SAWDUST is a computer program for composing waveforms. It was conceived by Herbert Brün, designed and implemented by Gary Grossman, and enhanced by Jody Kravitz and Keith Johnson.
Brün has written about the program:
The computer program which I called SAWDUST allows me to work with the smallest parts of waveforms, to link them and to mingle or merge them with one another. Once composed, the links and mixtures are treated, by repetition, as periods, or by various degrees of continuous change, as passing moments of orientation in a process of transformations.
In 1972, Brün made a proposal to the University of Illinois Research Board to fund the SAWDUST project. In 1976, Gary Grossman completed the first version of SAWDUST, written in the then-new C programming language under UNIX, and running on a PDP 11/50 at the University of Illinois Digital Computer Lab. To this computer were attached a digital-to-analog converter (built by Jody Kravitz), a 1/4", half-track, reel-to-reel tape recorder, and a stereo amplifier and speakers. The waveforms were generated by the computer, transferred to analog tape, then taken to the University of Illinois Electronic Music Studios for mixing. With this system, Brün wrote Dust (1976), More Dust (1977), Dustiny (1978), and A Mere Ripple (1979).
Jody Kravitz, using functions given by Elizabeth Mitro, wrote the code for the turn algorithm. With this second version of SAWDUST, Brün completed U-TURN-TO (1980) and i toLD You so! (1981).
In the late 1980s, Keith Johnson ported SAWDUST to 16-bit PCs, built a custom D/A and A/D converter for the PC, and enabled SAWDUST to work with a sound i/o system developed at the University of Iowa by David Muller and Adam Cain. With this version of the program, Brün completed Aufhören! (1989) for ensemble and tape, and on stilts among ducks (1997) for viola and tape.
SAWDUST currently runs on PCs (MS-DOS), Linux, SGI, and NeXT computer systems.
In 1972, Brün wrote the following in his original proposal to the University of Illinois Research Board:
The current direction: Computer assisted sound synthesis, when related to musical composition, has been based on the validity of the following observations: The description of a desired sound can be transformed into a set of instructions within a computer program. Under the control of this program the computer system will output a digital approximation to one of the many waveforms that would, upon D/A conversion, generate the described sound.
With respect to the description of a sound, many waveforms are equivalent.
This was, and still is, satisfactory for musical purposes because of a seemingly trivial truism: Even the discriminating ear of a professional musician is incapable of distinguishing from one another the numerous different wave forms which, all, would generate, according to this musician's description, one and the same sound. As, in this respect, the composer is no better than the musician, and as the composer can only compose when and where he either discovers or draws controllable distinctions, he never consciously composes in waveforms, rarely listens to waveforms. It will not dampen any composer's gratitude for two flawless performances of his work, if he is shown, afterwards, that the waveforms, generated by the performances and filmed via Oscilloscope, had produced two totally different movies.
The history of musical composition has been characterized by technological restrictions: The composer, the musician, the listener, all had to find their musical universe through descriptions of sounds and sound relations, since it was technically impossible to extend compositional instructions and performing control to the level of the waveform, its constituents, and its transformational properties. Even the centuries old search for ever new instruments, new waveform generators, was a search for sound and, like everything else in music, guided by two main criteria: 1) With respect to the description of a desired sound (as heard), many waveforms are equivalent; 2) This relation of ``One to Many'' is not only satisfactory and, given the wide tolerance margin in our auditory system, an advantage; it is, in the absence of applicable technical alternatives, a kind of fundamental condition to be taken for granted. Thus, in music, not the waveform, but the sound as heard and described is the basic element and standard.
The current direction has overlooked the advent of the applicable technical alternative.
The discrete step: Computer assisted waveform synthesis is an applicable alternative. Suddenly it is possible to compose, to transform, to control waveforms and waveform sequences. The relation of a waveform to the sound it generates is ``One to One''. With respect to the description of a desired waveform no two sounds are equivalent. Waveforms, that are equivalent under the description of a sound, become distinguishable and musically different if the composer makes use of their transformational properties.
In the presence of an applicable alternative the two critera of the current direction cease to be ``necessary'' criteria. No longer fundamental conditions for all music making, they still retain their usefulness as optional restrictions that a composer may choose for defining the musical universe for his next work.
If it can be shown that there exist significant musical ideas which require compositional thinking where not the sound but the waveform is the basic element and standard, then it can also be shown how the computer not only helps the composer to the fulfillment of up to now unfulfillable desires, but actually assists the composer in generating desires he never knew before.