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Symbolic Composer 5.0 lets you adjust the
appearence of interface items to suit your preferences, mood or studio
lightning conditions. In the middle you'll notice Sym-Clavier. This
tool teaches you the basics of symbol mapping which is a powerful and
unique concept of Symbolic Composer.
The rightmost Browser windows lets you quickly access the
documentation, function library and project files. On the left you will
notice a score window with a lot of code on it. This is how scores are
written in Symbolic Composer.
Visualizer (in the middle) is a handy tool to visualize data
to experiment with interesting material before composing takes place.
On the right side you will notice a pop up menu, this lets you quickly
scroll the Document and Project Browsers to a certain function
category.
The tool palette on the left provides control to the system.
More commands are found on the File, Edit, Lisp and System Menus,
providing full algorithmic control on any MIDI parameters. Notice the
graphical boxes in the middle: although you are using pure LISP to
write SCOM scores the VLisp System lets you view LISP code as graphics.
This feature enables a newcomer to quickly adapt into SCOM programming.
The Mrac, Cadar and Cresc menus has been programmed by
contemporary composers, and provide structurized access to extended
SCOM algorithms, which cover contemporary, general and historical music
styles.
System Menu provides access to orchestral and arrangement
defintions. You will also find mathematical, symbolic and conversion
functions here. Documentation includes short code snippets that you can
copy and paste to your score.
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Pure Power
I like Symbolic Composer because it's so pure. Most agree
that using a
raw language to define procedures will always be more powerful than any
type of directed-acyclical graph or other type of gui representation.
There are certain relationships like recursion, etc, which would be
really difficult to depict without visual clutter.
SCOM is so raw and pure and allows for deep-level access. It lets you
get to the heart of the structure and intelligently
expand/transform/scale it in multiple dimensions simultaneously.
Writing an adequate interface for it might require a 3D interface and
several years of research.. just let it be.
I agree 100% with:
"I have to think like a music technologist with Max; I think like a
composer using SCOM."
From what I can tell, most people use SCOM as their seed - or a musical
concept is input into SCOM and variations and possiblities are explored.
I think if we were to discuss Interface in SCOM we could talk about
workflow. What process does the composer/user engage in when
using SCOM? Do most people start with SCOM and then end in
another more traditional sequencer so they can see their midi streams
as a score and edit the output? If this is so, then perhaps the only
missing interface item is a score visualizer and editor. Then, some
would not have to ever leave the SCOM womb. As I understand that
several years of focused research have gone into creating interfaces
like Logic/Cubase/etc.. why should SCOM have to "re-invent the wheel"..
Hence, here we are back to the beginning. SCOM makes no assumptions
about how you should use it. I feel the value of SCOM and what makes it
so amazing is still the library of functions! This is the heart of SCOM
and it IS the most advanced computer-based composing environment in the
world (publically available). |
