About This Book
The goal of Csound Power! is to help you learn to make music using Csound. I have tried to make as few assumptions as possible about what you already know. Where a new concept is first mentioned, you’ll find either an explanation of the concept, a pointer to a later chapter where it is explored in detail, or possibly some links with which to research the topic on the Internet.
Of necessity, I’ll assume that you understand how to use your computer—how to launch programs by double-clicking on their icons, how to use menus and keystroke commands, how to save and back up your work, and so forth. If you’re not at least modestly computer-literate, a system like Csound is just about guaranteed to baffle you.
Figure 1.1 Csound’s most popular user interface, written in the Qt programming language by Andrés Cabrera, is CsoundQt. CsoundQt is cross-platform-compatible (Windows, Macintosh, Linux) and provides numerous convenience features that make Csound easier to work with. For details on how to use CsoundQt, see Chapter 5. Several other “front end” programs, each providing a different set of features, are also available. For details on the latter, see Chapter 9. Important note: Prior to version 0.7, CsoundQt was called QuteCsound. In Csound Power!, the program is referred to by its new name.
Because the topics we’ll be discussing are complex and interrelated, you may find that a little patience will come in handy. You may find it helpful to make a mental note of any questions that come to mind and trust that the answers will appear in due course. The opening section of this chapter, for instance, mentions “front-end” programs that work with Csound, without explaining exactly what a front end is or how it relates to Csound. For a full explanation of that topic, you’ll have to wait for (or jump ahead to) Chapter 9.
In Chapter 2, “Downloading and Installing,” you’ll learn how to download and install Csound. If you’re eager to get started and don’t want to spend too much time poring over technical details, after installing Csound you can move on to Chapter 3, “QuickStart Projects,” which lays out a few QuickStart projects in hands-on fashion.
Csound is a computer programming language, and Chapter 4, “The Structure and Syntax of a .csd File,” explains the precise syntax you’ll need to understand while typing your code. Chapter 5 explains how to use the powerful, and fairly friendly, CsoundQt interface. In Chapter 6, “Building Your Own Instruments and Effects,” we return to coding with a discussion of Csound’s variable types, arithmetic operations, logic statements, and more.
The most important chapter in this book is probably Chapter 7, “Thirty Opcodes You Must Know.” Here you’ll find detailed discussions of several dozen of Csound’s most important opcodes. The opcodes, such as oscillators and filters, are what you’ll use to build your own Csound instruments. Chapter 8, “Writing a Csound Score,” explains the features you’ll use when creating musical scores in Csound. Chapter 9 introduces some alternative front-end programs that can be used with Csound. Chapter 10, “Using Csound with MIDI, OSC, Pd, Python, and Live Audio,” discusses using Csound in real time, primarily with MIDI, but also using OSC and for processing live audio.
MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is an industry-wide communications protocol used by music hardware and software for sending control messages. Developed in 1982, MIDI defines a number of message types. For further information, see www.midi.org.
OSC (Open Sound Control) is a communications protocol for computers, synthesizers, and multimedia devices. OSC overcomes many of the limitations of MIDI but is less widely supported and requires more expert knowledge of the user. For further information, see http://opensoundcontrol.org.
What you won’t find in Csound Power! is a complete discussion of every feature of Csound. Such a discussion would take several thousand pages! While we’ll dig into some fairly sophisticated concepts as we go along, this book is written primarily for new users. It’s designed to tell you everything you need to know to get started with Csound and then move forward. As you become a power user, you’ll naturally want to draw on other resources. (A list of the main resources can be found at the end of this chapter.)
Nor will you find much discussion of the basics of sound and digital audio. This material has been extensively covered elsewhere—for instance, in Working with Audio (Course Technology PTR, 2011) by Stanley R. Alten. Some of the technical terms will be defined in Csound Power! when they’re first used, but for the big picture, you’ll need to consult other resources.