The goal of this manual is to give a readable introduction to Csound. In no way it is meant as a replacement for the Canonical Csound Reference Manual. It is meant as an introduction-tutorial-reference hybrid, gathering the most important information you need for working with Csound in a variety of situations. At many points links are provided to other resources, such as the official manual, the Csound Journal, example collections, and more.
It is not necessary to read each chapter in sequence, feel free to jump to any chapter, although occasionally a chapter will make reference to a previous one.
If you are new to Csound, the QUICK START chapter will be the best place to go to get started with Csound. BASICS provides a general introduction to key concepts about digital sound vital in the understanding of how Csound deals with audio. CSOUND LANGUAGE chapter provides greater detail about how Csound works and how to work with Csound.
SOUND SYNTHESIS introduces various methods of creating sound from scratch and SOUND MODIFICATION describes various methods of transforming sound that already exists within Csound. SAMPLES outlines ways in which to record and play audio samples in Csound, an area that might of particular interest to those intent on using Csound as a real-time performance instrument. The MIDI and OSC AND WII chapters focus on different methods of controlling Csound using external software or hardware. The final chapters introduce various frontends that can be used to interface with the Csound engine and Csound's communication with other applications (either audio applications like PD or Max, or general tools like Python or the Terminal).
If you would like to know more about a topic, and in particular about the use of any opcode, refer first to the Canonical Csound Reference Manual.
All files - examples and audio files - can be downloaded at www.csound-tutorial.net . If you use QuteCsound, you can find all the examples in QuteCsound's Example Menu under "Floss Manual Examples".
Like other Audio Tools, Csound can produce extreme dynamic range. Be careful when you run the examples! Start with a low volume setting on your amplifier and take special care when using headphones.
You can help to improve this manual either in reporting bugs or requests, or in joining as a writer. Just contact one of the maintainers (see the list in ON THIS RELEASE).