Dave Phillips: > > Greetings: > > I'm putting finishing touches to a very long chapter on software sound > synthesis languages in which I've profiled current versions of Csound, > RTcmix, and SuperCollider3. IMHO I'd still recommend Csound to a novice, > particularly to a programming novice. I prefer the more modern language > elements in RTcmix and SC3, but the one is heavily C-like (fine with me) > and the other is a Smalltalk derivative. Csound also wins in its > abundance of helper applications, e.g., FJenie, nGen, Common Music, > blue, Cecilia, Csound Blocks, and others. However, RTcmix will see a new > release Real Soon Now, and there may be some more GUI stuff included. > SC3 for Linux lacks the neat graphic elements of the OSX version, but > it's still quite an interesting environment. I should also note that > Csound and RTcmix have no special requirements WRT editors, whereas with > SC3 you definitely want to learn how to use emacs. (Note that both emacs > and vi have Csound editing modes available to them.) > I'm currently accessing the supercollider synth fromwithin pure data using the python PD external. I'd say its a supergreat combination where you get easy/clean programming with python, functional programming with the guile pd-external, sound processing power with SC3, and GUI with pd. Check out the supercollider module in the pure-data CVS. > Finally I would urge the beginner to make a real study of some other > language, i.e., C/C++, Java, whatever, along with learning a sound & > music programming language. That assumes the time for such study, but > consider it time well spent, you'll learn a lot by the inevitable > comparisons. > Hmm, I would rather reccomend common lisp/scheme or python than c/c++ and java for music purposes. C are fine for making hardware drivers, c++ can be fine if you need OO to C, and java is horrible in all possible ways. My opinion. :) --
