MICROWORKS CAMPS 4.0 (WIN)

Apr 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By Brian Smithers

If you've ever hit a mental block when searching for the right chord or a variation on a melody, the people at Microworks can give you some assistance. They have created the Computer Assisted Music Processing System (CAMPS), an algorithmic composition program that might shake your creative logjam loose. CAMPS 4.0 features a reasonably complete sequencing environment and tools to generate virtually any element of a piece of music.

With an array of automatic tools, from harmonization to melody composition to drum arranging, CAMPS certainly covers a lot of bases. Though its language is that of music theory, CAMPS' features are accessible to users with little or no formal training. Ultimately, though, the autocompose features' nature and quality determine whether the program is useful to you.

GETTING IN AND AROUND

The first thing I noticed when I opened CAMPS' box is the almost complete lack of hard-copy documentation. Only four sheets of paper are included with the installation CD. One page is devoted to a Quick Tour of the CAMPS environment, and the other three are concerned with the proper installation and authorization of the program. Read those pages carefully to avoid problems with your registration key.

Using a standard challenge-and-response technique, CAMPS hides a digital license on your hard drive. This requires that you extract the license to a floppy disk if you transfer the program to another computer. Unfortunately, you must also do this every time you defragment your hard drive, a huge annoyance for musicians who defrag their drives frequently. According to Microworks, the procedure is required because of Windows operating system limitations and may be resolved in the future.

If you're familiar with another sequencer, CAMPS' environment should be as comfortable as old jeans. The default startup window is a standard Track view with toolbars at the top and bottom of the screen (see Fig. 1). Other editing views include the Notation Editor, Piano Roll Editor, Event List Editor, and Controller Draw Editor.

Upon closer inspection, the Track view proves to have two unique features. First, an extra track called the Chord Track lets the user set an extensive group of parameters that establish the key, mode, and function of each chord in a song (see Fig. 2). These parameters are the guidelines that the program uses to generate alternate chord progressions. The second unique feature is the categorization of each track according to its function. Categories range from Melody to Bass to Drum, and they guide CAMPS in its analysis of existing parts and in the creation of appropriate new lines and harmonies. (The Drums category indicates that CAMPS should compose lines appropriate for unpitched instruments and that it should ignore that track when doing a harmonic analysis.)

As a sequencer, CAMPS is fine but not fancy. I like the fact that many commands are available directly from the keyboard or the right mouse button. I was able to play and record MIDI tracks, import Standard MIDI Files, and even tinker with all the autocompose features before cracking the online manual. The one truly obscure procedure is setting tempos, which is only possible from the Tempo List Editor or the Tempo Draw Editor. Unlike other sequencers, CAMPS doesn't have a dialog box where you can enter a tempo value, which I found awkward.

The program's online help feature is a model of hyperlinked organization. I can't imagine anyone doing a better job with that format, yet I found myself begging for a hardbound manual. A PDF file on the CD helps some, but unfortunately, it follows the online help structure. Hyperlinked help files are a great reference for retrieving details and cross-referencing information, but they just don't cut it for the linear process of learning new software.

A FISTFUL OF CHORDS

The real power of CAMPS is in its autocompose features, including its ability to analyze the Chord Track and any existing MIDI tracks and make suggestions based on that analysis. Using the user-defined parameters in the Chord Track as a reference, the program can generate a completely new chord progression or suggest hundreds of alternative progressions that harmonize with existing tracks. You can also manually construct any of the chords yourself or simply have CAMPS analyze an arrangement's chord progression from the existing tracks.

The Chord Track is subdivided into Chord Blocks, and each Chord Block is made up of one or more Chord Containers. A Chord Block is nothing more than a way of dealing with groups of Chord Containers — for example, identifying them for reharmonization or performing standard cut, copy, and paste functions. A Chord Block usually corresponds to a complete musical phrase or subphrase, typically from four to eight bars. The length of a Chord Block can be defined manually or determined automatically based on CAMPS' analysis of existing tracks.

The really useful information resides in the Chord Containers. Each Chord Container contains only one chord, but the name “Container” reflects the fact that a Chord Container also holds information about the chord's key, mode, and duration — the factors CAMPS analyzes to determine potential alternative chords. The same Chord Container could therefore represent any number of chords that share the defined parameters. You can establish the harmonic tendencies of Chord Containers manually or let CAMPS sort them out from your existing MIDI tracks.

CAMPS provides three basic functions for manipulating chords: Generate, Harmonize, and Construct. Those functions also come in some “EZ” flavors, which, in combination with a Magic Wand tool, give novices quick results with predetermined algorithms. The authors are quick to point out, though, that the more input you provide, the more useful and musical your results will be.

HARMONIC COMPLEXITY

I tested the program by importing a MIDI file of a salsa-esque original composition built around a stock chord pattern, namely one bar each of G minor, F, E^b , and D7. The arrangement consisted of 13 tracks: two trumpet; one each of horn, trombone, and tuba; and eight percussion. The piece's first eight bars were completely chordal and, with the exception of a single chromatic note in the tuba part, completely diatonic. CAMPS did a perfect job of analyzing the tuba part's function as a bass line and the drums as nonharmonic information, correctly declaring the other brass parts to be melodic lines.

When I asked CAMPS to EZHarmonize the entire arrangement, though, I received some very strange results. The Harmonize function is intended to generate chords that fit with existing pitched data, yet its first chord choice on repeated harmonization passes was an F^# diminished or G^# diminished, despite the clear tonality of the music. Even removing that one chromatic tuba note didn't help.

Heeding the authors' advice that EZ functions are merely a starting point, I next tried to Harmonize the song. When I selected the Harmonize function, a dialog box opened and started listing dozens of Detected Keys and Modes and hundreds of Detected Chord Progressions, all at lightning speed (see Fig. 3). I selected G minor as the key and mode to focus on, and all the displayed chord progressions reflected that choice, more or less. Though EZHarmonize failed to suggest a starting chord of G minor on repeated passes, almost half of the suggestions in the Harmonize window started with that chord. Still, after scrolling through screen after screen of suggested chord progressions, I never found the pattern I thought my music implied.

If you're looking for ideas to shake up your staid harmonies, you may regard this tendency to avoid obvious choices as a good thing. Clearly CAMPS is not short on imagination; I suspended the search for possibilities at around 10,000 G-minor chord progressions.

I started a new file and tried to restrict the possible harmonizations further by entering a simple chord-based melody and also defining specific first and last chords. The good news is that CAMPS takes the chords before and after a harmonization region into consideration when generating alternatives. The bad news is that the Harmonize dialog box only lets you audition the newly generated chords and doesn't let you hear them in context. On the other hand, if you attempt to Harmonize several noncontiguous chords, it will play the intervening chords during the preview.

Next I entered five bars of George Gershwin's “I've Got Rhythm,” one of the most common chord progressions in Western music. I included a simplified melody and the tonic chords that occur in the first and fifth measures. Then I selected measures 2 through 4 for harmonization. I wasn't forced to suspend the process this time, as there were only 997 variations, a much more manageable number. There were fewer jarringly dissonant suggestions, but I was still surprised to find that the familiar I — vi — ii — V progression was number 101 on the list of suggestions, with the rock ’n’ roll version (I — vi — IV — V) barely beating it at number 97.

When I asked Microworks about the problem, I was told that to avoid making stylistic decisions, CAMPS does not prioritize results in any particular order. I think there needs to be some way the user can manage the program's many suggestions. Providing more effective tools to organize or constrain the results would make CAMPS a far more useful program. In its present form, the program lacks the tools to control its own imagination.

To have the program create alternative chords without considering existing MIDI lines, use the Generate function. In this mode, CAMPS bases its choices solely on the existing key and mode data defined in the Chord Containers. When I generated alternatives to the first eight bars of my salsa tune, CAMPS offered 500,000 suggestions before I suspended the process. The first 13 suggestions were variations of the first chord with the rest of the phrase harmonized simply as I — ii — V — I — ii — V — I. The next 135 patterns varied the first two chords while keeping the remaining six bars constant. CAMPS generated about 20,000 progressions before varying the fifth bar.

These results from the Generate function again make apparent the absence of tools to distill the program's “creativity.” Though the pattern of results was predictable, (varying only the first chord, then the first two, then the first three, and so forth), I found wading through half a million suggestions difficult. The fact that Generate gives you the flexibility to ignore melodic lines also makes me wish Harmonize respected existing lines more. That would allow the user more control over the number of outside-of-the-box suggestions.

LISTEN TO THE MELODY

CAMPS' Compose function is its only tool for generating new or transforming existing melodic lines, yet Compose utilizes more internal parameters than the chord functions (see Fig. 4). It also tends to be more conservative in its suggestions, varying the melody a little bit at a time depending on how you set up the parameters.

The Compose dialog box allows you to determine the relative consonance, melodic activity (for example, use of repeated notes and size of skips), rhythmic characteristics, and scale and range of the melody, among other factors. You can choose to have the new melodies follow an existing rhythm, or you can select Rhythm Compose to hear variations. All those factors affect the degree to which the melody is altered.

Numerous Compose presets are included that illustrate the algorithm's flexibility. Mellow Alto Sax, for example, has a range of less than two octaves, a very high consonance level, and a maximum leap of a perfect fifth. Out Guitar, by contrast, features twice the range and a significantly higher tendency toward dissonance. There are different presets for every Line category, with the tendencies of an Obbligato or String line modified appropriately for its role in the overall arrangement.

A unique feature called MelodyDraw lets you draw a shape for the melody to follow. That may be one of CAMPS' strongest features as it allows a composer to say, in effect, “Give me a moderately dissonant line that descends for six bars and then reverses direction.” MelodyDraw could be improved with the addition of a larger drawing window or a variable zoom for the window. Once I established chord patterns that I liked, I found MelodyDraw and the other Compose features to be potentially useful.

CAMPS even adds harmonies to a line with any combination of several standard voicings. Open the Notation or Piano Roll View, select a line for Voicing, and you are presented with a note-by-note dialog for choosing Cluster, Close, Drop-2, Drop-3, Drop-2&4, Fourths, Spread, or Upper Structure Triad voicings. That is an impressive array of arranging techniques, but selecting voicing styles on a note-by-note basis is pretty tedious.

Fortunately, CAMPS remembers the last voicing you used. The next time you open the Voicing dialog box, it assigns the previous voicing as the default for all selected notes. As long as you plan to continue in the same voicing style, this feature saves you a lot of effort. Still, I would prefer to select a voicing style for the entire selection and then tweak individual voicings as necessary.

RATTLE YOUR MUSE

Make no mistake: CAMPS packs a lot of musical intelligence. Also, it performed at blazing speed on everything from a Pentium III/450 MHz to a mere Pentium 120 without a hiccup. It's the kind of direct, efficient, no-nonsense program I love to use.

Nevertheless, I was frustrated by the lack of control over the harmonization process. It's great that CAMPS generates the type of chromatic substitutions jazz players thrive on, but it has trouble dealing with simple triadic pop harmony. In addition, I discovered that its harmonic vocabulary lacks one of the most common dominant substitutions in pop music: the IV chord over the V chord's root (for example, an F triad over a G bass in the key of C). Moreover, the process of limiting and defining results is pretty clunky: if triadic harmony is possible, it isn't easy to achieve. Overall, the melodic tools are more useful, yielding possibilities that seem more appropriate. Undoubtedly this is due to the greater degree of user control over the process.

If you're looking for something to rattle your muse's cage, download the fully functional, 30-day demo. Considering the nearly limitless possibilities that CAMPS can suggest, you'll certainly never be able to say, “I hadn't thought of that!” again.

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Brian Smithers is associate course director of MIDI at Full Sail Real World Education in Winter Park, Florida. You can reach him through his Web site at http://members.aol.com/notebooks1.

Minimum System Requirements

CAMPS
Pentium processor; 32 MB RAM;
Windows 95/98/NT

PRODUCT SUMMARY

Microworks
CAMPS 4.0 (Win)
intelligent MIDI sequencer
$369