rasmus ekman wrote:
> 
 > (I have used nothing else [but csound] in the past five years).
> 
> Right, but how?
> Let's just imagine some people have been trying to find csound useful
> for the last, say 2 years, and all but failed. It's clear that several
> people use it with score generating tools, and that has clear potential.


I do sound-oriented composition, ie: along the lines of musique concrete
and/or classical electronic music. I use Csound in the Cecilia wrapper
almost exclusively. I have a set of general purpose modules that I can
use and re-use on any sound material. I code new modules as the need
arises. Csound under Cecilia is not only *highly* productive, it has
answered the perenial "upgrade-to-a-new-synth" syndrome of most
production setups in the professional and academic worlds.

I use Csound as an open-ended modular synthesizer/processor. I make
sounds with it. While I have done complete compositions with it, I dont
do that often. I rely on a good sound mixing program to elaborate
compositions. As a setup, it depends on no specialized hardware, is
almost entirely open-ended, is conceptualy clean and ideally suited to
the kind of work I do. 

Should I need to do scores for a given piece, I use Cybil, my own score
generator written in tcl that does most of what I want to do. I also use
Common music (a delight btw!). And when push comes to shove, I go to
MIDI. 

Csound without a wrapper is quite unweildy and stubborn. That is not a
function of the language itself. CLM is very difficult also and Cmix
even more. The point however is that, like all difficult things,
practice makes good and one can acheive virtuosity. Signal processing
theory is complex and requires patience and knowledge, rare commodities
in a product-driven musical environment.

Pre-conditions to find the Csound experience enjoyable:

1- Wanting to do music that is appropriate for the system.
2- A very fast computer.
3- A good wrapper with graphical and real-time controllers (Cecilia has
both).
4- A good score generator/processor. (there are many...).
5- A good sound mixing program (mix, deck, etc).
6- An enquiring state of mind.
7- Patience and flexible production deadlines.

A miss on more than 2 of the above means Csound is not for you. In fact,
most people will fails on the first condition.



-- 
________________________________________________________
Jean Piche
Universite de Montreal
http://mistral.ere.umontreal.ca/~pichej
http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/Org/CompoElectro/CEC/