Speaking of different apps. I haven't heard of anyone using  Jsyn/JMSL  
these days.

Some will remember it in its first life as HMSL - written if FORTH  
(yeh!)

I note that it is available for a fee (http://www.algomusic.com/) but  
I was wondering if any csounders have/still use it?

David

I haven't used it, but I have seen a number of demos by Nick Didkovsky
over the years. I think it is a pretty impressive system. I especially
like that it puts up notation whenever you ask for it.

I think charging for it hurts it.

I also think there are too many mutually incompatible computer music
systems. I view this as extremely harmful. The only solution is for
time to shake out the various systems and establish one as more or
less standard. The underlying questions are (a) the representation of
objects in the problem domain, which is the most fundamental question,
and (b) the development of a good file format for representing these
objects.

In math software, MatLab has become a sort of unofficial standard
format. In offices, Microsoft Office has established some unofficial
standard formats.

In music, we have MIDI, WAV soundfiles, and MusicXML. But for studio
projects, we don't have a standard format, with the partial exception
of Pro Tools. Similar, for software synthesis and algorithmic
composition, we don't have standard formats, again with the partial
exception of Max/MSP.

Unfortunately, settling in this informal way on an unofficial standard
by no means guarantees that the choice is the best one that could be
made.

At any rate, a lot of good work gets lost in the shuffle, and ends up
as the pet of individual composers or developers...

The situation won't be optimal until there is an official or
unofficial standard in music not only for MIDI, soundfiles, and
notation, but also for DSP graphs, synthesis algorithms, and
algorithmic composition representations and code.

The best way to achieve this is to anoint some language as standard
for computer music. It needs to be fast, well known, and easy to code.
These requirements are somewhat incompatible, but right now the best
choice would be Lua, which could be embedded into all music software
as a standard scripting language.

Regards,
Mike




On 6/3/09, DavidW  wrote:
> Speaking of different apps. I haven't heard of anyone using  Jsyn/JMSL
> these days.
>
> Some will remember it in its first life as HMSL - written if FORTH
> (yeh!)
>
> I note that it is available for a fee (http://www.algomusic.com/) but
> I was wondering if any csounders have/still use it?
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"
>


-- 
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
http://www.michael-gogins.com
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com

DavidW wrote:
> Speaking of different apps. I haven't heard of anyone using  Jsyn/JMSL 
> these days.
>
> Some will remember it in its first life as HMSL - written if FORTH (yeh!)
>
> I note that it is available for a fee (http://www.algomusic.com/) but 
> I was wondering if any csounders have/still use it?

Last year I bought it so I could review it for an article about Java 
music & sound apps. It's a neat environment, lots of graphic tools, but 
it has some drawbacks for Linux users. Sound output is limited to the 
JavaSound API, with no JACK support, and there's no JSyn plugin for 
Linux users. I think a new plugin is in the works, but I haven't kept up 
with its progress.

Best,

dp

Michael Gogins a écrit :
> The situation won't be optimal until there is an official or
> unofficial standard in music not only for MIDI, soundfiles, and
> notation, but also for DSP graphs, synthesis algorithms, and
> algorithmic composition representations and code.
> 
> The best way to achieve this is to anoint some language as standard
> for computer music. 

I don't see how this has any chance to happen; we all know langages are 
very personal matters.

OTOH looking for a standard way to describe musical components would be 
very interesting as it would enable exchanges between different systems. 
but this is far from being easy.

I think music data in its broadest sense could be seen as a form of math 
data. take the exemple of envelopes: how could we have a standard 
representation for an envelope ? basically it is a list of points with 
interpolations. when the interpolations are free (that is, in systems 
allowing any curve to be used as an interpolation) describing an 
envelope means describing arbitrary numeric functions. so we would need 
a very powerful format just for envelopes.


Stef

Well, my point begins with the fact that Python or Lua are practically
standard scripting languages in computer games.

You are, of course, correct in that the basic problem is one of
describing musical components.

Using a standard scripting language would solve this problem to some extent.

Each component would have a scripting interface. Thus, these disparate
components could be used within the same application at the cost of
the user writing a small amount of usually rather simple and
straightforward code.

Another example of this approach, which is becoming increasingly
common in complex software that lasts a long time and receives
numerous contributions, is the LuaTeX project.

Sibelius, the notation package, has its own scripting language, but
think how much more useful it would be to algorithmic composers if it
had Python scripting or Lua scripting built in.

Regards,
Mike

On 6/4/09, Stéphane Rollandin  wrote:
> Michael Gogins a écrit :
>> The situation won't be optimal until there is an official or
>> unofficial standard in music not only for MIDI, soundfiles, and
>> notation, but also for DSP graphs, synthesis algorithms, and
>> algorithmic composition representations and code.
>>
>> The best way to achieve this is to anoint some language as standard
>> for computer music.
>
> I don't see how this has any chance to happen; we all know langages are
> very personal matters.
>
> OTOH looking for a standard way to describe musical components would be
> very interesting as it would enable exchanges between different systems.
> but this is far from being easy.
>
> I think music data in its broadest sense could be seen as a form of math
> data. take the exemple of envelopes: how could we have a standard
> representation for an envelope ? basically it is a list of points with
> interpolations. when the interpolations are free (that is, in systems
> allowing any curve to be used as an interpolation) describing an
> envelope means describing arbitrary numeric functions. so we would need
> a very powerful format just for envelopes.
>
>
> Stef
>
>
>
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email sympa@lists.bath.ac.uk with body "unsubscribe
> csound"
>


-- 
Michael Gogins
Irreducible Productions
http://www.michael-gogins.com
Michael dot Gogins at gmail dot com