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SSEYO Koan(SSEYO)

Brian Eno used it. Where is it now?

SSEYO Koan has evolved into Wotja

SSEYO Koan Pro and Generative Music 1

SSEYO Koan is with us, Tim Cole and Pete Cole, at Intermorphic!

A Bit of History

Back in 1990, way before our new company Intermorphic, we co-founded the company SSEYO. It was at SSEYO that the Koan Music Engine was built by us, Tim Cole & Pete Cole.

"Koan" - How did we decide on the name?

'Koan' was chosen as the brand name for the music after much deliberation. Koan is a Zen word meaning a mystery or puzzle with no logical solution. We felt that it was a good choice as the music is a 'now' phenomenon (much of Zen philosophy is about the present, as opposed to the future or past). In addition, there is a subtle intangibility to it through the use of random, changing events. As it is created in real-time there is no real 'solution' to the music generated.

What we said about Koan Music

"Koan music can be thought of as being comparable to a ball bearing traveling down a guide or chute. Each time the ball bearing makes the journey it will travel a different path, but the available paths are constrained by the chute. In a similar way Koan music is governed by an envelope of possibilities, these being set by Koan artists with Koan Pro. Each time a Koan piece plays it will have certain boundaries set by the artist, outside which the music will not go. All this means that the music can be different each time."

SSEYO Koan - the rollout

We sent out the first betas for SSEYO Koan branded apps in 1992 and initially called the music it made "Koan Music". The genre later became better known as "generative music" and 25+ years later SSEYO Koan would go on to become Intermorphic WOTJA. See credits.

In 1994 we published Koan Plus and, at about the time in 1995 as we were readying Koan Pro V1.0 authoring system for release, we were lucky enough to bring it to the attention of Brian Eno. In autumn 1995 Eno started working with Koan Pro (superceded by Noatikl in 2007 then Wotja in 2017) culminating in the 1996 release of Generative Music 1 with SSEYO Koan Software.

Following that SSEYO published the Koan X "Drag 'n' Mix" Generative Music mixer and a couple of Koan content titles, Niskala by Jamuud (composed/recorded in 96) and Float by Timothy Didymus (composed/recorded in 1995/96), and then the cool Koan Essentials Morphing Drum and Bass with SF2 and WAV samples licenced from Zero-G (also now available for free for use in Wotja).

A number of internet and mobile developments ensued for Koan between 1997 and 2002, a crucial one being that we added to the SKME an integral sound engine called the SSEYO Koan Sound Engine (SKSE).

In 2002 SSEYO was then acquired by Tao Group, at which point SSEYO Koan sadly passed away (it's gone, meaning it's not been developed or supported since 2002). As SSEYO Koan's developers, though, we (Intermorphic) got back all the SSEYO IP in 2008 and have now retired it. However...

Having found us, despair not!

SSEYO Koan has evolved and now lives on in Wotja.

SSEYO to Intermorphic App Consolidation Schematic

Koan Engines

1992-2007: The SSEYO Koan Engines

Generative music apps are all about the music engine and sound engine that underpins them.

The SSEYO Koan Music Engine (SKME) and SSEYO Koan Sound Engine (SKSE) were built by us and have now gone, as are the various SSEYO Koan apps that used them. The good news is that at Intermorphic we develop (and are continuing to develop) engines that are more powerful than the SKME and SKSE.

2008-2016: Noatikl Music Engine (NME) and Partikl Sound Engine (PSE)

At Intermorphic, we started with the Noatikl Music Engine (NME) and Partikl Sound Engine (PSE) that were at the heart of Noatikl 3, Mixtikl 7, Wotja 3 and Tiklbox 1. The NME was a clean room build engine that leveraged the 15+ man years of experience we gained from developing the SKME, and the PSE leveraged our experience developing the SKSE and also the mobile audio work we did at Tao. Note that the Noatikl Music Engine was NOT the SSEYO Koan Music Engine, but was very like it and could open Koan files created with any version of Koan Pro (i.e. right back to 1992) or Koan X - which means you haven't lost your old work. See the FAQ below.

2017 Onwards: Wotja Music Engine (WME) and Wotja Audio Engine (WAE)

To simplify things moving forward, we have evolved the NME and PSE into the Wotja Music Engine (WME) and Wotja Audio Engine (WAE). Both of these are at the heart of Wotja and they are being extended year-on-year.

P.S. Between 2017 and 2021 these engines used to be referred to as the Intermorphic Music Engine (IME)) and Intermorphic Sound Engine (ISE)).

Koan What's New?

Since SSEYO Koan there have been Noatikl and Mixtikl, and there is now Wotja 22.

  • Ongoing development
  • The Wotja Music Engine (WME) is at the core of the Wotja Generative Music System
  • The Wotja Audio Engine (WAE) is a powerful modular / DLS / SF2 MIDI Synth with Live FX and is at the core of the Wotja Generative Music System
  • Versions of Wotja apps and authoring tools for iOS, macOS, Windows and Android
  • Text to Music and Euclidian generator types for melodies
  • Multiple content cells for sequencing, mixing and arrangement
  • Support for Inter-App Audio, Audiobus (iOS) and Ableton Link (iOS)
  • Support for AUv3/VST3 Plug-in Hosting and AUv3/VST3 Wotja Plug-ins (macOS/iOS and Windows repsectively)
  • Cut-up text editing for new ideas
  • Lots and lots of new, cool templates
  • Powerful Randomisation for easy creation of new albums, mixes and ideas
  • Up-to-date 64bit Mac (Arm/Intel) and PC versions
  • iCloud support
  • Much tighter timings
  • An active user base
  • ... and so much more, see Wotja

Koan File FAQ

IMPORTANT: The files must have been saved by Koan Pro V1.3 (1996) or later and so be of V1.3 format.

Yes you can! Get Wotja and you can open them directly.

Note that if you used the SKSE (Koan Synth) for sounds then those (including AWE/XG) parameter settings will either not be imported or not be imported in any way useable by Wotja. That is because Wotja uses a different synth engine in the WAE. You may get something imported, but it is highly likely not to sound as you remembered.

IMPORTANT: The files must have been saved by Koan Pro V1.3 (1996) or later and so be of V1.3 format.

  1. You cannot directly open a .SKM file with Wotja.
  2. You must first open it with Noatikl and you wil get a dialog asking you if you want to export:
    if you want to export the files to the <Noatikl data folder/"Koan SKM File Imports" folder;
    if you agree, the .skd/.mid/.mp3/.dls files are all extracted and saved to that folder.
    You can then do what you want with those file (e.g. open the .skd file with Noatikl etc.)

Sorry, we do not import .skp files; you'll need to look for your master .skd files instead.

That is relatively easy.

  1. Open the .sbk/.sf2 with a tool such as Polyphone (http://www.polyphone.fr) or AWave Studio (http://www.fmjsoft.com/awavestudio.html), and re-save as SF2 (SoundFont 2) file (.sf2).
  2. Open your .skd file into Noatikl
  3. Open the newly saved .sf2 file into Noatikl (see PSE Wavetable Unit)
  4. Change the Noatikl Patch settings to fix the patch/bank settings to suit (typically, you'll need to fix the bank value; e.g. change 5.1 to 5...)
  5. Play and save!

That is not necessary. If you don't have any Koan files of your own, then this whole section is irrelevant to you!