Silence version 3.1 beta 2 and AXCsound and JCsound version 1.0 are now
available from http://www.pipeline.com/~gogins. Both packages are licensed
under the terms of the GNU General Public License. AXCsound is free of
charge. Silence is free of charge for private use, but there is a $100
download fee if the user creates, with Silence, music or software for public
consumption.

Silence is an extensible system for making music on computers using software
alone. It is specifically designed to support algorithmic composition and
synthesis using a hierarchical geometric representation of music, Music
Modeling Language. A paper describing Music Modeling Language and Silence
was presented at the 1998 International Computer Music Conference in
Madison, Wisconsin, and that paper can be found at
http://www.pipeline.com/~gogins/Silence/Gogins.pdf. Silence uses JCsound
(see below) as its synthesis engine. In order to run, the current version of
Silence requires only Java 1.1.5, the Java Foundation Classes version 1.1
beta 3, and JCsound. The Silence.zip file now includes all source code.

AXCsound is so-called "public-domain" Csound, the most widely used sound
processing language, in the form of a full ActiveX control for Windows 95/98
or NT. AXCsound can be embedded in user-written programs, used from
Mathematica 3.0, or run from the command line. It has a graphical user
interface with editors for orchestras and scores. It also has an application
programming interface (API) that provides complete programmatic control over
Csound to other programs via ActiveX. This version of AXCsound has been
upgraded to use Gabriel Maldonado's DirectSound version 2.1 with Csound
version 3.48. Unlike other versions of Csound, AXCsound can be stopped and
restarted, it provides an "arrangement" or "patch librarian" facility, and
it can accept user-written "plugin" opcodes.

JCsound, which is included in the AXCsoundAll.zip file, is similar to
AXCsound but is a Java package that can be embedded in and used from
user-written Java programs. At this time, the Csound native methods are
implemented only for Windows. Ports to Unix and the Macintosh are planned.
JCsound comes with an alpha version of a graphical user interface.

The AXCsoundAll.zip file includes all source code for both AXCsound and
JCsound.

It should be noted that both AXCsound and JCsound are dependent upon Csound
code, which is copyright (C) 1986, 1997 by the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. Csound is freely available for educational and research purposes
only.