What I am looking for, but have not yet found, is something like this:

Underneath it all, is code  that makes both scores and sounds. The code 
makes the entire piece.

This code is written in some already widely known and easy to learn language 
such as Python, Lua, or Scheme.

You can just write this code in a text editor if you want and run it, or you 
can use a specialized editor.

I would like to see the following specialized editors:

Piano roll for objects that contain sequences of musical events.

Standard notation for objects that contain sequences of musical events.

Waveform for objects that contain samples.

Time/frequency for objects that contain samples.

Mixing console for objects that contain busses and effects such as filters, 
reverbs, and such.

"Wiring diagram" a la Reaktor or Max for objects that contain graphs of unit 
generators. Such wiring diagrams could generator scores as well as sounds.

A high-level block diagram would show the entire piece. Different diagrams 
for different kinds of pieces. A piece that is just a sound recording would 
be a block containing a soundfile object. A piece that is a software 
instrument that is played by a sequence would be two blocks, one for the 
sequence one for the synthesizer. You could open up the synthesizer to edit 
it either as code, or as a graph of little boxes (unit generators).

The heart of this system would be rules for transforming code into GUI 
patches and vice versa. Any box or widget you click on could be edited as 
code.

Instead of a text file like Max for patches or a binary file like Reason, 
when you save a piece it will save as code. Soundfiles, impulse responses, 
samples, and such would go into a 'resource' directory containing files 
pointed to by the objects in the code.

blue, Max, Kyma, Reaktor, Eclipse, Buzz, and of course GUI builders for 
graphical user interface development point the way. Each object would have 
typed inlets, typed outlets, visible/invisible properties with widget 
attachments, and layout hints.

By "code" however I do NOT mean XML. I mean code. Perhaps the code has to 
have 'annotations' to enable the GUI layer to present the objects as 
widgets.

Mike


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Aikin" 
To: 
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2008 9:05 PM
Subject: [Csnd] Re: Csound Music Archive


> from Michael Rhoades:
>
>> Really... the only limitation with Csound is your own imagination.
>> Though I work almost exclusively with spreadsheets on the score
>> synthesis aspects of composing, being the anal retentive person I
>> am, there are nearly infinite other ways you can work with it.
>>
>> The idea is to find your own way(s) to make beautiful music in
>> whatever manner works for you... that is the beauty of Csound,
>> everyone who uses it to compose does so in a manner unique to
>> their own sensibilities.
>
> The last time I tried using Csound, a couple of years ago, I ended up 
> mentioning to Dr. B that I thought that tag line (about the only 
> limitation being your imagination) ought to be amended to read, "The only 
> limitation with Csound is your own patience." Imagination I have plenty 
> of; patience is sometimes in short supply, and composing music in a text 
> editor will tend to push it to the limit.
>
> I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say, "there are nearly 
> infinite other ways you can work with it." If I want to draw on paper 
> using crayons, scan the drawings, and then ... no, that probably isn't 
> going to get me anywhere.
>
> I actually got a couple of notes out of blue this afternoon, while sitting 
> at the coffee shop with old Bob Dylan tracks on the P.A. system leaking in 
> through the headphones. blue seems to offer some real promise as a front 
> end, and I'm looking forward to exploring it. But I think even Steven 
> would probably agree that it falls well short of "infinite."
>
> If I were 20 years old and had nothing to do but sit around the dorm room 
> until 4 in the morning writing C++ code for Linux, I would be able to get 
> incrementally closer to "infinite." I could even write a program to 
> translate those scanned crayon drawings into .sco files. But as a 
> practical matter, I have too many other things I'd like to be doing, and 
> not enough hours in the week to do them all. So I have to rely on other 
> people to devise cool tools.
>
> Part of my role as journalist/gadfly is to whine when the existing tools 
> give me headaches. I sometimes forget to reassure people that it's _not_ 
> that I think the existing tool -- in this case, Csound -- is bad or 
> deficient! It's just that I'm hoping for a level of user-friendliness that 
> I think is probably achievable, but that is not yet implemented.
>
> --Jim Aikin
>
>
>
>
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