Csound

What other apps and distros do you use to round out your studio?

Moderators: MattKingUSA, khz

SR
Established Member
Posts: 218
Joined: Wed May 07, 2008 6:01 pm
Location: Houston, Tx

Csound

Post by SR »

Does anyone here use csound? How do you typically use it and what is your opinion of it?
User avatar
cunnilinux
Established Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 3:30 pm
Location: kyiv a.k.a. kiev, ukraine
Contact:

Re: Csound

Post by cunnilinux »

SR wrote:Does anyone here use csound?
in short: yes.
SR wrote:How do you typically use it
well, i'm planning to do the entire job with csound driven via hardware midi controllers.
a huge work in progress. i hope someday it will be relatively finished, and a public release is going to happen.
SR wrote:and what is your opinion of it?
very powerful thing with very stupid oldschool syntax :D
StudioDave
Established Member
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm

Re: Csound

Post by StudioDave »

SR wrote:Does anyone here use csound? How do you typically use it and what is your opinion of it?
I've been using it since about 1989.

I have no "typical" way of using it. I've used it in text mode and with GUIs. Some of my recent Csound music is on this site:

http://linux-sound.org/ardour-music.html

I think it's fantastic.

dp
becks
Established Member
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 6:52 pm
Location: Italy
Contact:

Re: Csound

Post by becks »

SR wrote:Does anyone here use csound? How do you typically use it and what is your opinion of it?
i use csound. especially in combination with puredata. i use pd for visual and realtime params change (see csoundapi for puredata)

my opinion? the best synth ever, but not user friendly
User avatar
cunnilinux
Established Member
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 3:30 pm
Location: kyiv a.k.a. kiev, ukraine
Contact:

Re: Csound

Post by cunnilinux »

/me wrote:very powerful thing with very stupid oldschool syntax :D
played with supercollider a bit. seems like i'm going to switch... :)
studio32

Re: Csound

Post by studio32 »

What is a good place to start? Instructional tutorials/video

Are there examples of instruments etc. which you can use easily as example in csound?
StudioDave
Established Member
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm

Re: Csound

Post by StudioDave »

studio32 wrote:What is a good place to start? Instructional tutorials/video...Are there examples of instruments etc. which you can use easily as example in csound?
Oh dear. This is the Big Question re: Csound - "How do I learn it ?".

When I started using Csound it was hardly the environment it's become today. Over the years Csound has acquired an incredible number of opcodes (audio/MIDI processors & generators) and other improvements, which has made it amazingly powerful but also amazingly difficult to absorb. And absorption is the process: It's simply too big a system to learn neatly and quickly. Yes, there are numerous examples scores and instruments, GUI front-ends, tutorials, et cetera, but the likelihood is that they will leave you more mystified than when you started out.

After all the hoopla, Csound is a programming language, and if you don't know anything about programming languages then you should start by doing a little study in that direction. Yes, it takes time, but as we say in t'ai chi practice "small loss, small gain - great loss, great gain". The payoff is access to the most flexible synthesizer you can imagine. "Imagine" is the key word, as it ever is when we 're talking art and artistry.

Btw. there are some very fine GUI front-ends for Csound, including :

blue - http://csounds.com/stevenyi/
QuteCsound - http://qutecsound.sourceforge.net/
AVSynthesis - http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dfq5sj5w_80f9z8tb
Cecilia - http://www.csounds.com/cecilia/

The Csound package also includes a basic GUI "launcher". Btw, Cecilia has recently undergone a complete rewrite but is not yet publicly available. Also, it's worth noting that AVSynthesis is a beautiful app, but it is definitely NOT for beginners. Its requirements alone are enough to stall even experienced users, but again the payoff is impressive.

There are also some excellent non-GUI Csound "helpers" that are especially useful as score generators

AthenaCL - http://www.flexatone.com/athena.html
Common Music - http://commonmusic.sourceforge.net/

Again, the complete Csound package includes an old score processor called Cscore, but its utility is limited compared to the ones I've listed.

Instruments and example pieces can be found at csounds.com, Rick Boulanger's great Csound project site.

HTH,

dp
studio32

Re: Csound

Post by studio32 »

Thanks dp

Is it easy to just use the available shared csound patches without directly know how csound language works?
e.g. paste the code in a file or open it in a gui and listen to it? Can you describe a method for that?

And in one article in linuxjournal you was talking about csoundvst, where can we get it? Can we use it on Linux?
StudioDave
Established Member
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm

Re: Csound

Post by StudioDave »

studio32 wrote:Is it easy to just use the available shared csound patches without directly know how csound language works? e.g. paste the code in a file or open it in a gui and listen to it? Can you describe a method for that?
You can do it easiest with QuteCsound. That program is essentially a drop-in replacement for Matt Ingall's very popular MacCsound, though it has the added virtue of running on Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux. It's designed to accept standard Csound files in the old orc/sco file formats and in the newer (and preferred) CSD "combined" file format.
And in one article in linuxjournal you was talking about csoundvst, where can we get it? Can we use it on Linux?
Good timing. The author of CsoundVST has recently stated that the sources should be able to build a native Linux VST (plugin.so, not plugin.dll) but I've never tried it. Since it's supposed to be possible I suppose I'll have to try it soon. :)

Alas, as far as I know there is no available binary, you'll have to build it yourself. Also, I have no idea just what the VST plugin provides.

Btw, although Rick Boulanger's book The Csound Book is truly awesome it is not really a good book for beginners. If you can find it pick up Bianchini & Cipriani's Virtual Sound instead, but good luck finding it.

Added:

http://www.virtual-sound.com/sv/index.p ... &Itemid=55


HTH,

dp
studio32

Re: Csound

Post by studio32 »

Thanks again.

Yeah that Csoundvst for Linux is very intesting imo for Linux audio. You may saw also the thread on LAU 'from synthesis environment to plugin'. We got to find out soon where to find it and how it works!
So we can build our own (csound)VST database for Linux :)

Added:

Can you use an Csound orchestra with other apps? E.g. play midi file with the csound orchestra backend?
And use Jack? I tried to use jack with qutecsound but it fails...
StudioDave
Established Member
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm

Re: Csound

Post by StudioDave »

studio32 wrote:Can you use an Csound orchestra with other apps? E.g. play midi file with the csound orchestra backend?
Yes. Ditto for realtime MIDI control of an instrument's parameters. Csound supports ALSA, PortAudio/PortMIDI, and OSS audio/MIDI backends.
And use Jack? I tried to use jack with qutecsound but it fails...
Yes. Here's a command line I use with AVSynthesis. It autoconnects to JACK and sets up Csound for realtime MIDI input from an ALSA virtual MIDI port (hw:2,0) :

-+rtmidi=alsa -Mhw:2,0 -+rtaudio=jack -d -m0 -g -f -odac:system:playback_ -iadc:system:capture_ --expression-opt temp.orc temp.sco

It also configures Csound for audio input from an ALSA capture channel.

HTH,

dp
studio32

Re: Csound

Post by studio32 »

Tried it but no sound, not sure what's going wrong

Code: Select all

$ csound -+rtmidi=alsa -Mhw:1,0 -+rtaudio=jack -d -m0 -g -f -odac:system:playback_ -iadc:system:capture_ --expression-opt clarinet.orc clarinet.sco                                                                                                           
virtual_keyboard real time MIDI plugin for Csound                                                                                             
PortAudio real-time audio module for Csound                                                                                                   
PortMIDI real time MIDI plugin for Csound                                                                                                     
0dBFS level = 32768.0                                                                                                                         
Csound version 5.10 (double samples) Aug 10 2009                                                                                              
libsndfile-1.0.18                                                                                                                             
orchname:  clarinet.orc                                                                                                                       
scorename: clarinet.sco                                                                                                                       
rtaudio: JACK module enabled                                                                                                                  
rtmidi: ALSA module enabled                                                                                                                   
orch compiler:                                                                                                                                
35 lines read                                                                                                                                 
        instr   1                                                                                                                             
sorting score ...                                                                                                                             
        ... done                                                                                                                              
Csound version 5.10 (double samples) Aug 10 2009                                                                                              
midi channel 1 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 2 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 3 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 4 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 5 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 6 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 7 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 8 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 9 using instr 1                                                                                                                  
midi channel 10 using instr 1                                                                                                                 
midi channel 11 using instr 1                                                                                                                 
midi channel 12 using instr 1
midi channel 13 using instr 1
midi channel 14 using instr 1
midi channel 15 using instr 1
midi channel 16 using instr 1
displays suppressed
0dBFS level = 32768.0
ALSA: opened MIDI input device 'hw:1,0'
orch now loaded
audio buffered in 256 sample-frame blocks
reading 1024-byte blks of floats from adc:system:capture_ (RAW)
 *** rtjack: period size (-b) must be an integer multiple of ksmps
inactive allocs returned to freespace
end of score.              overall amps:      0.0
0 errors in performance
StudioDave
Established Member
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm

Re: Csound

Post by StudioDave »

studio32 wrote:Tried it but no sound, not sure what's going wrong

Code: Select all

 *** rtjack: period size (-b) must be an integer multiple of ksmps
inactive allocs returned to freespace
Ah, yes, the ksmps value in clarinet.orc must be coordinated with JACK's period size. For example, the period size in JACK for my Delta 66 is 128. I use a setting of ksmps=64 in my work with AVSynthesis. Thus periodsize=ksmps*2. Work with the kr and ksmps values in the orc file. Also be sure that the orc's sample rate is the same as JACK's.

Let me know what happens next. :)

dp
studio32

Re: Csound

Post by studio32 »

When I ksmps = 1 I get csound in qjackctl now, and sound with a lot of xruns
ksmps = period/frames / 2 I get an error in qutecsound

Code: Select all

error:  sr = 44100, kr = 44100, ksmps = 64
error: inconsistent sr, kr, ksmps
1 syntax errors in orchestra.  compilation invalid
StudioDave
Established Member
Posts: 753
Joined: Sat Nov 01, 2008 1:12 pm

Re: Csound

Post by StudioDave »

studio32 wrote:When I ksmps = 1 I get csound in qjackctl now, and sound with a lot of xruns
ksmps = period/frames / 2 I get an error in qutecsound

Code: Select all

error:  sr = 44100, kr = 44100, ksmps = 64
error: inconsistent sr, kr, ksmps
1 syntax errors in orchestra.  compilation invalid
Right, ksmps = sr/kr. Just leave out the kr statement. Csound will calculate kr automatically, given values for sr and ksmps.

What hardware are you using with JACK ? What's the period size in QJackCtl ?

You're very close now. Let me know how things turn out.

Best,

dp
Post Reply