[linux-audio-user] Linux synths

[Atte André Jensen]

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003 09:06:37 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
Ken Locarnini <renueden at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Hi Atte,
> I've used Csound alot in the past too.  Mostly command line from
> Common Music which I like alot.  I'm trying to go more real-time
> though now.  I just decided I would try and get into PD!

Sounds like me two months ago. Maybe you make it (I didn't) :-)

> How is your orchestra set-up.  Do you have 1 synth per instrument per
> channel?

One long (1600+ lines) .csd file with
* one "patch/synth" per instr which gives one one patch per program
change
* a few global (always on) fx instruments
* a special "output instrument" that does a little eq + compression
* patching/routing with global variables.

Each USB keyboard sends on a seperate midi channel, but they all access
the same pool of patches. Since the Evolution will let you assign a
program change to each of the 0-9 buttons (and remember them after
poweroff) I always use the same Evolution for the same thing (one for
pads for instance) and program each button to point to different
instr's.

> I always had a hard time in Csound as I wanted to have 1 synth per 16
> channels and have them all have their own set of presets.

You could run multiple instances of csound, which might (or might
not...) give relatively poorer performance. But I don't understand why
this configuration is paramount to you..??!?

>PD supports multiple midi ports so I thought that would probably work,
>though learning another language will be tough as I know Csound well.

Be prepared that pd doesn't handle polyphonic patches gracefully IMHO.

>  I also want the graphic routines, and as you know Csound dosen't have
>  the Opengl stuff in Linux, (yet).

Might be, never messed with that...

>I also don't understand the status of Csound right now.  Is anyone
>actually working on coding Csound5? 

AFAIK the guys are working like mad, cleaning up code (and API's?) and
preparing for csound5. I even thing it's for download somewhere, maybee
sourceforge somewhere. You might also be pleased to hear that csound
recently turned GPL. There are still a few contributed opcodes that
haven't been GPL'ed (scanned opcodes for instance) but that's probl.
gonna happen soon from what I hear.

-- 
peace, love & harmony
Atte