| Use the Amsterdam Catalogue of Csound Computer Instruments and listen to
examples while looking at their code. Then try changing some parameters.
Not many people can imagine a timbre and then know how to code it - usually
you hear an instrument that sounds cool and adapt the code. Risset's
original instruments are now in their 4th or 5th generation of adapation.
The fact is, there aren't that many musically interesting algorithms:
filtered noise, 3 or 4 kinds of frequency modulation, stacked and/or detuned
additive synthesis, sampling, plucked and filtered string and waveguide
models, linear predictive coding, the phase vocoder. The Amsterdam book and
Hans Mikkelson's web site will get you through all of them. They are in all
the commercial synthesizers and samplers as well as in Csound. But
filtering, using 2 or more slightly different and/or detuned copies of an
algorithm ("chorusing"), reverberating, different FM ratios and indices, and
a little delayed feedback here and there, can create startlingly many
variations on these themes. If you have Generator or Reaktor by Native
Instruments, a Windows software synthesizer, it gives you a building block
and wiring diagram user interface with which you can build and vary
algorithms with all the same basic opcodes but in a more intuitive way. It
has a free downloadable demo. Syd will do the same thing less fancily but is
completely free for both Mac and Windows. Once you play with these
instruments, you can use Csound to really go to town; I have frequently been
able to get Csound to sound better than its "easier to use" competition but
it takes a lot of refinement of algorithms, writing float soundfiles, and
using 1 control sample for each audio sample.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-csound-outgoing@maths.ex.ac.uk
[mailto:owner-csound-outgoing@maths.ex.ac.uk]On Behalf Of Stan Olejarz
Sent: Thursday, October 07, 1999 2:06 PM
To: csound@maths.ex.ac.uk
Subject: designing an instrument
Just curious as to what creative procedure is best used to create an
instrument? Would one (a)- create the timbre of the instrument first,
and if so how would one go about this? Would your instrument be focused
around fuunction statements or sound generators such as foscil, buzz,
etc.?
Any insight would be gratefully appreciated
Stan Olejarz
Toronto,Canada
|