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Are we creating a monster?

Date1998-02-19 06:49
FromRiccardo Bianchini
SubjectAre we creating a monster?
Dear Csounders,
I've read very carefully all the stuff about Csound parser/Dynamic
library
linking and so on, and some questions arose in my mind:

1. Csound was born and is alive as a "standard" sound synthesis
language, i.e., I can compose a piece and (assuming I didn't use
external
soundfiles for synthesis) send my orc/sco (usually less than 100 KByte)
to the Csound community. Everybody can synthesize and listen to it (and
possibly throw away resulting soundfile!). If we go on making
"extensions", this could no more be true.

2. Are we trying to transform Csound in a commercial synth? Frankly, I
don't understand WHY all those phisical modeling opcodes (marimba,
vibraphone, agogobell etc.) are in Csound: admittedly, they make nice
sounds... but a commercial synth (or even a *software* commercial synth)
can do better. If someone likes to make marimba sounds, he'd better not
use
Csound.

3. New parser(s): OK for the orchestra: I'd like so much better program
control structures: I could kill for something like:

        (Basic-flavour)                         (C flavour)
        If ka R kb then                         If ka R kb {
                                             
                ...                                     ...
                ...                                     ... }
        elseif ka R kc then                     else if ka R kc {
                                             
                ...                                     ...
                ...                                     ...

or for a C-like "switch". But the score... please, don't! I think it's
much better to use a general purpose programming language (I use
Microsoft
Visual Basic for quick & dirty works) to make whatever we like. I build
myself a set of functions and subroutines that do most trivial jobs
(parsing a Csound score and putting p-fields in arrays, writing a new
score file and so on): and all this works very well to me.
A score preprocessor could be a better idea, as it would not modify
Csound itself.

Do you think I'm too much conservative?

Happy Csounding

Riccardo
-- 

Riccardo Bianchini, Professor
Scuola di Musica Elettronica
Conservatorio "S.Cecilia", Roma (Italy)
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/4768

Date1998-02-20 10:36
FromRoss Clement
SubjectRe: Are we creating a monster?
Riccardo wrote:
> Dear Csounders,
> I've read very carefully all the stuff about Csound parser/Dynamic
> library
> linking and so on, and some questions arose in my mind:
> 
> 1. Csound was born and is alive as a "standard" sound synthesis
> language, i.e., I can compose a piece and (assuming I didn't use
> external
> soundfiles for synthesis) send my orc/sco (usually less than 100 KByte)
> to the Csound community. Everybody can synthesize and listen to it (and
> possibly throw away resulting soundfile!). If we go on making
> "extensions", this could no more be true.

One alternative to changing the basic input language to CSound, would 
be to define new input languages, and input a translator between the
new input language to the standard CSound language. Hence we wouldn't
ruin compatibility, and people could use whatever input language they
found most efficient.

I mean, this is generally the case with visual interfaces now, they
produce .orc and .sco files as output. Why couldn't it be the case if
someone wants to use an alternative text input language.

Cheers,

Ross-c