[linux-audio-user] Koan / Generative music for Linux

[Paul Winkler]

On Mon, Nov 25, 2002 at 11:33:38PM +0100, Aidan Mark Humphreys wrote:
> Are there any serious generative music programs for Linux?

my first thought is to use not a program but a programming
language.  Four development tools that come to mind:

1)  Pd. haven't used it much, yet, but it seems quite powerful.

2) KeyKit.  A MIDI gui environment for algorithmic composition.
scriptable IIRC. I played with it for a few minutes a long
time ago, don't know its current status.

3) omde / pmask (pythonsound.sf.net). A set of python libraries
for algorithmic composition. Very flexible since you have
the full power of python at your disposal and can subclass
anything in the omde / pmask libs.  However, it currently
only creates csound scores as output. (I want to change that.)


4) saol / sasl (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro/sa/book/)
as implemented in sfront (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~lazzaro).
sort of a "new improved" csound; the sasl score language
is fairly simple and doesn't have many features, but the
saol orchestra language allows instruments to start and control
other instruments, which can be very powerful. The most
important addition vs. csound is the ability to easily define
your own "opcodes" (instrument building blocks) which can
be used just like the core opcodes that are defined by the
language.

And, which might be relevant for the generative music discussion,
sfront can compile your saol / sasl files into C code which
your favorite compiler can turn into an executable.
So instead of distributing a recording of one particular
run, you could distribute executable binaries to your listeners!

-- 

Paul Winkler
http://www.slinkp.com
"Welcome to Muppet Labs, where the future is made - today!"