CD-Grab; Koan Plus Generative Music 1

Brian Eno is convinced that it's the start of a whole new ballgame... but is PC soundcard technology advanced enough for 'generative' music to work? Brian Heywood hears the new Enigma Variations...

I was invited to an interesting press conference recently. Brian Eno — doyen of new musical techniques — was holding forth on the development of music and, incidentally, announcing the release of his latest music project. If you are not familiar with Mr Eno, he was a founder member of Roxy Music and has collaborated with such luminaries as David Bowie, John Cale, Robert Fripp, Nico (Velvet Underground), Television, Genesis, Devo, Daniel Lanois, U2 and many others. In fact, he has been credited with inventing ambient and new age music, with the release of Music For Films in 1978, although I think that his No Pussyfooting (1973) collaboration with Robert Fripp is an earlier example of the genre.

One of the things Brian has always been interested in is what he calls 'Generative Music', which is where the composer 'designs' the processes that make the music, rather than defining the notes, voicings, etc that actually make up a particular performance. A simple example of this is a set of wind chimes; you can define the notes that are played, but the order, tempo and loudness with which they are played will depend on the current atmospheric conditions. Obviously a computer is an ideal tool for this kind of thing, assuming of course that appropriate software is available.

Generative Music 1 is Eno's latest ambient project, and unlike his previous offerings in this line, it's actually a piece of MPC music software rather than a traditional recording. The album uses SSEYO's Koan Plus music player, which uses 'probabilistic' rules — defined by the composer — to determine which notes will be played, so each performance is unique. This is rather like the composer defining a list of possibilities for the performer — in this case the Koan Plus software — from which he/she can choose. As a result, each performance is definitely 'Eno', but the actual notes played can be different every time you hear it.

The software/album requires that you have a SoundBlaster AWE32, SB32 or TDK MusicCard, as it uses samples developed by Brian Eno especially for the piece. This means it is by no means a universal work, but it is an interesting concept, which could gain currency as the MPC standard becomes more widespread amongst consumers.

Generative Music 1 is available from Software Warehouse (01675 466467) rather than your local record store, and costs just under £45 (inc VAT). You can also get the authoring software — Koan Pro — so that you can create your own generative music for £152.69.

'Ripping' Yarns

Last month, I talked about the CD‑ROMs from D‑Zone which provide drum loops and instrument samples in a form that you can read directly off your CD‑ROM drive. However, there are also truckloads of audio CDs out there which contain audio material specially designed to help you create your next musical masterpiece.

Now, you could simply use your soundcard to record the audio out from your CD‑ROM drive, using the mixer application supplied. But a much neater solution is to 'grab' the digital audio directly off the CD in the digital domain. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it, since the audio is stored on the CD as digital data, much the same as on a CD‑ROM disc. The differences between an audio CD (or CD‑A) and CD‑ROM only appear at the information level, since the latter needs to have a bulletproof error detection/correction system. This process of copying audio data straight off the CD is usually referred to as CD 'ripping'.

There are a number of products around that allow you to do this, but I've been using one called CD‑Grab, from London‑based AL Digital Ltd. CD‑Grab allows you to read the audio data directly off the audio CD, and save it to your hard disk in the audio format of your choice. Since the data stays in the digital domain, the quality of the audio is identical to that of the CD, regardless of the quality of your soundcard.

Initially, CD‑Grab looks rather like a host of other CD‑Audio controllers available for Windows — the user interface is modelled on a CD remote control. And indeed, it allows you to play a CD, select the tracks and even eject the disc if you so wish. The added facilities only become apparent if you use the 'Tools' button. This reveals three extra buttons — 'TOC', 'Grab' and 'Index' — as well as a start and end selection edit control.

The 'TOC' button activates the Table Of Contents window, which gives details of the physical layout of the CD. This window allows you to work out timings and sector counts of the tracks, mark tracks for 'grabbing,' and generally find out what's happening on the CD, deep down at the sector level. The top left hand of the window gives the total running time of the CD along with the total number of sectors, while the area below gives the timings and sector counts for each track.

The Grab window is where the main action happens, and allows you to select the audio that you wish to copy, as well as the destination format. You can select the audio to capture in a number of ways, either by track, timing cues or even by disc sectors. The destination format can be either 8‑ or 16‑bit stereo, at a sampling rate of 11, 22 or 44.1kHz (CD quality is 16‑bit stereo at 44.1kHz). You can also adjust the balance of each track, allowing you to alter the 'position' of each of the tracks in the stereo image. So, for instance, you could create a mono‑sounding stereo track, or even reverse the stereo image. Future versions of the software should allow you to create a mono WAV file, which would be helpful when using the data in a basic MIDI/Audio sequencer (like Cubasis Audio), or for downloading to a sampler.

The application works by transferring the audio over the CD‑ROM's data buss, either using the facilities built into MSCDEX (Microsoft CD Extensions) or — if you have a SCSI CD‑ROM — the ASPI driver. To be able to use the software, your CD‑ROM drive needs to be able to read the raw audio data from the audio disc, but most modern drives should have this ability.

The final window allows you to define up to eight edit selections — or index points — so you can quickly mark the sections of audio that you want to grab. You would use this control surface in conjunction with the remote control window when defining the index points, and then with the Grab window when copying the audio to your hard disk. When you're indexing, you can use the buttons on the remote to fast forward or rewind the CD to bits of the audio you want. The index points can be transferred between the various control windows, using the 'Send' and 'Bring' buttons.

The CD‑Grab application is one that you might not need very often, but when you do, it can be absolutely crucial. This is a tool that no multimedia audio person should be without. Apart from copying music, musicians can also use the facilities to read samples off commercial audio CDs, for use with their sequencers or sample editing programs. The AL Digital product worked on all of the CD‑ROM drives I tried it on — admittedly all SCSI — and should work well with most currently available hardware. At just over £115 (inc VAT), CD‑Grab won't break the bank either. To find out where to get a copy, call 0181 742 0755.