I used the demo version of noatikl (seehttp://www.intermorphic.com) to generate some sample MIDI files which I then massaged, arranged and finally put together into a piece call "Champs Elysee" (for lack of a better title which I hope to figure out someday.) I'll upload this something before very long.
Back back to Koan again...
Eno really raved about it in interviews at the time and in his book "A Year With Swollen Appendices" but curiously the program did not really take fire in spite of his recommendations.
The program was made by a company in the UK named SSEYO which still exists. However, they stopped development on Koan some years ago. They appear to be concentrating on things like web sonification and ringtones.
Koan really shows its age at this date (2006). It's last release was in 2001 or so at version 2.7 and I doubt whether there will ever be a newer one. But if you just ignore the now very clunky and antiquated GUI you can get some amazing results.
Early versions of Koan only generated MIDI data which were intended to be played on external synthesizers (or PC sound cards with MIDI capability.) At version 2.5 or so they added a built in synthesizer which, while limited, allowed you to create compositions whose sound was independent of the sound card or synth you played it on.
Some years ago I meandered across Michael Hagleitner who wrote a lot of excellent music in Koan. I don't know all that many other people who have. The "Minico" music site. It appears that in the last few years he has not spent too much time using Koan; probably because he is enjoying his second home on Crete so much...
28 August 2006 I discovered some software called "ArtSong." It looks like this may be able to do 90% of what Koan can do, but is supported on current versions of Windows. More on this as I experiment with it. 25 Feb 2008 This didn't quite ring my bell. It's a powerful and comprehensive system, but I get the feeling it's aimed more at conventional musicians rather than those more focused on electronics.
