[PlanetCCRMA] supercollider alternative

[Torsten Anders]

On Sat, 2003-03-29 at 15:27, Ryan Gallagher wrote:
> Hi, and thanks for the thoughtfull response.

Thanks too.

> --- Torsten Anders <t.anders@qub.ac.uk> wrote:
> > why not giving the Max family a try (jmax, PD...). [...]
> I've used both PD and jMax quite a bit... but somehow they don't
> inspire the same level of creativity in me as supercollider.  I feel
> restrained by the GUI rather than liberated by it.  Don't get me wrong,
> I think both are great programs and I've built some pretty big/fun PD
> patches, but somehow SC just seems cleaner, faster, I don't know...
> clearer to me.
> 
> > Other audio languages with certain aspects comparable to SC are:
> > Nyquist, SAOL, csound/iCsound (and CLM, as you mentioned). [...]
> 
> Hmm... thank's for the list I'll investigate Nyquist and SAOL. 

Don't expect too much. I did not use them myself, but I read their docs
-- they are far less evolved then SC.

>  I've
> really been interested in csound for a long while (the silly reason I
> haven't been able to dive it is the lack of a clear starting point...
> canonical csound? icsound? "Maurizio Umberto Puxeddu's unofficial
> csound"? macCsound, "Istvan Varga's optimzed csound"? ARGHH!!! and now
> I need to pick a front end?!?)  If you know any clear winners in the
> "real-time" csound category, I'd love to hear your opinion.

The differences between the various csound version are not that big on
the language level (perhaps icsound is different in this). 'canonical
csound' is the canonical version, hence the name. I would start using
this one. It compiles/well on UNIX. Other versions are out there to be
better in certain respects (e.g. adding better real time support on
certain platforms, GUI capabilities, or video stuff). I do not know so
much about their specific differences, you need to check this out for
yourself: www.csounds.com

But again be warned: don't expect too much. I think, csound is great
because many of its opcodes are great. But the language is very little
expressive, not only compared to SC, it is little expressive even
compared to C!

> > Anyway, if you are looking for the power of the real thing -- why not
> > switching to a Mac ;) SC itself is free...
> 
> I currently boot into macos 9 on my powerbook and run SC 2 when I do
> performances... I've been using the mac for music less and less though.
>  Soon I'm going to set up a PC/linux laptop to use for performance.

Hm, I am still running MacOS 9 for SC, in my view this is still the best
version if you are just a user. But some guys already use the MacOS X
version for composition/concerts... If you already have a Mac + SC, to
be honest, I would _not_ look for alternatives ;-)

PPCLinux would not make any sence to me: as OS I prefer MacOS X, but if
I want to use Linux software I run a x86-Linux, because this platform is
much better supported and more software compiles easily.

Best,
Torsten

-- 
Torsten Anders
Sonic Arts Research Centre
Queens University Belfast
Tel: +44 28 9027 4831 (office)
     +44 28 9066 7439 (private)