Hi Panos,

Regarding instruments, I am of the mindset to create very complex
instruments with a large number of parameters, giving a wider area of
sound space to explore.  Some thoughts about this and how things are
concieved in blue are here:

http://csounds.com/stevenyi/blue/usermanual/html/blueSynthBuilder.html

One thing I find valuable is studying commercial synthesizers, both
hardware and software.  I will time to time look at hardware synth
manuals and create similar instruments in Csound.  Often one finds
there are a LOT of parameters in commercial synthesizers, something I
don't regularly see in many Csound instruments due to the difficulty
of quickly understanding the values of parameters and the boundaries
of those parameters.  Those kinds of things are very easy to see using
GUI's, as mentioned in the manual entry link above.

I do also like the flexibility to create a very simple but very
specific instrument when a piece seems to require it, though most of
the time now I use the library of instruments created in blue by both
myself and others which they contributed to blueShare.  I also do
notice that the quality of sound from most commercial synthesizers
relies a great deal on the effects used with it.  Many synthesizers
will have always on effects like chorus, delay, etc. which can not be
done within the same instrument in Csound.  That can easily be done by
routing instrument sound into an always-on mixer instrument that
applies effects (this is what blue encapsulates with its mixer and
effects system).  I found it very interested to try out demos of
commercial instruments and turning anything that would be an always-on
effect like chorus and reverb to hear what is really the core sound of
the instrument.  I've found that the a lot will come from effects, so
that is something to be think about when crafting an instrumental
sound.

Well, hope that's useful!
steven





On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 12:49 AM, Panos Katergiathis <csound@protocol.gr> wrote:
> Hello all
>
>  I am a spoiled ex-(windows-asio-cubase-vst) user that had (until now)
>  too many "instruments" to play with. I have come to understand that this
>  "wealth" of options has nothing to do with creating music itself, and i
>  am willing to limit my instrument choices to a minimum. Still, since i
>  am not-much-of-an-expert in csound (yet, that is), i am currently
>  limited to very simple instruments that (yes) they keep me interested
>  but not excited at all.
>
>  Of course, i have purchased the "csound catalog" that actually contains
>  some nice instruments (along with some others, not so nice), however i
>  wouldn't know if these instruments represent the cream of what one can
>  do with csound or if they are "mediocre" by today's standards. Surely, i
>  have listened to some extremely exciting instruments in the (long gone?)
>  csound radio page - nothing in the catalog comes close.
>
>  So, the question is forged: what is the easiest and what is the best
>  approach for creating csound instruments? Please share your experience.
>
>  Regards
>
>  Panos
>
>
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