Music and Music Technology

Born in Lima, Peru, 1956, attended musical studies at the National Conservatory of Lima, the Rubin Academy - Tel Aviv University, and York University, UK, where he was awarded a DPhil (1991). Studied composition with Abel Ehrlich, John Paynter and Richard Orton. Obtained a BSc in Electrical Engineering from the Israel Institute of Technology (1980). He is Professor of Composition at Keele University, where he established the MA/MSc in Digital Music Technology and the Computer Music Laboratories. Previous roles include artistic director and principal conductor of the Keele Philharmonic Society (1990-1995), Director of Music (1998-2000), Music Technology programmes director (2001-4). Currently he is Director of Music Technology Research and Director of Postgraduate Studies. Became a director of the Composers’ Desktop Project (CDP) in 1988.
He is member of Latin-American Sonic Arts Network (RedASLA), the Peruvian Circle of Composers (CIRCOMPER) and Sonic Arts Network,

His main research activities focus on acoustic, electronic and time-based media composition, with particular interest in the establishment of aesthetic links between electronic and non-electronic sound and the integration of inter-cultural materials into coherent musical expression; sonic Arts theory and analysis; creative software development.

AL ... gorithmic Compositional Environment, developed by Rajmil Fischman is a multiple document interface (MDI) application, with frame windows that present views of different documents and/or several views of the same document. It is designed for the creation and manipulation of sonic events and their organization into a structured musical work. In order to aid user familiarity with the software and a reasonably short learning curve, care was taken to develop an interface within an accepted general standard for windows applications; including a menu bar, a tool bar, common window components and typical mouse ‘drag and drop’ operations.

Also, key shortcuts are implemented for most commands. Another important consideration in the design of AL was the desire to provide a reasonably open system, with the option for development of third party plug-ins; thus avoiding the constraints imposed by a single type of musical process. Currently, AL is distributed as free software, in conjunction with ERWIN, a plug-in that applies the solutions of Schröedinger’s equation for an atomic potential with radial symmetry (a well-known equation from Quantum Mechanics) to the creation of granular clouds. Hopefully, future developments by the author and others will implement a variety of compositional approaches in addition to ERWIN.

Please note that AL comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details see the GNU General Public License.(Adobe Acrobat Format). This is free software and you are welcome to redistribute it under the conditions detailed in the GNU General Public License. For more details, you can  write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307, USA. The GNU website is here.

  Read the latest review in Electronic Musician  1 Nov 2003   

The author acknowledges the support of:

  The Arts and Humanities Research Board,  which made possible the creation of these programs.

and

  The Composers’ Desktop Project, for the technical advice and support provided during the development of the software.

Minimum Requirements

Processor                     Pentium (Pentium III onwards recommended)

Operating System         Windows 98/ME/XP (AL was initially developed on Windows 2000 but the latest version has not been tested in this environment)

Screen Resolution         Although AL can run on lower resolutions, a minimum of 1024x 768 pixels or higher is recommended. The software will run on a smaller resolution but some graphics components may not fit in the screen.

Microsoft DirectX 8 TM  The AL and ERWIN installation disk should install DirectX 8^TM, if required.

Soundcard                     DirectX TM compatible (recommended).

NOTE    Rehearse and playback functions are optimised to work with DirectX TM. There may be delays and crackles when using soundcards which are not DirectX TM compatible.

Installation Instructions

1.    Download the programme.  This should create a compressed, self-extracting file (ALandERWIN103.EXE) in your computer.

2.    Double click on ALandERWIN103.EXE.  This will extract all the files needed for installation, including a README file

3.    Double click on the extracted Setup.EXE file.

4.    If  you have not installed Direct X TM or have version lower than 8, SETUP.EXE will also install DirectX TM version 8 and may reboot your computer. If after rebooting the dialog for AL's installation does not reappear, double click on SETUP.EXE again.

5.    Finally, the SETUP.EXE program may have to load the install shield and reboot your computer again. If this happens and the dialog for AL's installation does not reappear, double click on SETUP.EXE one more time.

6.    After AL is installed, a shortcut on the desktop and an item on the programs menu should appear (Algorithmic Composition Environment).

If you experience problems downloading large files and you still want to obtain a copy of AL and ERWIN, you can get it on a CD for the price of postage and packaging (5 pounds) from the Composers’ Desktop Project.

Updates History

17.7.03    Version 1.03 released
AL and ERWIN version 1.03 has the same functionality as version 1.02. However, the latter had a bug which could produce clicks when using certain kinds of audio sources, particularly in the case of pitched material. This has been corrected in version 1.03

  Al Software Download

There are two versions available: One for users who already have DirectX ver 8.1 (or above) already installed on their systems and one for users who have a version of DirectX previous to version 8.1
In order to check what version of DirectX you have installed run the command dxdiag (start button, then run)

PLEASE NOTE:
If you have already installed AL and ERWIN version 1.02 and it is running properly, you should already have DirectX version 8.1 installed.

If you already have DirectX ver 8.1or above then  download this file Al&Erwin103.exe (8.9Mb)

If you already have DirectX ver 8.1or above then download this file:  AL&Erwin103+DirectX8.exe (33.4Mb includes full DirectX installation)

Please address any feedback regarding AL to: r.a.fischman@mus.keele.ac.uk. If you experience problems downloading large files and you still want to obtain a copy of AL and ERWIN, you can get it on a CD for the price of postage and packaging (5 pounds) from the Composers’ Desktop Project.