| a long post. feel free to skip down to the questions at its end.
post ny csounders meeting i have been lying low, waiting for traffic to
subside, before raising the plug-in issue which we (all of 3 of us at the
meeting) wished to revisit. but now it does seem at least semi-related to
some of that traffic...
some time ago, michael gogins did some coding for a plug-in architecture
for csound and in fact, stands ready to assist in making this a reality.
thereafter additions could be made to csound's canonical version without
changing the canonical version. i currently favor this, but nevertheless
call for a general debate with an open mind...
part of our discussions at the meeting pertained to commercial software
packages turning free. but here concerns may be raised that the opposite
will occur. programmers may create opcodes and, rather than offer them to
be included in the code, sell them as plug-ins.
at this time there are many programs to assist in the creation of csound
scores (including silence by michael gogins), and these have tended to
remain free. will plug-ins that provide more fundamental tools behave
similarly? i'm not sure that, even if they don't, that the outcome will be
so horrible.
for myself, i use csound with cecilia and digital performer. in fact,
without cecilia, i probably would have jumped over to max and msp, despite
the circa US$800 price tag and the need to allocate voices. when i first
downloaded cecilia it was mentioned that there would eventually be a price
to pay for an upcoming release. truth is, this past summer i would have
gladly paid for improvement in operation and features. and digital
performer is a not inexpensive multitrack program which i chose over a
number of shareware alternatives for the macintosh, some of them quite
capable.
a few months ago, when i inquired about a maximizing opcode (intelligent
multi-band limiter), someone commented that there are companies which
allocated resources beyond that which could be expected from those on the
list whose time is limited. i purchased Waves L1 bundled with a number of
tools that have been invaluable to me.
it appears as though csound could well become the tool of choice for the
professional market. but i do confess i enjoy getting something for nothing
(actually i try to give back to the list in the form of information, and
assisted in the same with the csound book). more importantly, i like the
idea that the standards that arise within the program do so based on the
commitment and sense of community of those involved. and that, regardless
of inevitable disagreements -the intentions of our programming benefactors
are good. don't remember anyone here being accused of evil coding to
dominate the professional software market.
but there is a commercial project developing a csound dsp chip. and this is
obviously some sort of an overture to the commercial market. haven't heard
anyone complaining about potential impact lately.
i believe that commercial music aps are moving in the direction of offering
plug-in architecture. not so sure of what the affect of any of this will be
on csound.
questions:
should csound offer a plug in architecture?
analysis of the commercial and developmental consequences of other free
programs (of any type) that have offered a plug-in architecture?
will csound ultimately be crushed by commercial programs that do offer such
an architecture?
tum te tum tum.
tolve
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