[linux-audio-user] CLI synths

[Atte André Jensen]

S. Massy wrote:

> That's it; you, guys, convinced me to have another go at csound.

Make sure to ask again, either here, on the csound list or to me offlist 
if you need some pointers. I could throw a bunch of links at you, but 
figure it's better you say what you need when you need it. I might not 
be able to answer your question if you're trying to do things I've never 
done, but for getting-starting-stuff, I could do ok. Besides that the 
csound list if very friendly, knowing and frequented.

 > Lately,
> I've been playing with ChucK and liking it a lot, because it's rather
> simple to use and understand (especially for someone who's only
> done a bit of C here, a bit of PERL there, and mostly shell scripting in
> between); but i find the language is perhaps lacking in maturity at this
> point. Also, it's well documented and provides many simple examples, but
> not many concrete, real-life examples. Still, I would say ChucK is one
> language to keep one's eyes on...

Yeah, it's syntax makes any java/C programmer feel at home. At this 
point csound differs a bit. But familiar syntax will only take you so 
far. Mostly I feel csound is more to the point and straight-ahead. That 
said complex concepts seldom could be implemented in un-complex code. 
Chuck is mostly concerned with on-the-fly (or live) programming, which 
is cleanly supported in chuck but tricky/impossible to do in csound. But 
if (and you hinted at that yourself) you're more interrested in making a 
midi-controllable setup for realtime usage, I find csound easier to work 
with.

> So far, the only
> modular synth I found which could be accessed from the command-line is
> Om, but that involves using OSC, and would probably require me to write
> a little front-end for it, which I might or might not do, depending on
> how much time I have...

Speaking of om: Om is extremely nice, fast to work with, and uses gui in 
a way that really makes sense. The fact that om uses ladspa plugins for 
almost everything means that the speed of om is the speed of the 
plugins. So although this actually has nothing to do with om, csound is 
able to squeeze more out of my cpu. When om and (mostly) ladspa matures 
this will for sure be a killer combo. Different from csound, but never 
the less a killer combo.

-- 
peace, love & harmony
Atte

http://www.atte.dk