CDP SYSTEM: KEY FEATURES

CDP 8 features many distinctive aspects of creative sound design rarely found elsewhere, including:

SPECTRAL

Reshape spectral content: arpeggiate, average, blur, randomize, shuffle, trace, freeze, time-expand

Sustain spectral bands, with optional tuning (see example below)

Slice spectrum into bands and process individually: delay, pitch-shift etc.

TRANSITIONS

Morph or glide between sounds; time-stretch

Create hybrids, imposing characteristics of one sound on another

Extensive support for automation (time-varying values)

PITCH

Tune sounds by filtering or spectrally, using a variable pitch template

Transpose and harmonise; shift, stretch, re-space, invert spectrum

Alter extracted pitch: approximate, quantize, exaggerate, invert, randomize, smooth

SEGMENT / EXTEND

Chop up sounds, repeat or re-arrange segments and disperse them spatially

Repeat segments or whole sounds at given times, create polyrhythms

Zig-zag through sound, disperse zig-zags spatially

Standard and multitapped delays, iterate with pitch shift

TEXTURE

Create textures from multiple repetitions, optionally placed on a harmonic grid

Use several sources, melodic and/or rhythmic motifs

MULTI-CHANNEL

Many processes support multi-channel output

Spatial and channel effects, ambisonic support, spin

WAVECYCLE DISTORTION

Manipulate irregular wavecycles, with possible distortion

   e.g. repeat, reverse, shuffle or shift cycle groups

VOCAL

Alter or preserve formants

Manipulate vocal grains: e.g. repeat, delete, stretch, sustain, transpose, add harmonics and subharmonics

GRAIN

Granular reconstruction of sound with (optionally) multiple inputs and multi-channel output

Manipulate individual grains

CREATIVE EDITING

Mask or switch between sounds at given times

Partition into sound streams

Extract wavetables from sound

Sequence multiple sounds with given pitch, level and duration

Retime events within sound

Micro-mixing to create new sound complexes

ALGORITHMIC SCRIPTING

Manipulate and perform MIDI data in real-time

Create CDP data files for automation and other applications

Launch CDP processes with automated parameter values

Create data for and launch other scripts such as Csound

A 'different' approach

CDP is not a real-time system, though in processing whole sound clips it is usually much faster than real-time and includes processes that could not be run in real-time.

While most users will probably use one of the two main front-end programs – SoundLoom or Soundshaper, the underlying CDP programs are text-based and run behind the scenes in the commandline interpreter (CLI: Windows Command Processor or Mac Terminal).

Scripts

CDP can also be launched from the CLI, running either single processes or scripts of several processes, which can easily be re-run with different source sounds.

For advanced algorithmic scripting, CDP provides Tabula Vigilans (TV), a MIDI processor that now also supports CDP commands. This cutting-edge development enables parameter values and the choice of process to be determined by the script.

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An example of CDP spectral transformation: nightingale chirps are deconstructed by blurring and sustaining, with some re-tuning.
The sonogram (by iZotope RX Pro) shows a morph from the rhythmic source sound to the smeared version.

         

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TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

• Computers and Operating Systems:
  • MacOS: The current MAC compilation now supports only 64-bit Intel machines. It is compatible with all the current MacOS releases. Builds are now defined for 10.9 Mavericks onwards. Compiler libraries (Xcode) are no longer provided for earlier versions, or for 32-bit builds. We no longer support Mac PPC machines.
  
  
  • PC: Windows 7 onwards, 32-bit or 64-bit. XP is no longer supported.
  
  
  • Linux: CDP has to be compiled from sources – see the Installation Guide by Dave Phillips.
  
  
• User Interfaces:
  There are two main 'front-end' GUIs for CDP – Sound Loom for macOS and Windows, by Trevor Wishart, and Soundshaper for Windows, by Robert Fraser.
  
  There is also the CDP Interface for the Renoise DAW, by Aftab Hussain and Richard Jonas. This is multi-platform and is currently the only working CDP interface available for Linux.
  
  All user interfaces are 'front ends' to the underlying CDP command-line programs. The GUIs 'call' the CDP programs by assembling command-lines or scripts, but do not in themselves possess sound design functionality.
  
  Several programs are provided with the CDP system or use it in some way. See SUPPORTING SOFTWARE for further details of the GUIs and these other programs. For other software that is complementary to CDP, but does not use the CDP system, see RELATED SOFTWARE.


• Installation: The core (i.e. command-line) CDP software is supplied with both Sound Loom and Soundshaper. Full installation instructions are supplied with the downloads and are available separately: see the DOWNLOAD page.


• Multi-channel: CDP Release 8 supports creating and composing with multi-channel soundfiles, including Ambisonic format. To make use of these programs, you will need hardware multi-channel facilities in your studio: audio interface, mixer and speaker set.


• 4 Gigabyte soundfiles: CDP supports soundfile sizes up to the full 4 Gigabyte capacity of the .WAV amd .AIFF formats. (WAV is now used on the Mac.)


• Programming: We support third party software development in various ways. Please contact CDP for details.