# Any C Sound Users ?



## synthpunk (Jul 8, 2017)

Thinking of starting the slippery slope and was looking for some beginner advice. Cheers


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## garyhiebner (Jul 8, 2017)

Ah! CSound is amazing. Streep learning curve. Have you got the CSound book. Thats a great place to start. And then you can also look at the FLOSS manuals site (http://write.flossmanuals.net/csound/preface/)

What are you looking at doing with CSound?


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## wst3 (Jul 8, 2017)

C Sound is fascinating! I have a *nix machine in the studio just for experimental tools like C Sound, PureData, and handful of others.

For anyone who wants to dip their toes in I can happily recommend the PlanetCCRMA distribution for a dedicated machine, and any number of CD distributions, although I'm not really up to date on those since building the dedicated machine, the last one I used was Puredyne.


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## nanotk (Jul 8, 2017)

Csound is wonderful but actually, a better (more actual) way to use it is to use it for doing plugins you can drive in your DAW. The perfect tool for doing VST plugins with Csound is Cabbage:
http://cabbageaudio.com


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## garyhiebner (Jul 8, 2017)

@synthpunk what are you wanting to do with CSound? Build plugins, use different forms of synthesis, or apply dsp to sounds?


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## synthpunk (Jul 8, 2017)

Mostly sound design, some processing. Are there plugins out there available made with C Sound?



garyhiebner said:


> @synthpunk what are you wanting to do with CSound? Build plugins, use different forms of synthesis, or apply dsp to sounds?


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## heisenberg (Jul 8, 2017)

nanotk said:


> Csound is wonderful but actually, a better (more actual) way to use it is to use it for doing plugins you can drive in your DAW. The perfect tool for doing VST plugins with Csound is Cabbage:
> http://cabbageaudio.com



After reading the testimonials on the Cabbage website, I am sold!

Might as well mention Max. You can apparently use CSound inside of Max and even Reaktor. It isn't Open Source but has the advantage of linkability to Ableton Live, if you eventually wish to go there.


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## IFM (Jul 8, 2017)

I have never heard of this. What is CSound?


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## heisenberg (Jul 8, 2017)

IFM said:


> I have never heard of this. What is CSound?



If you have a passing knowledge of PD (PureData) and Max/MSP, you are in the ball park. Second post linked to the manual. First few paragraphs give a historical overview...

Here's the link...

http://write.flossmanuals.net/csound/preface/


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## garyhiebner (Jul 8, 2017)

IFM said:


> I have never heard of this. What is CSound?



http://csound.github.io


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## garyhiebner (Jul 8, 2017)

This song was composed mainly using CSound:



I'm a huge BT fan and got into CSound after hearing this.

And also check out the CSound book. A great resource if you want to learn it:


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## garyhiebner (Jul 9, 2017)

synthpunk said:


> Mostly sound design, some processing. Are there plugins out there available made with C Sound?


CSound For Live:

http://csoundforlive.com

But you'll need Ableton and Max For Live to use them.

The best for processing is to learn the CSound code and Opcodes and apply processing within the application. You can use a Frontend GUI like CSoundQT so its a bit easier getting familiar with the syntax. But its well worth it. You can do some crazy stuff you can't do in a regular DAW. The timestretching algorithms are insane.


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## TGV (Jul 9, 2017)

nanotk said:


> Csound is wonderful but actually, a better (more actual) way to use it is to use it for doing plugins you can drive in your DAW. The perfect tool for doing VST plugins with Csound is Cabbage:
> http://cabbageaudio.com


That looks very promising. My only experience with csound is ages ago, and I couldn't even get it to compile. Having it precompiled with a (primitive) graphical environment is such a step forward!


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## InLight-Tone (Jul 9, 2017)

Csound brings back some memories yes indeed. I immersed myself in that whole world of real-time and non real-time composition along with Common Music, Common Lisp Music, Emacs as a host living in colored terminals and a host of others.

I remember having a top of the line Pentium processor and being able to spit out sine waves with CsoundAV, a real-time version of Csound. I thought wow, this is the future. 

How far we have come since then, and yet Csound itself hasn't changed all that much. Most of the "music" I have heard from users consists of long drawn out drones while interesting on one level, isn't terribly musical on another. 

Yet hearing that one of my favorite albums, BT's Binary Universe was coded with Csound is jaw dropping. What a nerd!!!


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## garyhiebner (Jul 9, 2017)

InLight-Tone said:


> Csound brings back some memories yes indeed. I immersed myself in that whole world of real-time and non real-time composition along with Common Music, Common Lisp Music, Emacs as a host living in colored terminals and a host of others.
> 
> I remember having a top of the line Pentium processor and being able to spit out sine waves with CsoundAV, a real-time version of Csound. I thought wow, this is the future.
> 
> ...



Haha! Also a BT fan. Yeah This Binary Universe is an absolutely amazing album. And yeah alot of it was done in CSound. 

Check here's even some CSound code that he posted up from the first song

http://simoncpage.co.uk/blog/2008/10/bt-this-binary-universe/

You can copy and paste this into one of the frontend apps, and hear it. Its very cool. That those lines of code can produce that sound.

BT I think got mentored by Dr Richard Boulanger, and I think his stutter edit and Break Tweaker plugins were started in CSound.


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