Hi List,

I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on the comment from 
this page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSound

quote:
  "Csound is the underlying language for the Structured Audio extensions 
to MPEG-4."

What are the Structured Audio extensions to MPEG-4 and how is Csound 
used in their implementation ?


-David

MPEG4-SA is a standard for a sound description language designed to deliver
very-low bandwidth audio over the internet.  (That is not its only use or
purpose of course, but it seems to have been a primary consideration of its
design).

All of this is just a fancy way of saying that MPEG4-SA is a Music-V family
language for music synthesis.  It is based a lot on Csound, and was designed
in part by Barry Vercoe, I believe.  The language is also known as SAOL and
has a matching score language called SASL.

There is one practical and open source implementation that I am aware of
called Sfront.  It's kind of cool and I suggest you try playing with it
some.  The SAOL language does not have anywhere near as many built-in
opcodes as Csound, but it does allow UDOs and it can do some very neat
things that Csound cannot (such as opcode arrays).

I have compiled a binary of Sfront for MacOS 9 that I would be happy to
share.  However, it would probably be easier for you to use as a native OS X
command-line tool.  (Should be MUCH easier to compile than Csound, too ;)

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/
sfront -- MPEG 4 SA

http://web.media.mit.edu/~eds/mpeg4/
MPEG-4 / MP4 Structured Audio homepage

Anthony


David Akbari wrote on 11/20/05 8:25 PM:

> What are the Structured Audio extensions to MPEG-4 and how is Csound
> used in their implementation ?

Hi all,

This recent thread on MPEG-4 matches well one of my current topic of interest. 
I allow myself to continue it, though it does not match closely Csnd.

I am on currently preparing a short tutorial on modular sound synthesis for a society that 
designs software for cellular phones. Wow, nice is not it ?

I will review both sound synthesis technique (how to use them), and implementations.

On the technical side, the two problems are:
- implementing a modular simulator within cell phones
- choosing a format for describing both 'patches' and 'scores', as standard as possible.

I planed on using mainly:
- C-Sound (other posts to come on the list, probably)
- STK & Pd
- MPEG4 SAOL/SASL implementations - especially SFront.

I considered the latest as very important, since SA aimed at becoming a standard in the 
field of modular sound synthesis.

The post by Michael Gogins in this thread tend to say the contrary, AFAI-understand it.

Do you mean that SA is not going to develop anymore ?

Mmmhhhh...
If that's true, does anyone could propose a  'score/patch' encoding that I should promote 
to the cell phones designers I am gonna teach ?


More generally, I would be grateful if anyone could send me infos, tutorials, 
pedagogical material, or anything, on MPEG-4 Structure Audio.
I am also looking for a SA- mail list - but did not find any really active.
Private messages prefered, since the topic does not match the list.

Thanks much for your attention !

Nicolas

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Nicolas CASTAGNE

Co-Designer, with Claude Cadoz, of the GENESIS / CORDIS-ANIMA environment 
for music creation byphysical modeling.

ACROE-ICA,
46 av. F=E9lix Viallet
38 000 Grenoble
http://acroe.imag.fr

Tel : (33) 4 76 57 46 60
-------------------------------------------------------------------


--- In csound--maths.ex.ac.uk@yahoogroups.com, David Akbari  wrote:
>
> Hi List,
> 
> I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on the comment from 
> this page
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSound
> 
> quote:
>   "Csound is the underlying language for the Structured Audio extensions 
> to MPEG-4."
> 
> What are the Structured Audio extensions to MPEG-4 and how is Csound 
> used in their implementation ?
> 
> 
> -David
> 
> -- 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@l...
>

Csound is not the underlying language of  SA in MPEG-4, SAOL is. I have
edited the wikipedia entry to change this. In fact, one of us could in a spare
moment, add to that page, as it is not very comprehensive.

Victor

At 13:11 29/11/2005, you wrote:
>Hi all,
>
>This recent thread on MPEG-4 matches well one of my current topic of interest.
>I allow myself to continue it, though it does not match closely Csnd.
>
>I am on currently preparing a short tutorial on modular sound synthesis 
>for a society that
>designs software for cellular phones. Wow, nice is not it ?
>
>I will review both sound synthesis technique (how to use them), and 
>implementations.
>
>On the technical side, the two problems are:
>- implementing a modular simulator within cell phones
>- choosing a format for describing both 'patches' and 'scores', as 
>standard as possible.
>
>I planed on using mainly:
>- C-Sound (other posts to come on the list, probably)
>- STK & Pd
>- MPEG4 SAOL/SASL implementations - especially SFront.
>
>I considered the latest as very important, since SA aimed at becoming a 
>standard in the
>field of modular sound synthesis.
>
>The post by Michael Gogins in this thread tend to say the contrary, 
>AFAI-understand it.
>
>Do you mean that SA is not going to develop anymore ?
>
>Mmmhhhh...
>If that's true, does anyone could propose a  'score/patch' encoding that I 
>should promote
>to the cell phones designers I am gonna teach ?
>
>
>More generally, I would be grateful if anyone could send me infos, tutorials,
>pedagogical material, or anything, on MPEG-4 Structure Audio.
>I am also looking for a SA- mail list - but did not find any really active.
>Private messages prefered, since the topic does not match the list.
>
>Thanks much for your attention !
>
>Nicolas
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>Dr Nicolas CASTAGNE
>
>Co-Designer, with Claude Cadoz, of the GENESIS / CORDIS-ANIMA environment
>for music creation byphysical modeling.
>
>ACROE-ICA,
>46 av. F=E9lix Viallet
>38 000 Grenoble
>http://acroe.imag.fr
>
>Tel : (33) 4 76 57 46 60
>-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>--- In csound--maths.ex.ac.uk@yahoogroups.com, David Akbari  
>wrote:
> >
> > Hi List,
> >
> > I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on the comment from
> > this page
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSound
> >
> > quote:
> >   "Csound is the underlying language for the Structured Audio extensions
> > to MPEG-4."
> >
> > What are the Structured Audio extensions to MPEG-4 and how is Csound
> > used in their implementation ?
> >
> >
> > -David
> >
> > --
> > Send bugs reports to this list.
> > To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@l...
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>--
>Send bugs reports to this list.
>To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk

Victor Lazzarini
Music Technology Laboratory
Music Department
National University of Ireland, Maynooth