Hi All,

I saw this synthesis learning program Syntorial:

http://www.syntorial.com/

mentioned on the Overtone list:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/overtone/DWgyLON8gBI

This looks like a really nice learning system for synthesis. I was
thinking that similar systems for learning programming (i.e.
4clojure.com, tryhaskell.org) were great in that it got you to
practice and experiment and had some clear goals for learning.
Perhaps with the new pnacl Csound we could come up with a community
website project to create lessons, do progress tracking, etc.

steven

Hi,

I used this program for the past four months and it is very good. There is
also a vst plugin that come along to use in a DAW.

I recommend this for learning synthesis principles.

Regards,

Marc Demers

-----Message d'origine-----
De : Steven Yi [mailto:stevenyi@gmail.com] 
Envoyé : lundi 25 novembre 2013 09:30
À : Csound
Objet : [Csnd] [ot] - Syntorial

Hi All,

I saw this synthesis learning program Syntorial:

http://www.syntorial.com/

mentioned on the Overtone list:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/overtone/DWgyLON8gBI

This looks like a really nice learning system for synthesis. I was thinking
that similar systems for learning programming (i.e.
4clojure.com, tryhaskell.org) were great in that it got you to practice and
experiment and had some clear goals for learning.
Perhaps with the new pnacl Csound we could come up with a community website
project to create lessons, do progress tracking, etc.

steven


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"

That is a great idea as an extended form of ear training; presumably 
based on a classic subtractive synth model?

The one thing I want to see more of, for educational purposes, is 
synthesis and other audio software that, while offering the GUI stuff 
people expect, also incorporates a scripting/text programming element 
(for both audio and composition); which needless to say Csound is almost 
uniquely placed to do. For schools it also helps if such things are free.

There are only two systems around that do this, that I know of:

Reaper + Earsketch (Python)
Audacity (Nyquist Prompt)

Audacity is ubiquitous in schools; unfortunately neither Nyquist the 
language(s) nor the Nyquist Prompt are really school-friendly. Reaper 
has no foothold in schools that I know of, but, while undeniably cheap, 
it is not, technically, free.

Running Csound inside either of those tools would enhance their 
educational power by orders of magnitude. That seems a long way off 
(maybe even beyond the visible horizon), but  a browser-based synth 
engine (complete with trial-and-error GUI controls) that also offered a 
full Csound console would tick most if not all the boxes.

Sonic Pi is the new kid on the block, has the power of Ruby and 
SuperCollider behind it but offers a deliberately simple programming 
model for kids, in which the minimum program is just:

Play 60

(where 60 is of course Middle C)

It is presented very strongly as a way to teach computing principles 
(now "as seen on TV"), rather than as a tool for making music. Which 
tends to reinforce the prevailing assumption that both tasks cannot be 
supported by the same piece of software.

There is no reason why the internal engine should be SuperCollider 
rather than Csound, other than that is what the author was experienced 
with. So I am projecting a new high-end language, supporting precisely 
measurable progression in the education way, perhaps on the Sonic Pi 
model, but driving Csound behind the scenes, and at the higher levels 
opening up full Csound to the user. With the pNaCl solution, all of that 
seems eminently doable.

Richard Dobson


On 25/11/2013 15:05, Richard van Bemmelen wrote:
> Hi Steven,
>
> That's is a nice idea and pnacl seems a good way to do it.
>
> Richard
>
>
> 2013/11/25 Steven Yi >
>
>     Hi All,
>
>     I saw this synthesis learning program Syntorial:
>
>     http://www.syntorial.com/
>
>     mentioned on the Overtone list:
>
>     https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/overtone/DWgyLON8gBI
>
>     This looks like a really nice learning system for synthesis. I was
>     thinking that similar systems for learning programming (i.e.
>     4clojure.com , tryhaskell.org
>     ) were great in that it got you to
>     practice and experiment and had some clear goals for learning.
>     Perhaps with the new pnacl Csound we could come up with a community
>     website project to create lessons, do progress tracking, etc.
>
>     steven
>
>
>     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"
>
>
>

But I presume it needs a full SC3 installation, does it not? I think that’s where Csound on Chrome might have the edge.
On 25 Nov 2013, at 15:42, Richard Dobson  wrote:

> Sonic Pi is the new kid on the block, has the power of Ruby and SuperCollider behind it but offers a deliberately simple programming model for kids, in which the minimum program is just:
> 
> Play 60
> 
> (where 60 is of course Middle C)
> 
> It is presented very strongly as a way to teach computing principles (now "as seen on TV"), rather than as a tool for making music. Which tends to reinforce the prevailing assumption that both tasks cannot be supported by the same piece of software.

It seems to, but I haven't investigated that aspect in any detail yet,
and I am in any case not an SC user. It may be a slightly cut-down
version as currently Sonic Pi only offers some five instruments. Timing
is decidedly flaky (play a chord and you get a spread; it's far from 
being "MIDI-tight"), but it is difficult to know how much of that is 
just down to the 600MHz CPU.

So I would guess that Csound would very assuredly have the edge! Not 
that Chrome will likely appear on, or be able to run PNaCl on, the Pi 
anyway.  It may get more interesting if/when Sonic Pi is opened up to 
other platforms. Having taken a closer look at Ruby, all those array 
processing functions look very tasty for algorithmic composition.

Richard Dobson

PS: I also confirmed that Chrome 31 on iOS does not support pNaCl (using 
iPad v2). Not surprising, perhaps,but a pity.


On 25/11/2013 15:51, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
> But I presume it needs a full SC3 installation, does it not? I think
> that’s where Csound on Chrome might have the edge. On 25 Nov 2013, at
> 15:42, Richard Dobson  wrote:
>
>> Sonic Pi is the new kid on the block, has the power of Ruby and
>> SuperCollider behind it but offers a deliberately simple
>> programming model for kids, in which the minimum program is just:
>>
>> Play 60
>>
>> (where 60 is of course Middle C)
>>
>> It is presented very strongly as a way to teach computing
>> principles (now "as seen on TV"), rather than as a tool for making
>> music. Which tends to reinforce the prevailing assumption that both
>> tasks cannot be supported by the same piece of software.
>
>
>
> 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"
>
>
>

That is not a good reason for flaky timing. We had Csound running on Geodes for OLPC at 500MHz (but in effect less) with no
such trouble.
On 25 Nov 2013, at 16:03, Richard Dobson  wrote:

> Timing
> is decidedly flaky (play a chord and you get a spread; it's far from being "MIDI-tight"), but it is difficult to know how much of that is just down to the 600MHz CP

If it’s linux, I am quite sure you can run Chrome on it.
On 25 Nov 2013, at 16:03, Richard Dobson  wrote:

> So I would guess that Csound would very assuredly have the edge! Not that Chrome will likely appear on, or be able to run PNaCl on, the Pi anyway.

If I can get it via apt-get, I will have to try it! Means taking over 
the TV, so I will have to choose my moment...

Richard Dobson

On 25/11/2013 17:03, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
> If it’s linux, I am quite sure you can run Chrome on it. On 25 Nov
> 2013, at 16:03, Richard Dobson 
> wrote:
>
>> So I would guess that Csound would very assuredly have the edge!
>> Not that Chrome will likely appear on, or be able to run PNaCl on,
>> the Pi anyway.
>
>
>
> 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"
>
>
>

There is a version of chromium that apt-get finds and installs on the 
pi, but it is v old (v22), and doesn't support Nacl. I will ask on the 
R-Pi forums somewhere.

Richard Dobson

On 25/11/2013 17:03, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
> If it’s linux, I am quite sure you can run Chrome on it. On 25 Nov
> 2013, at 16:03, Richard Dobson 
> wrote:
>

Hi Richard, I think you need to apt-get for "google-chrome-beta"
rather than chromium.

On 25 November 2013 18:01, Richard Dobson
 wrote:
> There is a version of chromium that apt-get finds and installs on the pi,
> but it is v old (v22), and doesn't support Nacl. I will ask on the R-Pi
> forums somewhere.
>
>
> Richard Dobson
>
> On 25/11/2013 17:03, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
>>
>> If it’s linux, I am quite sure you can run Chrome on it. On 25 Nov
>> 2013, at 16:03, Richard Dobson 
>> wrote:
>>
>
>
> 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"
>
>

Thanks; sadly it reports not available. I still suspect that with only 
250MB RAM running a browser plus Csound will be a bit too much for this 
Pi. I will likely treat myself to a new 500MB one soon, but even that is 
not exactly luxurious memory space, even with a reasonably fast 
(class-10) memory card. So we will see...

Richard Dobson


On 25/11/2013 18:02, Rory Walsh wrote:
> Hi Richard, I think you need to apt-get for "google-chrome-beta"
> rather than chromium.
>
> On 25 November 2013 18:01, Richard Dobson
>  wrote:
>> There is a version of chromium that apt-get finds and installs on the pi,
>> but it is v old (v22), and doesn't support Nacl. I will ask on the R-Pi
>> forums somewhere.
>>