movements of sound in space was realized. The end of this period is marked by the prototype of a Digital to Analog Converter.

What is very interesting to note during this period, is the close relation between composers and technical developers; the first proposed ideas and needs, often irrealistic, but with germs of original improvements; and the latter tried to adapt technology to dreams in a very experimental approach to new systems. This original relationship between two completely different worlds, has permitted a mutual comprehension of their problems and problematics, succeeding very often in completely new ways of working on sound.

Research Programs, 123 - SYTER

In 1975 the situation radically changes. The ORTF and the Service de la Recherche cease to exist; the central office is divided into several different societies and the GRM becomes attached to the INA (National Audiovisual Institute). This new period is marked by computer science; two important projects are developed on a DEC PDP 11/60 system, the first one, called SYTER, is oriented towards real-time synthesis, the second, called 123 programs (due to the number of the studio in which the research was done) oriented to non real-time sound transformation.

The 123 programs, developed principally by Benedict Mailliard and Yann Geslin, were in a beginning intended to reproduce the facilities of the analog studio, but very quickly enormous new possibilities for sound transformation where developed. Certain programs have become classics in acousmatic work as Etir (sound contracting and stretching), Flt (resonant filters), Elr (complex space and Doppler effects), being the most known.

The incidence of this software in acousmatic composition via computer means was fundamental during the second half of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties: they induced a new abstract way of controlling sound transformation with non-mechanical means (and non-mechanical action) permitting an approach to acousmatic composing by a large number of composers that had always been rebutted by the technical ability needed in analog environments.

Brassage (random oriented shuffling of sound fragments) was one of the most interesting developments of this period. The basic idea was taken from what was called 'micro-montage', a technique used for cutting a recorded tape in small fragments and reconstructing a new time reality. It was very tempting to develop a software that would do this quickly and precisely in order to experiment with different solutions for shuffling sound continuity. What most attracted composers with this technique, was the possibility of making completely new temporal, and therefore rhythmical and melodical, organizations of existing music. The spectral components of the sound were not modified, so the sound of an orchestral fragment for example