Csound

Csound is a sound design, music synthesis and signal processing system with a toolkit of over 500 signal processing modules. It provides facilities for composition and performance over a wide range of platforms. Before starting with OMChroma you'll need to understand the structure and syntax of the Csound's language.

Cound is a sound renderer, which works with two interdependent and complementary text-based files, the orchestra file (extension -.orc) and the score file (extension -.sco). These files constitute the Csound Orchestra and Score.

The Csound orchestra file consists of two parts : the header section and the instrument section. The header section contains the audio rate, the control rate and the number of output channels. The instrument section contains the instruments, which are designed by interconnecting opcodes that either generate or modify signals. It is in an instrument that a Digital Signal Processing algorithm is implemented.

The Csound score consists of three parts : tables, notes ad other information.

The tables are generated by mathematical function-drawing subroutines (GEN routines or f-statements). They are not requested by all of the orchestra's opcodes (modules), and are therefore not always necessary.

The notes or i-statements pass the performance parameters (P-fields) to the instrument of the orchestra following their action-time.

Other information contains, for instance, the tempo statement (or t-statement), which allows the specification of a tempo map. By default, all the temporal data are expressed in beats with a metronome of 60 to the crotchet (hence pulse = absolute time).

For more information about Csound see the Links section.