3.1.3.1.1) What is CSound? (Electronic and Computer Music)
Description
This article is from the Electronic and Computer Music FAQ, by Craig Latta Craig.Latta@NetJam.ORG with numerous contributions by others.
3.1.3.1.1) What is CSound? (Electronic and Computer Music)
Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1992 10:36:00 LCL
From: DOWRJ%VAX1.COMPUTER-CENTRE.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: csound
csound is a comprehensive synthesis and processing package
written by Barry Vercoe at the Media Lab, MIT. It is written in more
or less portable C (although it does make use of one or two functions
which are not ANSI such as open(), close()), and will certainly run
well on any UNIX box i.e. SUNs, VAXen, etc. It also runs on the
Macintosh under ThinkC 4.0. At the University of Birmingham we have it
running on Apollo Workstations, our IBM3090 mainframe, and an old
version also comes as part of York University's CDP (Composer's
Desktop Project).
The latest version of csound not only has the usual modules
for processing and synthesis but also has those for doing FOF
synthesis (cf. CHANT), and for phase vocoding. There is also the
ability to take in standard MIDI files as score files, or (on speedy
machines) the ability to run csound in real time, and trigger events
from a MIDI stream.
csound can output sound-files in AIFF format to be read by Mac
type things such as Sound Designer, and also: 8-bit signed character
samples, alaw samples, ulaw samples, short integers, long integers,
floats, with or without IRCAM (1K) headers. It can output files for
the NeXT to play too.
The package is available via anonymous ftp to
ems.media.mit.EDU in the /pub directory. Look at the README's for
details of what you need. The manaul is available as postscript.
If anyone wants a copy of the IBM3090 version, they could
contact me directly. Unfortunately the modified code is in a bit of a
mess at the moment as I am re-porting it for another version of C
(C370), but I have a running CSOUND MODULE.
At Birmingham we run CSOUND on the IBM3090 for complex CPU
intensive stuff, and transfer it to an ATARI TT (30MHz) via an
ethernet connection. The ATARI runs CDP, and has a soundstreamer. We
are getting some more ethernet boards which will allow us to bring the
files into Sound Tools running on another ATARI (this will be a
massive kludge!). The transfer takes some time, but since something
which took a day to compute on a normal ATARI takes 20 minutes on the
IBM we're not complaining.
Robert Dow, Department of Music, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Edgbaston,
Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK
DOWRJ@uk.ac.bham.vax1 (JANET - address in uk order)
Date: Fri, 4 Jun 93 11:51:07 BST
From: John Fitch <jpff@maths.bath.ac.uk>
Subject: Csound for PC
...the PC version [of CSound] ... is available for 286, 386 or 486
[-based machines]. It is available by FTP from
ftp.bath.ac.uk:pub/jpff or from the info-server@maths.math.ac.uk with
a message body
request: dream
topic: index
==John
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 19:16:10 -0500
From: NeXTmusic Mailing List <nextmusic@wri.com>
Subject: Snd v1.2 released
Reply-To: pmy@klang.music.Virginia.EDU (Pete Yadlowsky)
Snd is a NeXTStep interface to an enhanced version of Vercoe's csound (v2.0).
Other audio-related applications are also supported, to the effect of providing
a general, integrated computer music production environment. Like its
forebears, v1.2 offers on-line documentation, easy access to and management of
the various file types, push-button control and execution of csound and other
applications, csound output signal scaling and remote-host csound execution.
Here's what's new:
- inline signal limiting (csound); eliminates signal clipping
without having to post-scale an entire floating-pt soundfile
(linear post-scaling is still available) - internal speaker control
- 'lisp' file type, knowledge of Paul Lansky's rt.driver
- 'Windows' menu entry
- simpler access to csound manual
- various minor improvements and fixes
Where: ftp://uvaarpa.acc.virginia.EDU/pub/next/Apps/Snd/
- Pete
Peter M. Yadlowsky | Laden e-mail runs Academic Computing Center | Bumbling, creaking through the net University of Virginia | Sysadmins tremble. pmy@Virginia.EDU | - after Buson
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