Csound

ON THIS RELEASE

We are happy to announce the second release of the Csound Floss Manual. It has been an exciting year for Csound, with many activities and important developments. Thanks to the long and hard work of Steven Yi, John ffitch, Tito Latini and others, a new parser has been written. This opens up many new possibilities for future language adaptations and more flexibility within the Csound syntax. In autumn 2011, the first international Csound Conference took place at HMTM Hannover, with many inspiring workshops, concerts, papers and most notably discussions between developers and users. In early 2012, Jim Aikin's Csound Power! was published and it represents a very well written introduction to Csound. In early spring, Victor Lazzarini and Steven Yi published the first release of Csound on Android devices, and all developers are currently pushing towards Csound6.

The first edition of the Csound Floss Manual has been a huge success. We are proud and glad to see it used, linked and quoted in many places. It has come to be regarded as a complement to the Csound Manual. We hope we can continue to reflect Csound's development in this manual. The core writers of the Csound Floss manual would like to extend their thanks to Richard Boulanger, John Clements and others for their support, and to all the writers for their various contributions. Thanks also are due to Adam Hyde and the team at flossmanuals.net for maintaining and developing this important platform for free libre open source software.

What's new in this Release

  • New chapters:
    • MACROS (Csound Language)
    • CABBAGE (Csound Frontends)
    • BUILDING CSOUND (Appendix) 
    • METHODS OF WRITING CSOUND SCORES (Appendix)
  • Chapters now completed:
    • WAVESHAPING (Sound Synthesis)
    • PHYSICAL MODELLING (Sound Synthesis)
    • CONVOLUTION (Sound Modification)
    • CSOUND VIA TERMINAL (Csound Frontends)
    • CSOUND UTILITIES
  • Significant amendments and additions to the following chapters:
    • AM / RM / WAVESHAPING (Sound Modification)
    • GRANULAR SYNTHESIS (Sound Modification)
    • CSOUND IN PD (Csound in Other Applications)
    • LINKS (Appendix)
  • New chapters as drafts:
    • CSOUND IN ABLETON LIVE (Csound in Other Applications)
    • CSOUND AS A VST PLUGIN (Csound in Other Applications)
    • PYTHON IN CSOUNDQT
    • LUA IN CSOUND
  • Slight changes in the structure (the TERMINAL is now considered as a frontend, and THE CSOUND API chapter is now part of the section Csound and other Programming Languages)

Still on the To-Do-List:

  • More and better illustrations 
  • Adding examples for VBAP, Ambisonics etc in PANNING AND SPATIALIZATION (Sound Modification)
  • Adding examples and explanations in METHODS OF WRITING CSOUND SCORES (Appendix)
  • Update OPCODE GUIDE (and more eyes on it at all)
  • Much more should be written in the GLOSSARY
  • Except the new drafted chapters PYTHON INSIDE CSOUND and EXTENDING CSOUND are still to write.

Last summer Alex Hofmann put a lot of work into making this manual available as a book on www.lulu.com. Just use the search utility there and look for "Csound", if you would like to obtain a printed version. This second release will be available soon.

Surround Wunderbar Studios, Berlin, 30th March, 2012

Joachim Heintz & Iain McCurdy

 

Foreword on the First Release

In spring 2010 a group of Csounders decided to start this project. The chapter outline was suggested by Joachim Heintz with suggestions and improvements provided by Richard Boulanger, Oeyvind Brandtsegg, Andrés Cabrera, Alex Hofmann, Jacob Joaquin, Iain McCurdy, Rory Walsh and others. Rory also pointed us to the FLOSS Manuals platform as a possible environment for writing and publishing. Stefano Bonetti, François Pinot, Davis Pyon and Steven Yi joined later and wrote chapters.

In a volunteer project like this, it is not always easy to sustain momentum so in the spring of 2011 some members of the team met in Berlin for a 'book sprint' to achieve a level of completion, and publish a first release.

With heads spinning and square eyes we are happy and proud to offer this manual to you. At the same time we realize that this is a first release with much potential for further improvement. Several chapters have yet to be written, others are not yet complete and the differences between the various authors in terms of the level at which they aim and their degree of detail are perhaps larger than they should be.

This is therefore a beginning. Everyone is invited to improve this book. You can begin to write for one of the empty chapters, contribute to an existing one or insert new examples where you feel they are of benefit. You just need to create an account at http://booki.flossmanuals.net or to let us know of your suggestions.

We hope you enjoy using this manual, we had fun writing it!

Berlin, 31st March, 2011

Joachim Heintz Alex Hofmann Iain McCurdy

jh at joachimheintz.de alex at boomclicks.de i_mccurdy at hotmail.com

 

You can order a printed version here:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/csound---floss-manual/16265055



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