it
streams through, with “clicks” being
shown in red (this feature didn’t
prove to be particularly useful). The
Attenuator meter indicates ampli-
tude reduction for transients that
have been removed. The interface
also includes output meters and,
most usefully, a selector to switch
output to just the material that has
been removed. This provides an aural
check on how much of the signal has
been affected by the processing.
In the recording I was working
with (a solo string instrument), I
could detect no artifacts in the signal,
even when choosing high values for
Threshold and Shape. The manual
warns, however, that with material
containing lots of transient sound (as
would be found with music contain-
ing drumset, for example), the user
may need to find levels that interfere
as little as possible with the desirable
Products
transient content. Although the set-
tings may be applied for a whole
track, the manual also provides a
method for Manual Click Removal,
which could be handy for situations
where any noise removal must be
handled with extreme care. In this
case, one would set the levels high,
switch the output to the noise re-
moved from the signal, then save this
output as a separate audio file. Bring-
ing it into a multi-track environment
in tandem with the unaltered original
track, one can look/listen for the ma-
jor noises, carefully select them indi-
vidually in the original track, then
apply the noise reduction to only that
excerpt using settings that remove
only the unwanted transients.
X-Crackle is designed to remove
low-level transients that may be in-
terspersed in the audio. The interface
for this plug-in is very similar to
X-Click (see Figure 2): there is the
Threshold control, for setting the am-
plitude level for transients targeted
for removal and, instead of Shape, a
Reduction control (again, with a scale
of 0 to 100), which sets the attenua-
tion applied to the detected noises.
The graphic display shows the ampli-
tude display, but also includes a sono-
115
Figure 2. User interface for
X-Crackle tool from Waves
Restoration Toolkit.
Figure 2
Figure 3
gram display below, showing the
spectrum of the signal (removed
transients being indicated in green).
X-Crackle comes with a few pre-sets,
and the Normal Crackle Reduction
sets the Threshold at 50 and the Re-
duction at 60. In the case of my
recording, X-Click and X-Crackle
cleaned up my vinyl transfer very
nicely indeed, with no detectable ar-
116
Figure 3. User interface for
X-Noise tool from Waves
Restoration Toolkit.
tifacts. For me, it came down to a
matter of taste how much transient
noise to leave in, to preserve the en-
ergy of the bowing while removing
the “dust” of the LP.
X-Noise is designed to remove
broadband background noise. The
manual states that the algorithm it is
based on is “single-ended,” meaning
that the processing does not rely on
Computer Music Journal
complementary encode/decode sys-
tems such as Dolby Noise Reduction.
The plug-in works by first “learning”
the noise in the material. To do this,
the user must find a segment of the
recording containing nothing but the
broadband noise needing to be re-
moved. This profile is then used as
input to the “multilevel decision” al-
gorithms contained in X-Noise. It is
shown in white in the visual display
window (as a spectrum contour),
with the input signal being shown in
red and the output signal in green
(see Figure 3). The Threshold control
represents the level of the noise pro-
file (scaled from –20 to +50, 0 being
the original level of the noise profile
as analyzed). X-Noise removes the
signal below the noise profile, while
the signal at levels above the profile
is not processed. The Reduction con-
trol enables the user to set how much
noise reduction is applied to the sig-
nal below the Threshold.
X-Noise contains some additional
controls, similar to dynamics-based
plug-ins such as compressors. The
Attack parameter sets the time from
when the noise is first detected to the
noise reduction’s peak level, the
noise reduction being smoothly in-
creased over the course of the attack
time. Sounds with sharp attacks may
require a shorter Attack setting. Sim-
ilarly, the Release control sets the
time in which the noise reduction is
decreased from the peak setting to
none. The High Shelf filter contains
two controls: The Frequency sets the
point above with the noise profile can
be modified; the Gain controls the at-
tenuation applied to the frequencies
above the cut-off set by Frequency.
Decreasing the gain will result in less
noise reduction being applied to the
higher frequencies, and increasing
the gain will result in more noise re-
duction applied to that range. The
Resolution setting controls the sensi-
bility of the algorithms, enabling the
Figure 4. User interface for
X-Hum tool from Waves
Restoration Toolkit.
user to control CPU usage. A High
setting will produce the finest resolu-
tion in the frequency domain (but
this may result in a “smearing” of
sharp transients), and will utilize the
most computational resources.
Medium is the default setting. As
with the other plug-ins, X-Noise en-
ables the user to set the removed ma-
terial as the audio output, to check
aurally how much of the signal is be-
ing removed.
This plug-in worked very well on
cleaning up my old cassette record-
ing. It is a bit tricky to avoid artifacts,
however. Lengthening the Attack
and/or Release settings can help with
this, though, as can experimenting
with the Threshold and Reduction
settings. There is a trade-off between
degree of noise removal and signal-
processing artifacts that one must
grapple with, taste and intent usually
being the deciding factors.
X-Hum is the last plug-in of the
Restoration Toolkit. It has a number
of uses, and is designed primarily to
remove the hum most often caused
by faulty ground-loop circuits (adding
energy at 50 or 60 Hz and harmonic
multiples). The plug-in does this
through a series of eight harmoni-
cally related notch filters (see Figure 4).
The Frequency control sets the cen-
ter frequency of the first filter (the
fundamental). The other filters are
integer multiples of this one. Most
commonly, this fundamental setting
will be 50 Hz or 60 Hz, but the filter
can in fact be set anywhere from 20
to 400 Hz. The Global Q control sets
the width of the filters. The Cut Gain
controls enable the notch depth to
be set for all the filters. This gain set-
ting is controlled by a Link button:
Linked ensures that altering one fil-
ter adjusts all of the filters while pre-
serving their relative offsets; Odd/
Even links the gain of the odd and
even filter sets, while preserving the
relative offsets within each; and Un-
linked enables each filter’s notch
depth to be adjusted individually.
X-Hum also includes a high-pass
filter to eliminate DC-offset energy
and very low rumble. The Frequency
(slope cut-off) of this filter can be set
anywhere from 4 to 100 Hz, and the
Slope can be switched between –12 or
–24 dB/octave. A lower setting of the
Frequency will take care of DC offset,
and a higher setting will eliminate
rumble. An Output gain control en-
ables the user to bring down the lev-
els of the signal passing through
X-Hum, and is not present in any of
Products
the other plug-ins of this suite (ac-
cording to the manual, this control is
added here because of the non-phase
linear nature of the filters, which in
certain cases may cause phase shift-
ing and add energy to specific fre-
quencies, causing high-level signals
to potentially exceed the limit).
Given the potentially steep slopes of
eight or nine filters, artifacts can cer-
tainly be produced with this proces-
sor, so care must be taken to adjust
the controls so that just enough fil-
tering is applied and not more.
Altogether, the Waves Restoration
Toolkit is a powerful suite for apply-
ing a range of noise reduction tech-
niques. The plug-ins are relatively
easy to use, the manual is helpful,
and the results can be excellent. It is
no real caveat to underscore that
great care must be taken in applying
these processors to audio material:
The algorithms are powerful and act
deeply on the signal, and this may re-
sult in unwanted artifacts. It also
should go without saying that these
plug-ins are not intended to be ap-
plied in real-time when synchroniza-
tion to other tracks is crucial. The
“look-ahead” nature of the analyses
inherent to these processors means
that there is some latency inherent to
the plug-ins (each one works with a
delay of 2,624 samples). If one wanted
to clean up the output of a turntable
being performed live, for example,
one would have to compensate for
this timing offset.
More recently, Waves has come
out with Z-Noise, an all-in-one tool
for cleaning up audio signals. Al-
though easier to use (and cheaper, at
US$ 800, Native only), it has incorpo-
rated a number of the features of the
Restoration Toolkit (and added a few
others). What it lacks, however, is the
Toolkit’s refined ability to apply
noise reduction techniques to spe-
cific audio restoration needs.
BIAS SoundSoap Pro (SSP) is in
117
 Figure 5. User interface for
Hum & Rumble Reduction
tool from BIAS SoundSoap
Pro.

many ways a similar set of tools for

restoration and noise reduction, al-
though there are significant differ-
ences as well. Although SSP is not
produced in a TDM version for Pro
Tools systems, all the various native
plug-in formats are supported: RTAS,
AudioSuite, VST, Audio Units, Di-
rectX. System requirement mini-
mums ask for a Macintosh G4 (500
MHz, 128 MB RAM) or a Windows
Pentium III (800 MHz, 128 MB
RAM). BIAS supplies a USB key for
authorizing and running the soft-
ware, which is simple enough to reg-
ister and set up. As an aside, I would
prefer that BIAS enable the software
to be optionally authorized to run on
an iLok key—it would save having to
monopolize all available USB ports
just to run software. When first at-
tempting to load SSP in Peak, I had
trouble getting the playback to run at
the correct sampling rate (I had no
trouble with this when running SSP
in Cubase SX 3); ensuring that the bit The four components of SSP are: Waves is contradicted by BIAS. One
rate and sampling rate were compat- Hum & Rumble Reduction, Click & potential problem with SSP is that
ible throughout the components of Crackle, Broadband, and Noise Gate. one is not easily able to re-order the
my setup (within Peak, Audio MIDI When the plug-in is first launched, application of the plug-ins (the user
Setup, and the digital audio interface) the user is presented with a Getting would have to either open multiple
cleared up the problem. Started window, which gives a basic instances of SSP or render the sound-
What’s really handy about SSP is introduction to each of the interfaces file with one tool, then apply a sec-
that there is one main interface con- and the general tools such as the ond one, render it, and so forth). In
taining graphic buttons connecting to spectrogram of the signal that is my experience, the “hardwiring” of
each of the four components of the shown in each of the tool windows the signal path in SSP did not pose
software. This is in contrast to the (in white for input, red for output, any problems.
Waves Restoration Toolkit, where along with features for scrolling and Looking at the individual pro-
one has to load each component as a zooming). As one would expect, set- cessing tools, Hum & Rumble Reduc-
separate plug-in. The main graphic tings may be saved, up to four pre- tion is quite similar to the Waves
interface presents whichever of the sets may be loaded at a time for X-Hum plug-in (see Figure 5). Al-
plug-ins is selected from the “but- comparison, and all controls are able though the user will mainly be inter-
tons” shown along the bottom of the to be automated when working ested in removing “hum” energy at
interface window, and the smaller within appropriate audio software en- 50 or 60 Hz (and harmonic multiples
links along the bottom show the vironments. As with the Waves set, of these), the Hum Frequency Slider
main settings for each of the proces- an order of application is recom- enables a fundamental frequency to
sors, along with whether they are ac- mended, and in this case, that order be selected anywhere between 20 and
tive or not. All of them can be is set so that the user works through 200 Hz. The Harmonics slider desig-
“active,” even if not selected for ad- the plug-in buttons arrayed across the nates the number of harmonics that
justment of settings, or the Bypass bottom of the plug-in window from will also be filtered, up to nine. Indi-
button can remove any of them from left to right. Interestingly, the recom- vidual adjustments of these notch fil-
the signal path. mended chain of processors given by ters are not possible, but a Tilt knob

118 Computer Music Journal

 Figure 6. User interface for Figure 7. User interface for
Click & Crackle tool from Broadband tool from BIAS
BIAS SoundSoap Pro. SoundSoap Pro.

at least provides for adjusting the ra-

tios of amplitude depth for the notch
filters of the set of harmonics acti-
vated by the Harmonics slider (e.g.,
setting the Tilt knob to 0.50 will re-
duce the depth of each successive
notch filter above the fundamental
by half). The Q (Bandwidth) slider
provides control over the tightness of
the notch filters, and the Depth slider
sets the amplitude reduction of the
notch filters, anywhere from 0 dB to
120 dB. The Rumble Reduction slider
provides control of a high-pass filter,
with settings from 20 to 500 Hz. The
manual states that the filter has a
fixed slope of –12 dB/octave. (Note:
The manual, otherwise extremely
clear and useful, provides ranges for
some of the sliders that differ, at
times substantially, from the limits
shown in the software itself.)
The Click & Crackle tool is very
simple, containing just two controls:
Click Threshold, and Crackle Figure 6
Threshold (see Figure 6). The range of
the Click Threshold slider runs from
1 to 30 (dB), and the lower the num-
ber, the higher the threshold and the
more transient noise is removed. The
Crackle Threshold slider ranges from
10 to 30, and the principle is the
same. Again, it is important to listen
very carefully when choosing set-
tings for these controls: depending on
the material being restored, drastic
noise reduction can affect content
and produce audible artifacts.
The Broadband tool contains some
interesting differences from the
Waves X-Noise tool (see Figure 7). It
has the capacity to “learn” a noise
profile, either by taking a “snapshot”
of a portion of the soundfile where
(presumably) only noise is present, or
by enabling the user to play back a
portion of the soundfile for analysis
(providing the algorithm with a
longer sample). The noise profile is
then applied to the twelve bands of
what resembles a graphic equalizer Figure 7

Products 119
 Figure 8. User interface for
Noise Gate tool from BIAS
SoundSoap Pro.

(built with quite wideband filters, ob-

viously). Each band shows a Thresh-
old marking and a Reduction
marking. By default, the bands are
locked, so that adjusting one will ad-
just all the others proportionately.
But, both sets of controls may be un-
locked so that more refined, fre-
quency band-specific adjustments
may be applied. There are dynamics-
type controls for Attack and Release,
and a Tilt knob for each of these con-
trols, enabling the timing to be ad-
justed proportionately as a function
of frequency. In use, this is a difficult
tool to work with, as it is very easy to
obtain artifacts, even while reducing
tape hiss or other broadband noise.
There is a great deal of flexibility in
the various controls, however, which
makes it possible to experiment to
find the best settings for the job.
The fourth plug-in of the SSP set is
the Noise Gate, a tool not included in
the Waves Restoration set (see Figure
8). This plug-in is similar to noise nipulating gating effects). However, tential users. In addition, I appreciate
gates included in other sets of dy- for basic restoration needs, this tool the tutorials that BIAS has prepared,
namic processors. It contains a is useable as it is. with specific instructions and se-
Threshold slider, a Reduction slider In conclusion, both Waves Restora- lected soundfiles to work on. It
(giving a range of ratios from 1.0 to tion Toolkit and BIAS SoundSoap Pro should be noted that BIAS, like
5.0), and Attack and Release controls. are powerful suites of software signal Waves, also has a scaled-down ver-
This tool can be useful for cleaning processors for cleaning up unwanted sion of its software: SoundSoap is an
up extraneous or background sounds noise from audio content. Whether all-in-one application that packages
in certain audio applications (dia- one is working on vinyl or analog many of the features of SSP into one
logue editing is one such situation tape transfers, field recordings, or screen. There are fewer controls over
where this Noise Gate could be very post-production for film/video, these the different elements, but this is a
handy). Given the Tilt knobs added tools will be very handy. The Waves handy, more affordable utility for en-
to the Attack and Release controls software provides greater control for hancing audio. The new version,
Broadband plug-in, it is odd they are expert use, and to my ears, produces SoundSoap 2, can operate as a stand-
not added to the Noise Gate tool higher quality results. However, the alone utility for preparing audio for
(anyone who has worked with Tom Restoration Toolkit is twice as ex- multimedia applications (e.g., using
Erbe’s Spectral Shaper tools knows pensive as SoundSoap Pro; this will iMovie and iDVD in the Mac OS X
how useful this feature can be for ma- be an important factor for many po- environment).

120 Computer Music Journal