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Symbolic Composer 4.0 for PowerMacintosh is now ready and shipping. A demo can be downloaded from page http://www.xs4all.nl/~psto/ SCOM 4.0 for PowerMac port was financed by pre-ordered subscriptions by the users. Thank you for all of you who made this possible! SCOM 4.0 runs now fully PowerMac-native and is 31 times faster than SCOM Pro on PPC. A score that previously took 30 minutes to compile is now ready and playing under a minute. New features were also added: tonality interpolators and processors, fade-in/out automation plus web-access directly from SCOM menus. SCOM 4.0 users may now download and contribute scores to Score Forum, and let Score Clinic solve problems. Globally-accessible compositional idea bank accessible from SCOM menu is now made possible by these enhancements. SCOM Highlights Ready-to-use and modificable score demos Easy to maintain and develop complex scores Instant Lisp access, expansion and environment customisation Visual compiler spots errors in the right place Easy examination of values at a given point of score Suitable for generating final productions and pre-compositional material Applicable for commercial, experimental and modern music of any complexity Wide range of musical functions Perfect partner for small and large MIDI studios Perfect tool for music education Interface to industry-standard MIDI sequencers and notation programs Runs on standard 14 inch bw or color monitor, no need for a big monitor ZIPI-like instrument control, up to 256 channels using standard MIDI Easy-to-use tunings (cents, ratios, algorithms) Lisp-based editor with auto-formating and parenthesis counting Compositional element library Web-access directly from the program Customizable launching of other programs while booting up Online electronic hyperhelp documentation and tutorials The SCOM Language SCOM functions are selected from hierarchical menus and pasted on the editor. Each function has one output and several inputs. Functions are nested into each other to achieve the proper functionality. SCOM's unique feature that nearly any function can be connected to any other function maximises the creative freedom and allows to develop new compositional ideas. New composition-specific functions can be programmed on-line by the composer with build-in Common Lisp interpreter. The extensions can be included in the score, and made available for other user as plug-ins, including a hypertext documentation. New interface extensions can be designed using the MCL 4.0 compiler (Macintosh Common Lisp) available from Digitool <http://www.digitool.com/>. SCOM function library covers 500 musical and mathematical building blocks, chaos, fractals, series, progressions, morphs, interpolations, a complete scale and chord system, tree-like orhestral and section hierarchies, 300 experimental tunings, ZIPI-like instrument control structure and 256 MIDI channels realized in standard MIDI protocol. Programming environment allows graphical examination and manipulation of compositional data. Plug-ins developed by composers add new features to the system. The Principle Of Operation The composer may define length, symbol, velocity, channel, controller, program, signature, duration, expression, groove, tempo, tuning, rhythm, class, grammar, orchestra, section, tonality and zone contents of the score. Definition is done by hierarchical function nets, which can be build using the following generators and processor: Generator Categories Fractal Expansions Fibonacci Series Grammars L-System Loops Morphs Palindrome Randomization Arrays Chaos Theory D-Forms Energy Fields Fourier Synthesis Noise Number Theory Oscillators Solar Systems Autocatalysis Conversions Neurons Processor Categories Chordize Harmonize Fill Filter Find Mask Misc Mix Reflect Resize Shift Transform Transpose Trigger Amplify Analyze Modulate Quantize Slice Library Midi Tonalities Complete western scale system Complete western chord inversion and position system 300 experimental tunings Harmony theory generators Overtone and n-tet octave generation Interpolations Distortions Enrichments Mixing Sorting Minimum-energy folding Metrics Time units are expressed as standard music notation ratios with dot, triplet, tuplet etc. extensions, or with milliseconds. Time units can be processed by algorithms. Same time unit expressions are applicable to both rhythmics, subsection and section lengths. Configuration SCOM is available for both 68k Macs and PowerMacs. A minimum of 8 MB RAM is needed to run the system, although 16 MB is suggested. SCOM runs equally well on all monitors sizes and types. Build-in Lisp Interpreter can be used to extend the system on-line and it allows to develop new plug-ins by the user. The system footprint is between 20-50 MB depending on the partition scheme of the hard disk.