issue11

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 58, Issue 11

This issue's topics:
	
	***ATTENTION CSOUND USERS***
	.WAV files from 486 Csound
	CSOUND (3 messages)
	Csound for NEXT
	Csound, Nextstep, &tc. (5 messages)
	Real-Time Csound!!! (2 messages)

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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 2 Nov 1993 14:58:16 GMT
From:         Piche Jean 
Subject:      ***ATTENTION CSOUND USERS***

A new Csound mailing list was just started by Martin Dupras, of the Universite
de Montreal. This takes the prize for the mailing list you always wanted but
were afraid to ask... Do subsctibe !!!





Welcome to the Csound Mailing List!

Arising from the increasing popularity of Csound among internet users
comes this new forum for Csound users.

Objectives:

        - general discussion about csound

        - exchange orchestras and scores

        - encourage discussion regarding the programming of Csound opcodes

        - discuss ways of doing things in csound

        etc.

This mailing-list is kindly provided by James Andrews, who works as a
sys-admin at the Exeter University Maths Dept.

The list is setup as a 'reflector' which means that anymail to:

        csound@maths.ex.ac.uk

gets mailed out to all the people on the list *instantly*.

There is no moderator. So, *please* use netiquette!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, mail to:

        csound-request@maths.ex.ac.uk

and include, as usual, in the first line of the message 'subscribe
yourname@yourplace' or 'unsubscribe yourname@yourplace'. Be patient and
comprehensive: for a while this will be done manually by James.


Formats:

When posting orchestras, scores, code, etc.: please use text! Label every
part, and make them easily distinguishable; remember that csound runs on
many platforms, and sometimes there are some minor changes to do before
running it (depending on your version, etc...).

For now, this will probably be the best way. If it proves ineffective,
we'll find something... :>

Document any code you provide; in many cases something that's not clear is
something lost.

Feel free to e-mail me (duprasm@ere.umontreal.ca) if there's something you
don't want to post, something that's not clear, whatever.


I hope everybody will enjoy!

Regards,

- Martin Dupras

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 1 Nov 1993 21:51:41 -0800
From:         Craig Meyer 
Subject:      .WAV files from 486 Csound

> I'm trying to get into Csound myself, but to get output to a Sound Blaster
> card, all you have to do is play the .WAV output file using the Sound Blaster
> included utilities.  I think.  It is possible that Csound may use a
>  non-universal .WAV format; does anyone have comments?
> ||Jonathan E. Brickman
> brickman@acc.wuacc.edu

I've got the 486 version from the bath FTP site, and with the -W
switch, it'll give you a .WAV file.

I've compiled all of the sample Csound .orc and .sco files, and about
70% of the outputted .WAV files have had an ERROR at then end of them.
If I load them into my toy .WAV Windows editor/player, at the end
I often get this "Data Read Chunk" error, or something like that.

When I play it with the DOS command-line WAV player command, though,
it plays, and then goes into an infinite loop at the end, so I have to
CTRL-C to get back to the C: prompt.

Wierd, huh?

As for being able to do this stuff in REAL TIME on a 486 (like mine),
I SERIOUSLY doubt it.  For really simple .orc and .sco files, this box
of mine might be able compile a five-minute song in five minutes, but
that tells me that it COULDN'T keep up with anything half-way
complicated.  It's a 486 66 with a 128k cache.

I sure appreciate this discussion of Csound, for I'm counting on it
and my SoundBlaster to produce my music, once I learn Csound well
enough (it's a pretty-good manual).  That's right, old-timers, he's
gonna try to make electronic music without a keyboard!  (I plan to
"prototype" my songs with a MIDI sequencer and the SoundBlaster)

Am I stupid or not?

Craig Meyer
Harvey Mudd College
Craig_Meyer@hmc.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 1 Nov 1993 10:43:08 -0600
From:         Stephen David Beck 
Subject:      Re: CSOUND

There is a version of the Csound manual in MS Word format.  It is listed as
Csound.man.hqx (BinHex conversion required).  It is a Macintosh file, so it
may not help you.  The ps version of the manual can be printed at any decent
print shop or desktop publishing spot, but it will cost you.  To my knowledge,
there is no ps-ascii translator, although it would be nice to have one.  The
problem is that postscript code is often heavily imbedded with lots of display
commands.  These have an unerring tendency to break up displayed text into
unintelligible units.

I am not a PC person, but there must be a Windows or DOS utility that displays
postscript files.  Good luck.

Stephen David Beck
Electro-Acoustic Music Studios
Louisiana State University

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 1 Nov 1993 14:06:31 PST
From:         "Craig R. McClanahan" 
Subject:      Re: CSOUND

>>>>> "Stephen" == Stephen David Beck  writes:

    Stephen> I am not a PC person, but there must be a Windows or DOS
    Stephen> utility that displays postscript files.  Good luck.

There is indeed such a program.  It's called ghostscript, and accepts as input
Postscript level 1 (and some Postscript level 2).  The output can be to a
wide variety of printers and/or to some graphics storage formats like .PCX.
Versions for DOS and Windows are available, along with UNIX versions.

Ghostscript is available from the Free Software Foundation (the makers of the
GNU C compiler and a bunch of other really high quality free software).  Write
to gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu for more information on how to find and download it.

(That all being said, I'm not sure it's worth the effort for a one time need
to print a manual, if you can find them in a different format.  But Postscript
is becoming more and more common, so it's a nice tool to have around.)

----------
Craig R. McClanahan                     EMAIL:  crm@umpqua.portal.com
DAT Services                            Phone:  503-643-4331

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 4 Nov 1993 04:54:26 GMT
From:         Jeff Dubin 
Subject:      Re: CSOUND

>I am not a PC person, but there must be a Windows or DOS utility that displays
>postscript files.  Good luck.
>
>Stephen David Beck
>Electro-Acoustic Music Studios
>Louisiana State University

You may want to try gnu's Ghostscript which is widely availible... probably
from simtel mirrors (oak.oakland.edu), but definately archie-able.

I know that this program can convert to non-PS laser printers, as well as
popular graphic file formats (ie: .gif), so I'm sure you could get it to
output plain ascii.  BE WARNED!!!  The last time I used this program, it was
a monster!  Not very user friendly, but follow the examples and you should
be fine.  There are DOS and Windows versions, and I *think* there may be a
Windows front end availible also.

If I can convert the MS-Word for Mac file to my PC, I may post the docs here
if there is significant interest, or probably just mail it to the users who
are in need.

Jeff
jdubin@american.edu
jdubin@world.std.com

(Reply to american.edu, not jdubin.hughes.american.edu.  Thanks!)

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 2 Nov 1993 12:19:24 -0800
From:         Craig Meyer 
Subject:      Csound for NEXT

I'm starting to get into Csound for the IBM's and Macs lying around
here, and then just today, someone brings down a NextStation that had
been gathering dust upstairs.

And then I remember somebody mentioning a version of Csound
for the Next that uses a very friendly graphical user interface, as
opposed to the "secret code" I'm learning now.

Where can I get this Csound for the Next?

Thanks in advance,
Craig Meyer
Harvey Mudd College

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 2 Nov 1993 17:56:20 -0500
From:         The Bare Facts BBS 
Subject:      Csound, Nextstep, &tc.

Re: Csound for NEXT

> And then I remember somebody mentioning a version of Csound
> for the Next that uses a very friendly graphical user interface, as
> opposed to the "secret code" I'm learning now.

In relation to that, I also understand that NeXTStep is now available from
some ftp site (obviously I am quoting hearsay !) which SUPPOSEDLY would allow
this nifty neato NeXT interface to work on, oh, say a 486.

Anyone?

R

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 2 Nov 1993 18:32:05 -0600
From:         Arne Claassen ISE 
Subject:      Re: Csound, Nextstep, &tc.

> In relation to that, I also understand that NeXTStep is now available from
> some ftp site (obviously I am quoting hearsay !) which SUPPOSEDLY would allow
> this nifty neato NeXT interface to work on, oh, say a 486.
I would find that unlikely, since NextSTEP is now being sold commercially for
about $400 for the Intel platform. In case the above refers to the original
NextStep that was run on NeXT machines, it can only be run on NeXT machines, it
was never compatible with the generic UNIX box.

--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
|Arne F. Claassen                            |
|                                                     |
| "It is by my will alone I set my mind in motion"                       |
|                                             finger for PGP public key  |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

------------------------------
Date:         Tue, 2 Nov 1993 22:03:02 -0600
From:         Stephen David Beck 
Subject:      Re: Csound, Nextstep, &tc.

Lets separate fact from fiction here.  Csound runs under UNIX on Sun, DEC,
and SGI platforms.  Csound also runs on Macintosh computers as a Mac
 application.
These platforms are supported by MIT, and the code needed to run it is
available from the Media Lab's ftp site.

Csound also runs under UNIX on NeXTStep computers, but there are some problems.
NeXTStep rewrote their MIDI drivers for v3.0, but the Csound code which handles
NS MIDI i/o was written for NS 2.x.  Hence, the current version of Csound will
not compile under NS 3.x.  I am currently working on rewriting this section
but that task competes with teaching and grading.  I hope to have this done by
end of the month.

Pete Yadlovsky (sp?) of the Univerity of Virginia wrote a nice front-end for
Csound on the NeXT called Snd.  It is available along with other niceties from
uvaarpa.virginia.edu by anonymous ftp.  The only major drawback to this app is
that is uses an old version of Csound (the current full version is June92 with
a beta version as of Oct93, Snd uses a version earlier than that).  You should
be able to compile the newer version of UNIX, but you'll have to use the ol'
familiar command line.

Hope this helps.

Stephen David Beck
Electro-Acoustic Music Studis
Louisiana State University

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 3 Nov 1993 10:18:04 -0500
From:         Joe McMahon 
Subject:      Re: Csound, Nextstep, &tc.

>In relation to that, I also understand that NeXTStep is now available from
>some ftp site (obviously I am quoting hearsay !) which SUPPOSEDLY would allow
>this nifty neato NeXT interface to work on, oh, say a 486.
>
>Anyone?

I certainly hope not, because NeXT is now selling it and would not doubt be
very upset...

 --- Joe M.

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 3 Nov 1993 19:41:41 -0500
From:         The Bare Facts BBS 
Subject:      Re: Csound, Nextstep, &tc.

Many thanks for the bonafide CSound info.  I personally like the command line
stuff :-) but...you know, techies gotta look for new toys.

R

---
Origin:  The Bare Facts BBS * U of AL School of Music * @tbf.musicnet.ua.edu

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 29 Oct 1993 14:21:58 CST
From:         dbarlow@VAX1.UMKC.EDU
Subject:      Real-Time Csound!!!

I am really excited to see the interest in CSound.  I have worked with
this program for about three years now.  I was wondering, has anyone
experimented with CSound in real time on PC machines.  Does anyone
know how to redirect the output of CSound directly to a 16-bit, Sound
Blaster compatible sound card?  I know this works well on an IRIS Indigo,
but for those of us who can't afford such a beast, IBM seems to be a
valid alternative.  I have a 50mhz 486, so I am pretty sure that it
can handle the throughput.  I am in direct contact with John at Bath, the
man who ported CSound to the IBM platform.  We are both doing research
on this idea.  Can any of you CSound buffs help with this?

Dustin Barlow
M-Pact Center - University of Missouri-Kansas CIty

------------------------------
Date:         Mon, 1 Nov 1993 21:36:29 -0600
From:         brickman jonathan 
Subject:      Re: Real-Time Csound!!!

I'm trying to get into Csound myself, but to get output to a Sound Blaster
card, all you have to do is play the .WAV output file using the Sound Blaster
included utilities.  I think.  It is possible that Csound may use a
 non-universal .WAV format; does anyone have comments?
||Jonathan E. Brickman
brickman@acc.wuacc.edu

------------------------------
End of the EMUSIC-L Digest
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