GoatCactus Ships Self-Organizing Music Composition Software

Voice of the GoatCactus Enables Users to Create Original Music With the Click of a Button

Vancouver, BC (December 10, 2003) – GoatCactus Software today announced the release of Voice of the GoatCactus 1.0, the initial version of its algorithmic music composition tool for Macintosh users. Voice of the GoatCactus taps into the self-organizing powers of the integers to enable users to produce an infinite variety of original music.

"You don't have to know anything about mathematics or music composition to use this software," said D. David "GoatCactus" Cumming, creator of Voice of the GoatCactus. "Just press a button, and Voice of the GoatCactus creates musicians, gives them instruments, combines them with a conductor to form a band and starts them playing. The accent here is on effortless fun."

Voice of the GoatCactus includes the Crystalline Eye of the GoatCactus, which presents the user with a multi-colored visual representation of the music as it plays. "The Eye gives me a bird's-eye view of a band's musical landscape," said the GoatCactus. "There's something hypnotic about staring into it while listening to the music."

Users have the ability to influence the style of music that Voice of the GoatCactus creates. "For example, I can easily let Voice of the GoatCactus know that I like fast, choppy music played by 6 to 8 very inventive musicians with short attention spans who like to closely collaborate with each other," said the GoatCactus. "Furthermore, if I really like tubas, bagpipes and harpsichords but I never want to hear oboes or bassoons, I can specify that too." Voice of the GoatCactus can also use existing bands as templates for new ones, by creating variations or combinations of the originals.

Users can modify previously-created music to suit their tastes, either by asking Voice of the GoatCactus to change an existing band, or by making the changes themselves using the point-and-click interface of the Studio window.

Some features of Voice of the GoatCactus include:

-- bands are created within studios, each with its own user-settable musical style;

-- each studio can contain an unlimited number of bands;

-- each band can produce an infinite amount of music;

-- entire studios and individual bands can be saved to disk;

-- band music can be exported in MIDI format;

-- all music is royalty-free;

-- 1 to 15 musicians per band;

-- 179 instruments;

-- 348 key signatures;

-- 28 time signatures;

-- 1760 Eye focuses, each one showing a different view of the musical landscape;

-- tempo is adjustable from 3 to 300 quarter notes per minute with no change in pitch;

-- easy-to-use point-and-click visual interface;

-- built-in user manual, accessible through the Help menu;

Voice of the GoatCactus runs on Mac OS X. The product is available directly from GoatCactus Software at <http://www.goatcactus.com> and retails for $30.00 US.

About GoatCactus Software

Founded in 2001, GoatCactus Software specializes in harnessing the forces of self-organization for the benefit of all those seeking effortless fun. The firm’s principal, D. David "GoatCactus" Cumming, holds a B.Sc. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia and an M.Sc. in Computing Science from Simon Fraser University and has more than 30 years of software development experience. For more information, music samples and a free Voice of the GoatCactus demo, visit <http://www.goatcactus.com>.

Voice of the GoatCactus is a trademark of GoatCactus Software. All other names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders in the United States and other countries.