# CDP Two windows run programs from the Composers' Desktop Project (CDP), a large collection of sound-transformation tools, inside Mediante on your own machine. **CDP Sample Effect** processes part of a sample; **Generate with CDP** makes a new one. ## CDP Sample Effect Commands ▸ Effects ▸ CDP effect… in the [sample editor](sample-editor.md) opens it on the range marked there, or on the whole sample. The line at the bottom says which frames it will process and how many effects there are. Some CDP programs are not offered here — the ones that write several files or want a list of sounds — and the line counts them too. ### Effect The effects are grouped by what they do; hover the list for what the chosen one does. An effect marked *(2 sounds)* combines this sample with a second sound. Each parameter's row says what it does on hover. ### This sample The note CDP is told the region plays at. Nothing is resampled: the same frames are declared to run at a different rate, so every parameter measured in seconds or hertz lands somewhere else in the sound — a 100 ms delay covers more of it, a 1 kHz filter sits on a different partial, a grain is a different fraction of a syllable. Replacing the region splices the frames back one for one, so the sample's own tuning is untouched. The readout beside it gives the rate. ### Second sound and Its pitch Shown for a two-sound effect. The second sound can be any sample slot, including this one, or a sound in the project that no slot plays; a slot is read as it plays, its slice included. **Its pitch** is the note the second sound is heard at, relative to the first, and this one really does transpose it: CDP converts the second sound to the first one's rate, so the two do not have to match. Two-sound **spectral** effects analyse in mono, so their result is mono. On a stereo sample the window warns that replacing the region would fold the whole sample down to mono; send the result to a slot to keep the original. ### Preview **Preview** renders the effect and draws the result; the line under it gives its length, channels and rate, and how long the render took. **Audition** plays it. **UNDO PREVIEW** and **REDO PREVIEW** step back and forth through the renders, not through the sample. Changing the second sound or either pitch throws the preview away, so **Apply** renders again rather than applying a preview made with other settings. ### Result, Output tuning and Name **Result** is where the render goes: - **Replace the selected region**, the window's own. The region is replaced in the sample, as one undo step. If the sample changed after the preview was made, nothing is replaced. - **New instrument slot**, the first empty slot, or a new one added after the last when there is none (the module holds 63 at most). - **Overwrite** the instrument the sample editor is on. It asks first when the slot holds a sample. A slot result is loaded the way a sample file is, as an undo step; when a slot has to be added first, that is a second step. **Output tuning** is only for a slot result: the note the new instrument plays at its own speed, which becomes its default pitch. It changes no audio. *As processed* keeps the rate the render came back at. Replacing a region keeps the sample's own tuning, so the choice is greyed then. **Name** is the new instrument's, up to 40 Latin-1 characters; left blank, it is made from the effect and the sounds. ## Generate with CDP Commands ▸ Generate ▸ With CDP into instrument… in the sample editor. It works on an empty slot too, which is what it is for; the title bar says which instrument it fills, and *(replacing)* when that one already holds a sample. ### Generator and its parameters Sixteen of CDP's generator programs: waveforms, noise, chords, impulses, additive and chaotic synthesis. Hover the list for what the chosen one does, and a parameter's row for what it does. **Defaults** puts every parameter back to the generator's own. The **Waveform** generator is run with CDP's largest wavetable (4096 points) rather than its 256-point default, and its shape names are corrected: what CDP's own usage calls a sawtooth (mode 3) is a triangle, and its "ramp" (mode 4) is the sawtooth. ### Data Some generators take their input as text: notes, click times, a spectrum, a score. The box starts with a working example, and its tooltip gives the format. ### Rate, Depth and Channels The rate the sound is generated at, the depth it is stored at, and whether it stays as the generator made it or is converted to mono or stereo. The slot's default pitch is set from the rate, so the sample plays at the pitch it was made at; if a generator returns a different rate from the one asked for, the slot is tuned to what it returned, and the window says so. The line under them gives the length, frames and size before anything runs — or says the generator takes its length from its data. A generator that CDP refuses below a certain rate, or a result over 32 MB, is refused there, and Preview and Generate are greyed. ### Preview and Generate **Preview** runs the generator and draws the result, and **Audition** plays it. **Generate** puts it in the slot, running the generator first if there is no preview. Replacing a sample asks first; the slot is then loaded the way a sample file is, as one undo step.