IMPAC was a revolutionary piece of software developed by the British composer

Michael Hinton between 1976 and 1979 at EMS (The Electronic Music Studio) in

Stockholm. At the time computers were incredebly expensive, very very big and

fantastically slow. IMPAC (Interactive Music Performance and Composition) was running

on a DEC PDP-15 ”mini” computer.

IMPAC2000 is by no means a true recreation of the original IMPAC. It’s based on

some of the original ideas and functionality of the way Michael Hinton designed the

software. However much has happened since the late 70ties and this is reflected in

the way I have developed the version for the 21st millennium. Things like MIDI was

still in it’s infancy and a protocol like OSC was to turn up in a distant future. All of the

new standards of communication are implemented in the 2000 edition along with

some other stuff such as a video synth and a graphic UI.

IMPAC2000 is based on so called "tendency masks" that lets you control random values in various ways along with envelopes or (if you want) automation curves.

There are two intergrated sound engines, one simple FM synth and one "freaky" synth. There is also a video synth at your disposal.

The compiled version only runs on Mac and depending on your operating system might not even work even on new Mac computers. For this reason I have included the project file so you can compile your own version.

Erorr messages? Ignore!