ABSTRACT
The limitations on its potential are partly due to our lack of acoustic understanding but primarily to our perceptual and aesthetic preconceptions about the nature of sonic art and its instruments. At its most elementary level these limitations could be seen in the small, digital packages available for music-making in the early 1980s. The distinction between object and model may be understood more easily when the author move into the field of sound-sources possessing a repertoire, such as the human voice. The crucial difference between building sound-models and building sound-objects is that the former preserves a clear and perceptually relevant distinction between intrinsic and imposed morphology. Change the invariants and rules and one changes the perceived model. In computer modelling there is a trade-off between flexibility and speed. If the author are prepared to work within the constraints of a particular sound-model, the author can generate results fairly quickly.
