Thanks David, very helpful information.




Anthony


----- Original Message -----
From: David Akbari <dakbari@gmail.com>
Date: Thursday, October 13, 2005 10:31 am
Subject: Re: [Csnd] Csound v.s. SuperCollider?

> Hi Anthony,
> 
> On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:59 AM, apalomba@austin.rr.com wrote:
> 
> > for a while now I have heard talk of SuperCollider and
> > was wondering if anyone out there could tell me what
> > the differences are between the two.
> 
> I have also heard a lot of talk about SuperCollider and at present 
> I do 
> use it a bit but honestly not as much as Csound.
> 
> To cite a few main differences, SuperCollider is object orientated 
> and 
> runs principally on Macintosh (although I believe there are now 
> Linux 
> and Windows projects, influenced by Csound development). 
> SuperCollider 
> is maintained primarily by James McCartney among a few select 
> others. 
> It has been said that if Csound is the C language for computer 
> music 
> then SuperCollider is it's C++.
> 
> By contrast, Csound is has been around longer and has a larger 
> user 
> base. It implements synthesis techniques primarily in C and has 
> historically been supported on all platforms (Mac, Windows, Linux, 
> Solaris, BSD OSes, Sharp Zaurus handheld devices, etc) and this 
> continues to be a primary concern. Csound is maintained by several 
> developers around the world and thrives on a multi-national, 
> multi-cultural music base and interaction.
> 
> While beginning users will find it easy to implement complex 
> algorithmic rearrangement of incoming audio (sampled or realtime) 
> in 
> SuperCollider, the emphasis is less on how to really implement the 
> semantics of the language in a musical way in favor of "presets".
> 
> There exists a SuperCollider course authored by David Cottle which 
> you 
> can obtain by emailing him directly: < d DOT cottle AT utah DOT 
> edu >. 
> Also Nick Collins, and a number of others have put together some 
> SuperCollider courses. All of these documents exist online.
> 
> Again in contrast, the Csound community has a physical publication 
> called "The Csound Book" which was released on MIT Press and 
> contains 
> contributions from many developers who regularly post on this 
> list. It 
> was edited by Dr. Richard Boulanger and describes in great detail 
> many 
> possibilities in music synthesis with Csound.
> 
> With the new development in Csound (version 5), there draws less 
> of a 
> gap between it an SuperCollider. Many times users cite 
> SuperCollider 
> and say that it's OSC client / server implementation is superior 
> to 
> Csound's "historically offline bounce" method. These same users 
> are 
> quick to point out that Csound has not always been a real time 
> language 
> and that "recent developments of Csound's realtime potential are 
> all 
> just hacks". It's all really a matter of how you look at it, but 
> the 
> way I see it, Csound5 implements many changes to the canonical 
> source 
> base including a robust system of OSC, realtime processing MIDI 
> and 
> other equally feasible realtime techniques for manipulating sound 
> synthesis.
> 
> Although SuperCollider was designed primarily for realtime 
> synthesis 
> and features AltiVec optimization instructions, Csound also has 
> these 
> potentials although AFAIK there is not many AltiVec instructions 
> in the 
> Csound language primitives.
> 
> Using this quote:
> 
> On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:59 AM, apalomba@austin.rr.com wrote:
> 
> > I have been a long time user of csound.
> 
> as the basis for this question:
> 
> On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:59 AM, apalomba@austin.rr.com wrote:
> 
> > How do the compare in ease of use
> > and interface?
> 
> It's likely to say that Csound will be easier to use for you, at 
> least 
> initially.
> 
> On Oct 13, 2005, at 10:59 AM, apalomba@austin.rr.com wrote:
> 
> > If I know csound, is there any compelling reason why I should learn
> > SuperCollider?
> 
> Absolutely. Remember a computer is what you make of it. To deny 
> it's 
> computing potential is foolish in a way. I recently asked Nick 
> Collins 
> on the SuperCollider list if he had plans to port his revised 
> BBCut2 
> library to Csound and he said that it would take too much time and 
> Csound was not efficient enough to accommodate the library. Of 
> course 
> this is his prerogative and accordingly you can see that this and 
> other 
> reasons are a good cause to learn about SuperCollider.
> 
> This coupled with the fact that SuperCollider already implements 
> plugins which are effectively modeling reverb processors from "The 
> Csound Book", we can see an ever increasing bleed over of the 
> techniques as they are implemented in each language, respectively.
> 
> In the end it is up to you which method / programming style best 
> assists your compositional thought. For me, it's Csound.
> 
> 
> -David
> 
> -- 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk
>