Common Lisp Music

Common Lisp Music (CLM) [Schottstaedt, 2000] is a musical synthesis and signal processing language of the Music-N family that is written in Common Lisp.

The language includes different components: the generators, the instruments, the lists of notes, tools for sound file input/output, and different graphical interface options based on the sound editor Snd (see [Schottstaedt, 2004]).

CLM's instrument description language can access sound processing functions such as oscillators or envelopes. Instruments can be used in the Common Lisp environment or can be compiled as C language code. CLM instruments are Lisp functions, therefore a list of notes is just an expression that calls these functions. Notes do not even need to be sorted because the process is performed note by note. In the same way, it is possible to process different instruments in parallel.

CLM works on the following platforms: NeXT, Macintosh, SGI, Sun and PC's with GNU/Linux or NeXTSTEP. CLM is a sound compiler written in Common Lisp. In the Lisp environment, while you write a command, the compiler tries to interpret is and perform and action that returns a result. CLM can be used from the Lisp environment or from Common Music but, in any case, you need to learn the basics of Lisp programming.