MOTM

Last year I bought the book, downloaded everything, and played with it for a
week or two. I definitely think that it's an interesting technology,
especially since it's "open" code. For those who don't know what it is, it's
kind of a "rendering" engine for sound. Just as you may take a CAD drawing
in DXF format and render it (ray trace, etc.) into a 3D image, CSound takes
a scripted music file wherein all musical events are defined (not unlike a
MIDI file...in fact, there are conversion utilities) and it also takes in an
instrument definition script. Using the two, it renders an output audio
file. The instrument definitions can be ANYTHING, and there are already huge
libraries of 'primitives,' although some are so sophisticated it's hard to
use that word. Unlike a Nord Modular or something where you can add modules
up until the processor tops out, all you add to CSound is rendering time. So
you can stack on stuff to your heart's content.
 
Phrases like "limited only by your imagination" are overused, but in this
case, if you have the patience, there's pretty much NOTHING you cannot do
with CSound. It's extremely flexible, but very low-level. It's a bit like
programming the nuances of a WAV file in assembler. Conceptually, it's not
difficult-you can do a little reading and then sit down with Notepad and in
a few minutes have a sawtooth wave sweeping the spectrum. But the leap from
there to a quadraphonic symphony is immense. With some nice interfacing
tools, which people only just seem to be developing, CSound could be
incredible, especially as computer power keeps racing ahead... the rendering
is approaching real-time for many things. 
 
Now that I've said all that, I just didn't have the time to dig into CSound
much further. I put it on the shelf thinking I'd have time for it in my
retirement.
 
I was interested in CSound because I thought that it might be possible to
write a VB program as a front end that would allow me to easily create wild
sample maps for my Kurzweil KVP2000. (Yeah, I admit it, I have a sampler).
But I never had the time to work it out.
 
At the time I was dabbling, there was talk of a uProcessor being developed
to work with CSound that was to be commercially available. I read the blurbs
thinking that some clever person might incorporate that chip into an MOTM
module, with some CVs in and programmable, somehow, from a PC. With
something like that you would have a completely reconfigurable module that
fits right in with the system.

-----Original Message-----


Any MOTMers out there play with Csound?  Am curious to know if the results
are worth the learning curve.  Yes, Csound is about as far off topic as one
can get.  Yet, making interesting noises is pretty cool no matter how it is
done.  (Csound is a free, script-based music instrument definition language.
One can create instruments, assemble them into "orchestra" groups and then
throw MIDI sequences at them to be played.  Search the web for "Csound" or
go to www.csound.org for a taste.  The source code to Csound is freely
available, too.  Programmer types can have their way with it.)