There are several tutorials. One, by me, is titled "A Csound Tutorial" and 
covers many of the basics: running Csound from the command line, running 
csound5gui, using CsoundVST, and generating scores in Python with the csnd 
module. Richard Boulanger has a series of "toots" that focus less on the 
mechanics of running Csound, and more on the basics of designing Csound 
instruments.

However, there is no way a single tutorial can cover all of Csound, even the 
basics. Csound contains, in one form or another, most of computer music 
technology from the beginning of the field.

In your example of Vercoe's tutorial, most Csound users would understand 
that the term "command" implies a Unix shell command, and that it would be 
typed at the "shell prompt." The counterpart on Windows is called the 
"console" for reasons that escape us.

This shows that the trouble is, Csound and its documentation assume (so far, 
anyway) more than a casual familiarity with computing, music, and signal 
processing.

We're very happy to see you trying to make Csound more widely known and 
widely accessible, and I'm certainly prepared to do whatever I can to help. 
I think it would be wise to focus on what Csound can do, for "newbies," that 
they can't get done with other software, or can't get done as easily or as 
well. And I don't think straightforward synthesis is it, although I 
personally feel that there are a lot of Csound patches that give the best 
commercial synthesizers a run for their money. I think, rather, that score 
generation and the time/frequency analysis/resynthesis stuff that you can do 
with the pvs opcodes are definitely places where you just get lost with 
commercial and popular software. Another advantage might be the ability to 
build your own physical modeling instruments, a la Tassman.

Please let us know your own thoughts on what particular features of Csound 
might be appealing to your audience.

I hope that you have been able to find stimulating example pieces, or 
instruments, that suggest some possibilities. If so, what are some of them? 
If not, please let us know.

Regards,
Mike


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Aikin" 
To: 
Sent: Sunday, June 01, 2008 10:57 PM
Subject: [Csnd] Even More Basic Newbie Questions


>
> This question may seem rude, but it's sincere. Where might an interested
> newcomer find a really good step-by-step tutorial on how to use Csound
> (preferably in Windows or MacOS)? By which I mean, a tutorial that 
> explains
> everything that they'll need to know, without making any assumptions or
> tossing in any unexplained terms.
>
> Yes, there are "beginner" tutorials on csounds.com. I know that. But 
> they're
> fragmentary. As Erle Stanley Gardner used to say in courtroom scenes in 
> the
> Perry Mason books, they assume facts not in evidence.
>
> The "Beginning Tutorial" by Barry Vercoe, for instance, includes 
> statements
> like this:
>
>> To request your orchestra to perform your score, type the command
>> csound intro.orc  intro.sco
>
> The trouble with this is, it doesn't tell you WHERE to type it. Such an
> instruction will totally baffle any newcomer who is reading that page 
> hoping
> to learn what to do.
>
> Richard Boulanger's beginner tutorial specifically recommends using a word
> processor (which is really bad advice), and on page 2 says this: "Run this
> with its corresponding score file, toot1.sco." Uhh ... "run"? How would 
> the
> beginner discover how to run it? What is "running"? I know the answer, and
> you know the answer, but that information is not in the tutorial.
>
> Please understand: The reason this bothers me is because I _like_ Csound. 
> I
> would like to be able to recommend it to people as a terrific resource
> (which it is). But I have yet to find a coherent step-by-step tutorial 
> that
> actually walks the beginner through all of this byzantine jargon and
> methodology, beginning with, "When you double-click on the installer, it
> will put..." and including EVERYTHING that folks will need to know. Like,
> for instance, what's a command line. And what are command-line flags. Not
> everyone uses Linux. Not everyone was born knowing this stuff.
>
> I'd love to write a Csound manual that would do all this -- but for better
> or worse, I'm a professional writer, and self-employed. I'm a little
> reluctant to take on a year-long project as a freebie.
>
> As noted in another post, I'm working on a magazine article to introduce
> Csound to musicians. Are there resources I'm not aware of that can help 
> them
> get going? If so, please let me know.
>
> --Jim Aikin
>
> -- 
> View this message in context: 
> http://www.nabble.com/Even-More-Basic-Newbie-Questions-tp17593236p17593236.html
> Sent from the Csound - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe 
> csound" 

Michael Gogins wrote:
> 
> There are several tutorials. One, by me, is titled "A Csound Tutorial" and 
> covers many of the basics: running Csound from the command line, running 
> csound5gui, using CsoundVST, and generating scores in Python with the csnd 
> module. Richard Boulanger has a series of "toots" that focus less on the 
> mechanics of running Csound, and more on the basics of designing Csound 
> instruments.
> 
> However, there is no way a single tutorial can cover all of Csound, even
> the 
> basics. Csound contains, in one form or another, most of computer music 
> technology from the beginning of the field.
> 

Your tutorial pdf provides an excellent "getting started guide" on a lot of
these details. Richard's material on designing instruments is essential, and
very readable. Maybe I'm getting frustrated needlessly because the material
I'm looking for is kind of scattered hither and yon.


Michael Gogins wrote:
> 
> In your example of Vercoe's tutorial, most Csound users would understand 
> that the term "command" implies a Unix shell command, and that it would be 
> typed at the "shell prompt."
> 

Indeed. But I note that you said "users," not "newcomers." I was talking to
Dr. B the other day, and asked him for a guesstimate of the number of Mac
vs. Windows vs. Linux/Unix users in the Csound community. He said probably
60% Linux/Unix and 20% for each of the other two. That highlights part of
the problem with the documentation. I'm writing for a general readership,
which is probably 48% Mac, 48% Windows, and 4% Linux (at most). The
expectations and level of experience are very different.


Michael Gogins wrote:
> 
> I think it would be wise to focus on what Csound can do, for "newbies,"
> that 
> they can't get done with other software, or can't get done as easily or as 
> well. And I don't think straightforward synthesis is it, although I 
> personally feel that there are a lot of Csound patches that give the best 
> commercial synthesizers a run for their money. I think, rather, that score 
> generation and the time/frequency analysis/resynthesis stuff that you can
> do 
> with the pvs opcodes are definitely places where you just get lost with 
> commercial and popular software. Another advantage might be the ability to 
> build your own physical modeling instruments, a la Tassman.
> 
> Please let us know your own thoughts on what particular features of Csound 
> might be appealing to your audience.
> 

Well, in the draft of the intro to the article, I'm suggesting several
things that may interest people. Perhaps you can suggest more. I've
mentioned algorithmic composition (though I suppose I need to write a
sidebar explaining what that is!), microtonal tunings, learning about DSP,
doing advanced synthesis on an old, slow computer or without spending any
money, and so forth.

I've also tried to qualify the discussion by saying, in essence, "If you
just want to launch your DAW and write a pop song, Csound is probably not
your best choice."

> I hope that you have been able to find stimulating example pieces, or 
> instruments, that suggest some possibilities. If so, what are some of
> them? 
> If not, please let us know.

Nothing leaps to mind, but I still need to do a lot of digging to try to
find things. I'm not saying it's not there, just that I haven't found it
yet. I've listened to a few of the podcast tracks from Dr. B's students, and
they're good, but nothing was so memorable that I can recall it a week
later, I'm sorry to admit.

--JA

-- 
View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Even-More-Basic-Newbie-Questions-tp17593236p17594139.html
Sent from the Csound - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

Michael Gogins wrote:

> In your example of Vercoe's tutorial, most Csound users would understand 
> that the term "command" implies a Unix shell command, and that it would 
> be typed at the "shell prompt." The counterpart on Windows is called the 
> "console" for reasons that escape us.
> 

Short for DOS console (or text console). Console is however a relatively 
archaic term these days  (referring to the good old days where you used 
a plain text/vdu console to communicate with a mainframe located rooms, 
or miles, away.). The generic term is probably CLI for 'command line 
interface". "Unix" is of course a trademark (of sorts), and there is no 
way Microsoft would employ that name anywhere in their system or 
documentation.

We (CDP) had similar issues running command-line tools on the Atari ST, 
which relied on a program called "command.tos" to provide a CLI to, um, 
unix-like utilities, as well as to all the cdp programs.

I wrote a Noddy-style intro to the DOS console here as part of my 
documentation for the port of SNDAN:

http://dream.cs.bath.ac.uk/software/sndan/use_console.html

Some of it is a little out of date (e.g. the refs to "doskey") so I may 
revise it sometime. The point though is that to use the console 
(...whatever) effectively, we need to know more than just how to "run" a 
program. We need also to know the basics of working with files, handling 
file paths,  wildcards, and of course other utilities. Why bother with 
such things? Because, once it is learned, it is a very fast and flexible 
way of working. And also of course because there is a HUGE range of free 
tools available that run from a CLI.

Richard Dobson

Chuckk Hubbard wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2008 at 7:02 AM, Michael Gogins  wrote:
> 
>> In your example of Vercoe's tutorial, most Csound users would understand
>> that the term "command" implies a Unix shell command, and that it would be
>> typed at the "shell prompt." The counterpart on Windows is called the
>> "console" for reasons that escape us.
> 
> Maybe it's there to console former Unix users. ;)


I think it may be the consolation prize for having to use Windows...


>> I think it would be wise to focus on what Csound can do, for "newbies," that
>> they can't get done with other software, or can't get done as easily or as
>> well. And I don't think straightforward synthesis is it, although I
> 
> Good point, there has to be some motivation for people to be willing
> to learn something different.


I used to have a DigiTech TSR-24, which is a rackmount effects
processor that provides virtual multitap delays, phasers,
flangers, reverb, etc.  The cool thing about it was that, unlike
most other commercial effects processors, it let the user specify
the routings amongst all the effects. I had a lot of fun with that
box, but I sold it about a week after discovering Csound: Csound
is much the same concept, except without any of the pesky limits.

-- JK

-- 
I do not particularly want to go where the money is -
  it usually does not smell nice there. -- A. Stepanov