Hello everyone!

I'm relatively new to csound (dabbling in it for a month or so, fighting
installation, sound issues and reading a few sections of the floss manual,
doing the examples) or programmable sound synthesis environments in general.
Found it by accident actually, while reading a book about sound synthesis
and pure data. The reason i was excited to jump right in, is because i find
all the DAW's too cumbersome to my way of creating music and because i want
to learn more about digital sound synthesis. I've read these forums a bit,
but I still have some nagging questions:

1) *Composition* – now as I understand, many people use csound as a synth,
but i'm interested if composing fully in csound is a viable way. I hate midi
manipulation in daws and the non-existent notation editors. From the first
glance I kind of like the CsScore system, as it gives me the choice to
neatly outline the score in blocks with colored syntax and comments (thank
you kunstmusik for vim) and I can freely manipulate the instruments to my
liking at every instance of time (which Is a burden in DAW's). However I see
potential problems in following the amplitude levels and clipping as like to
make harmonically complex techno esque stuff, which means drums and
amplitutde spikes. 
	
	Also, in your experience, can the score become too big and too difficult to
follow and 	
	manipulate?

2) *Csound vs Supercollider* – I took a peak at Supercollider and i'm
wondering if there is any incentive to learn it over csound if I don't put
high priorities in real-time manipulation?

3) *CsoundAPI, CsoundPython* etc.. - I'm starting to study c++ (by myself)
as my first program language and i'm curious to know more about, and as to
what the above mentioned interfaces are used for?

Thank you for your attention, and I hope I didn't bother you too much with
these questions.






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Hi!
On 15 Mar 2014, at 11:10, Askwazzup  wrote:

> 2) *Csound vs Supercollider* – I took a peak at Supercollider and i'm
> wondering if there is any incentive to learn it over csound if I don't put
> high priorities in real-time manipulation?

In my opinion, the advantage of using SC is not real-time manipulation, as that can be
done with Csound probably even more easily, but the algorithmic composition side
that is supported by SClang. To match this capability with Csound, people use other 
scripting languages (or composition systems such as Blue), which wrap Csound neatly.
SC has a steeper learning curve, however. Again it is to do with what you feel more
comfortable with.

Victor

I have seen this term "algorithmic composition" used in other forums, but it
seems like it has a few meanings. What does it actually mean in this
context?



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On 03/15/2014 07:10 AM, Askwazzup wrote:
>
> 1) *Composition* – now as I understand, many people use csound as a synth,
> but i'm interested if composing fully in csound is a viable way.

Many of the integrated environments provide well-developed composition 
tools. blue, CsoundAC, AVSynthesis, CsoundQT, Winsound, all have various 
means for alleviating the tedium of score production.

Though not environments specific to Csound, the OpenMusic and GRACE/CM 
software also provide excellent tools and utilities for composition with 
Csound.

These days I'd probably focus on Cabbage for synth design and one of the 
integrated environments for composition methodologies. The CDP software 
is another very interesting environment, but I've had very little chance 
to work with it yet.

Of course you could simply write your own composition toolset targeted 
to Csound. Audio, MIDI, OSC, and other elements are often already 
supported by available modules in many languages, as are many musically 
interesting algorithms and other music/sound-oriented functions.


> ... thank you kunstmusik for vim...

? Are you referring to Luis Jure's vi/vim extensions for Csound ?

Or is Steven Yi a vim maven along with his other many talents ? :)


> 	
>    Also, in your experience, can the score become too big and too difficult to
> follow and manipulate?

Certainly. Score generators such as Ceres, AVS, or GRACE can churn out 
scores of any size or complexity, but any score's readability depends on 
its internal design.

For example, AVSynthesis produces a CSD file but it's often difficult to 
determine what's going on just by looking at the instrument statements, 
so much happens dynamically.

It's definitely worthwhile for beginning Csounders to study older scores 
such as Dr B's Trapped In Convert or James Dashow's Winter Shine. 
Hand-composing a Csound score wasn't too daunting a task for those worthies.

> 2) *Csound vs Supercollider* – I took a peak at Supercollider and i'm
> wondering if there is any incentive to learn it over csound if I don't put
> high priorities in real-time manipulation?

The pattern library is justly famous. I like the language, though again 
I tend to use it in conjunction with other SC-based software such as 
FScape and MEAPsoft. I also prefer its implementation of Qt for its GUI 
elements.

It's a great system. If you have the time and inclination I'd suggest 
learning both languages.

Btw, you could check out the Csound and SuperCollider groups on 
SoundCloud (and elsewheres) to get an overview of differences and 
similarities in the applied domain.


> 3) *CsoundAPI, CsoundPython* etc.. - I'm starting to study c++ (by myself)
> as my first program language and i'm curious to know more about, and as to
> what the above mentioned interfaces are used for?

There are some mighty minds on this list, they'll square you away with 
details regarding that level of involvement. You might also consider 
finding and studying The Csound Book and The Audio Programming Book.

> Thank you for your attention, and I hope I didn't bother you too much with
> these questions.

Not at all, they're good questions.

Best,

dp

Thank you for the input guys, it helped with some of the confusion concerning
csound. I think i will stick more with csound, as i already am somewhat
familiar with the syntax and most of what i want to create is tied more to
the traditional harmony idiom (although my vision is a system which does not
discriminate, but use what is necessary for the moment), so the advantages
of supercollider don't seem as appealing, but i will probably try to learn
it too, albeit in slower pace. 

As for the frontends, i'm not a big fan of any of them, since they don't
seem to run stable on my system, and i acquired this strange fetish for the
terminal and vim (i hope the novelty of it won't wear out quickly):

http://s8.postimg.org/5zvwbwvcl/image.png





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I have to say it looks very peaceful there!

Oh I'm just a vim fan. :)  I had copied Luis's VIM project to Github
and made it work with pathogen:

https://github.com/kunstmusik/csound-vim

I need to update to try to use this with Vundle as I'm using that now.
I had plans to modify the plugin to work with CS6's live coding, but I
have not had the time to do so.

On Sat, Mar 15, 2014 at 9:03 AM, Dave Phillips  wrote:
>
> On 03/15/2014 07:10 AM, Askwazzup wrote:
>>
>>
>> 1) *Composition* - now as I understand, many people use csound as a synth,
>> but i'm interested if composing fully in csound is a viable way.
>
>
> Many of the integrated environments provide well-developed composition
> tools. blue, CsoundAC, AVSynthesis, CsoundQT, Winsound, all have various
> means for alleviating the tedium of score production.
>
> Though not environments specific to Csound, the OpenMusic and GRACE/CM
> software also provide excellent tools and utilities for composition with
> Csound.
>
> These days I'd probably focus on Cabbage for synth design and one of the
> integrated environments for composition methodologies. The CDP software is
> another very interesting environment, but I've had very little chance to
> work with it yet.
>
> Of course you could simply write your own composition toolset targeted to
> Csound. Audio, MIDI, OSC, and other elements are often already supported by
> available modules in many languages, as are many musically interesting
> algorithms and other music/sound-oriented functions.
>
>
>> ... thank you kunstmusik for vim...
>
>
> ? Are you referring to Luis Jure's vi/vim extensions for Csound ?
>
> Or is Steven Yi a vim maven along with his other many talents ? :)
>
>
>
>>
>>    Also, in your experience, can the score become too big and too
>> difficult to
>> follow and manipulate?
>
>
> Certainly. Score generators such as Ceres, AVS, or GRACE can churn out
> scores of any size or complexity, but any score's readability depends on its
> internal design.
>
> For example, AVSynthesis produces a CSD file but it's often difficult to
> determine what's going on just by looking at the instrument statements, so
> much happens dynamically.
>
> It's definitely worthwhile for beginning Csounders to study older scores
> such as Dr B's Trapped In Convert or James Dashow's Winter Shine.
> Hand-composing a Csound score wasn't too daunting a task for those worthies.
>
>
>> 2) *Csound vs Supercollider* - I took a peak at Supercollider and i'm
>> wondering if there is any incentive to learn it over csound if I don't put
>> high priorities in real-time manipulation?
>
>
> The pattern library is justly famous. I like the language, though again I
> tend to use it in conjunction with other SC-based software such as FScape
> and MEAPsoft. I also prefer its implementation of Qt for its GUI elements.
>
> It's a great system. If you have the time and inclination I'd suggest
> learning both languages.
>
> Btw, you could check out the Csound and SuperCollider groups on SoundCloud
> (and elsewheres) to get an overview of differences and similarities in the
> applied domain.
>
>
>
>> 3) *CsoundAPI, CsoundPython* etc.. - I'm starting to study c++ (by myself)
>> as my first program language and i'm curious to know more about, and as to
>> what the above mentioned interfaces are used for?
>
>
> There are some mighty minds on this list, they'll square you away with
> details regarding that level of involvement. You might also consider finding
> and studying The Csound Book and The Audio Programming Book.
>
>
>> Thank you for your attention, and I hope I didn't bother you too much with
>> these questions.
>
>
> Not at all, they're good questions.
>
> Best,
>
> dp
>
>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
> csound6:
>            https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/tickets/
> csound5:
>            https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/bugs/
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"
>
>

On 03/15/2014 08:57 AM, Askwazzup wrote:
> I have seen this term "algorithmic composition" used in other forums, but it
> seems like it has a few meanings. What does it actually mean in this
> context?

language is like that. humans are like that.

the simple way is rule based [algorithm] composition
more generically it is using programming language logic to generate audio

and many other variations thereof

-- 
\js + & *

> the simple way is rule based [algorithm] composition
> more generically it is using programming language logic to generate audio

The key word being "logic." I would tend to be a little more specific. I'd
say it's using programming language logic to generate audio _events_, as
opposed to the underlying audio itself. One of the earliest examples in
widespread use being a program called Algorithmic Composer, which was
written for the Commodore-64 by Jim Johnson (if memory serves). Algorithmic
composition had existed before that, as far back as the Iliac Suite, or even
as far as Mozart's musical dice game, if you want to be rigorous and
broadminded at the same time. But it got its name from Johnson's program,
which generated MIDI output, specifically note messges. That's why I say
would "events."




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So as i understand, algorithmic composition is basically making a more or
less self-sustaining system, that can generate various output, depending on
the rules one provides it?



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Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
csound6:
            https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/tickets/
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Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
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That is one type of. 

Algorithmic Composition is just what the name says: using algorithms (ie. step by step processes) to
compose (or to aid the process of composition), and it does not necessarily need computers.

========================
Dr Victor Lazzarini
Senior Lecturer
NUI Maynooth, Ireland
victor dot lazzarini at nuim dot ie




On 19 Mar 2014, at 22:05, Askwazzup  wrote:

> So as i understand, algorithmic composition is basically making a more or
> less self-sustaining system, that can generate various output, depending on
> the rules one provides it?
> 
> 
> 
> --
> View this message in context: http://csound.1045644.n5.nabble.com/Some-general-questions-from-a-newcomer-tp5733233p5733361.html
> Sent from the Csound - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
> 
> 
> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
> csound6:
>            https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/tickets/
> csound5:
>            https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/bugs/
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
> 
> 



Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
csound6:
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However, I would add that computers do make perfect algorithmic 
compositional systems.

For me algorithmic composition is not so much based upon rules but 
instead upon constraints. I employ the use of tendency masks to 
determine score parameters, using Cmask, and consider this activity to 
be "score synthesis".

This compositional perspective engages a computer as an extension of my 
mind. I use it to carry out the processes it does best... i.e. memory 
and calculative functions and therefore I am able to focus upon the 
functions I do best... the creative overview and managing of the output.

On 3/19/14 6:24 PM, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
> That is one type of.
>
> Algorithmic Composition is just what the name says: using algorithms (ie. step by step processes) to
> compose (or to aid the process of composition), and it does not necessarily need computers.
>
> ========================
> Dr Victor Lazzarini
> Senior Lecturer
> NUI Maynooth, Ireland
> victor dot lazzarini at nuim dot ie
>
>
>
>
> On 19 Mar 2014, at 22:05, Askwazzup  wrote:
>
>> So as i understand, algorithmic composition is basically making a more or
>> less self-sustaining system, that can generate various output, depending on
>> the rules one provides it?
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> View this message in context: http://csound.1045644.n5.nabble.com/Some-general-questions-from-a-newcomer-tp5733233p5733361.html
>> Sent from the Csound - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>>
>>
>> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
>> csound6:
>>             https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/tickets/
>> csound5:
>>             https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/bugs/
>> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
>> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>>
>>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
> csound6:
>              https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/tickets/
> csound5:
>              https://sourceforge.net/p/csound/bugs/
> Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe csound"
>
>
>
>



Send bugs reports to the Sourceforge bug trackers
csound6:
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Discussions of bugs and features can be posted here
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