
SuperCollider - A real time audio synthesis programming language - toni
http://supercollider.sourceforge.net/
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anigbrowl
I am a huge fan of such tools and have been using various different ones for a
long time. Supercollider is one of the best...but like Max and Pd, it really
needs a graphic makeover. It is possible to do this without compromising
flexibility, as proved by Reaktor and even more impressively, by SynthMaker,
which manages to provide (relatively) quick audio gratification from an
engineering standpoint but is also hacker friendly (just add a code module and
hack away inside your own scope).

SC is for certain the most open and extensible of all these systems, though,
and is certainly more fun to get to grips with than CSound. However, I wonder
to what extent the code-first audio environment is really useful for learning,
teaching, or hacking about with audio synthesis. Certainly one wants quick
access to the code level if one is serious about DSP; on the other hand, these
kinds of environments are not such a good way to get a feel for audio, since
th code level puts a big layer of abstraction between you and the sound. The
'knobs, switches, and modulation cords' approach used by most commercial
products may seem quaintly nostalgic for the days of big analog modulars, but
it's actually very efficient.

There's also ChucK, which I haven't got around to playing with but really like
the look of its clean code, and Impromptu (ditto) which looks awesome but is
evil because it only runs on Mac and I'm a PC. By the way, Ableton's Live (a
very very capable audio workstation package) will be getting Max/MSP
integration later this year, which is a Big Deal if you like low-level
synthesis.

Sorry for the long post, this used to be my professional area but I could
never figure out how to make money out of my love of producing quirky and
interesting sounds :-/

~~~
jules
> I could never figure out how to make money out of my love of producing
> quirky and interesting sounds

The thing that immediately came to mind while listening to these SuperCollider
examples is sounds and music for computer games.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yeah, but I don't really know any game programmers, ads for sound designers
were rare, and when they did exist they wanted you to have a degree or so
(which I don't). So I went into film sound instead, then to producing. I have
no idea how all the people who do 'sound installations' and so forth (most of
which don't engage me very much) get famous enough to charge high $. I'm not
really the self-promoting type, though.

