Csound + _: Notes on an Ecosystem

Csound + _

Notes on an Ecosystem

Victor Lazzarini

Part One

Background

Csound was first released in 1986 as a C-language port of Music 11, running originally on Unix. Its user interface consisted of a command that invoked the system on a pair of input text files, the orchestra and the score, producing a soundfile.

Since then, Csound has become the centre of a remarkable sound and music computing ecosystem.

In The Beginning

Music 11 ⟶ a small software ecosystem based on Unix.

Music 11 components (Vercoe 1983).

Music 11 was based on modular set of software components interacting with lab peripherals and devices. Much of this became encapsulated inside Csound as some of the separate pieces were rewritten as C routines in a monolothic program.

Early Csound

Csound: centrepiece of a music research ecosystem.

New experimental ports, implementations (transputers, DSPs), opcodes.

Classic examples ⟶ PV (Dan Ellis) and FOF (Michael Clarke)

Score processor programs, Cscore, MIDI and RT audio.

Cecilia (Jean Piché) ⟶ interactive GUI frontend, on UNIX.

Forks and Canonical Csound

1996-2003: forks, custom versions.

DirectCsound (Gabriel Maldonado) ⟶ widget opcodes, on Windows.

MacCsound (Matt Ingalls) ⟶ libcsound ⟶ MaxMSP external, on MacOS

Canonical Csound (John ffitch, Bath).

Csound 5 and the API

Csound 4.21: API introduced.

Monolithic Csound to libcsound ⟶ lots of issues, complete hack.

Library not re-entrant ⟶ only one Csound in each process.

Csound 5: complete system re-engineering ⟶ encapsulated into a re-entrant Csound class; unified earlier forks.

The C/C++ API: extensive manipulation of engine operation ⟶ full embedding into applications.

Interfaces:
Tcl/Tk ⟶ new Cecilia
Java ⟶ Blue (Steven Yi)
Python

Frontends:
QuteCsound (Andrés Cabrera)
Cabbage (Rory Walsh)
externals for Pd and MaxMSP
ports to mobile devices

Csound 6

2013: API updated, new parser & compiler, language improvements, RT mode, sample-level accuracy, various other internal changes.

Csound ⟶ centre of an ecosystem in platforms from embedded devices to mobile to desktop to the web through to supercomputers.

instr 1 out(oscili(p4, p5)) endin schedule(1,0,1,0.5,440)

Csound: not loaded

Csound is now best described as a sound and music computing system, used in the composition and performance of electronic music, research, teaching, and general audio/music applications.

Part Two

The Ecosystem

System Levels

Languages

Research

Csound ⟶ fully-featured research platform

At Maynooth, it is our fundamental environment for prototyping, implementation, and deployment for all our research in sound and music computing.

HID protocol interaction

Damien McEvoy (MA, 2018) demonstrating interactive HID devices.

Parallel tvconv

RT ratios: Solid (original), Dashes (parallel, GPU), Dots (parallel, CPU), for various partition sizes and convolution lengths.

A short improvisation using parallel cltvconv for voice and drums.


instr 2
 out(cltvconv(inch(1),
	      diskin:a("beats.wav", 1, 0, 1),
	      1, 1, 8192, filelen("beats.wav")*sr,1))
endin

Embedded systems

Sound synthesis engine for embedded devices: Raspberry PI, Intel Galileo and Edison, and other devices ⟶ Csound in embedded applications, eurorack modules, stomp boxes, etc.