Michael's points are well taken.

Here is how I use a "GUI":

My choice (in Windows) is CsEdit. It does all I need. Since I work in
realtime, I need to test my work in a variety of Windows Csounds. CsEdit
allows me to set up a perf icon for each Csound I have installed - currently
3 or 4. (Formerly I had 7 or more.)

CsEdit of course also contains a versatile editor (as well as instant access
to Csound help via a mouse click). I edit a .csd change, click an icon to
render.

There is one benefit to Csound's containing a builtin GUI (like CsoundAV and
flCsound). When rendering from CsEdit on WinME and earlier, the performance
screen immediately shuts down when the run is finished - with a non-GUI
Csound. With a GUI-Csound (AV, flCsound) the performance window remains
open, and you can - for example - read error messages, see amplitudes,
graphs, lists of MIDI devices, etc. With non-GUI Csounds (on WinME and
earlier) you must work from the commandline to get this.

BTW, Aiden, were you ever able to obtain the source of CsEdit so as to
update it? There are a couple of features I'd sure like to see changed. In
particular: the bug in the file forward and backward arrows (files are
skipped), and the lack of a print option (including "print selected".

Art Hunkins
----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: 
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 7:35 AM
Subject: Re: [Csnd] The future of computer music? (was Re: [Csnd] The future
of winsound)


Hi All.

I am not a new user nor do I look to Winsound for additional functionality,
it does not offer an editor. I use Excel for my score creation and WinXound
for my orchestra. All I need is a fast simple way to render. When composing
I am focusing upon the sound and then, with each successive rendering, its
further modification. I render and re-render to mold the composition into
the form it requires and do not want to focus on paths or flags at that
time, just the music. As a systems administrator I work from command line
constantly, which I prefer for many functions. It is a personal choice but
for me rendering with Winsound has always been more transparent to the
process.

I think that Csound is the future of computer generated music. This is not
always obvious to those who have not worked with it and with computer music
in general. A composer has to dig in and begin working with it to understand
the incredible power that is afforded. To be able to compose on the micro
and macro level with such a huge variety of options is really unparalleled.
I am sure that everyone who masters Csound works with it in a different way
and likely in a different way for each composition. It is an open ended
process for creation. A little overwhelming when starting out. It generally
may not be  as pretty as many of the commercial programs but it is not
limited as they are either. I have never seen anything that comes close to
Csound.

Csound 5 will in the future be seen as a milestone in this capability.

Michael Rhoades
www.perceptionfactory.com




> -----Original Message-----
> From: Istvan Varga [mailto:istvan_v@fibermail.hu]
> Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2006 5:53 AM
> To: csound@lists.bath.ac.uk
> Subject: Re: [Csnd] The future of computer music? (was Re: [Csnd] The
> future of winsound)
>
> I may be alone with this opinion, but most of the GUI frontends add
> little if anything compared to the command line interface, and those
> that do (Blue, Cabel, and various plugins for other software like PD,
> Max, Cubase, etc.) are available for Csound 5. The GUIs for Csound 4
> like Winsound or CsoundAV may look impressive to new users, but do not
> in fact add real new functionality, and the built-in editors can be
> limited compared for example to vim or emacs with a Csound mode.
>
> On Thursday 23 March 2006 11:16, Victor Lazzarini wrote:
>
> > I say Csound 5 already looks the future of  computer music,
> > even if I say it so myself. Apart from the 'base system', there
> > are various exciting API projects that are coming onstream.
> >
> > Perhaps from a Mac-only perspective it might not immediately
> > seem a revolution, but even in that platform it is.  For OSX,
> > there are seven different frontends
> > already: the csound 5 GUI, csound 5 wish, csoundapi~ (PD), csound~
> (MaxMSP),
> > CSDPlayer, CsoundXAlpha and csound 'classic' command-line (as
> > well as cstclsh, so there are eight), and that does not include John's
> > winsound (and also Blue and Cabel, which are not API-based).
> > There is no MacCsound with an editor, but I am sure Matt
> > will eventually include an editor in his version.
> >
> > In any case, editors are plentiful. The most useful of them seems to be
> > emacs with the csound modes (it might be an idea to offer an emacs
> > package including these modes in CSounds.com).
> >
> > At 01:16 22/03/2006, you wrote:
> > >Typing commandlines in the Terminal has a sort of nostalgic super
> > >user / computer wizard / hacker vibe that a few
> > >of my students can totally appreciate, but for most of them...
> > >Csound5 looks and feels like a step back in time and
> > >not a step forward into the future of computer music...
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