The Csound BookUnderstanding and using a software-synthesis language like Csound is a big undertaking. The Csound Book - from MIT Press ($55) and edited by Richard Boulanger - finally offers a comprehensive "cookbook" that can have you up and running pretty quickly.
The Csound Book and its two companion CD-ROMs gather everything necessary to use this powerful sound programming language. Applications for PC, Mac, Linux, BeOS, and other platforms are included along with 77 articles by Csound experts, tutorials from experienced Csound educators, and several hundred examples of Csound instruments. There are scores and orchestras for nearly 100 compositions made entirely with Csound, graphical user interfaces, manuals, and FAQs. If you can't find what you need in the book, surf over to the many Web pages referenced in the text for additional resources.
Sound in CCsound is a programming language for synthesizing and processing sound. To work with the language, the user creates two text files - an Orchestra and a Score - and runs them through the Csound compiler. It's a powerful approach that requires tremendous attention to detail. The Csound Book provides example files in addition to explanatory text, allowing you to try out the theories and techniques covered in the book. The CD-ROMs contain compiled audio files of each article's examples. When you can't stand to read another sentence about HRTF data sets or generating normalized indexes for wavetables, just play the sounds.
The CD-ROM articles have hyperlinks for all Csound functions. Clicking on one shows the matching entry in the manual, complete with commentary, correct syntax, and examples. That is a real productivity boost that gives users properly functioning code to use in their own creations.
Chapter and VerseIn tone, organization, and language, the texts read like material for college-level courses and are suitable for any motivated individual. There may be room in the world for a Csound for Dummies book, but this is not that book. For the most part, the authors took a practical approach and delivered informative, readable text along with actual working instruments. However, chapters vary from the practical to the abstract. Reading and making sense of the book as a whole, the way one would read a novel or even a manual for a single piece of gear, will not work.
For example, the opening article by Boulanger introduces the Csound language in an easy-to-follow progression of theories, etudes, and exercises. The article seems like a music lesson, perhaps not surprising given the many years Boulanger has taught Csound. Eric Spjut adopts a similar approach. He uses Csound to audibly illustrate fundamental concepts of digital signal processing. A musician may well find such material heavy going, at least until reaching the more useful sound examples such as Spjut's Voice Scrambler-Descrambler.
Articles of specialized interest, such as creating graphical user interfaces, performing sonification or algorithmic composition, and even the inner workings of the Csound language itself, may not be useful to all readers. Similarly, if you like the music of the various composers who have written about their work, you'll no doubt be interested in how they approach the composition process.
Some articles seem too brief for their subjects. For instance, Hans Mikelson's "Modeling `Classic' Electronic Keyboards in Csound" covers a Hammond organ - Leslie speaker emulation in seven pages, two of which are code listings. Desktop musicians, sound effects creators, producers, and sound designers will all get something out of The Csound Book, however.
I would have welcomed a more complete index. The one provided really needs more entries. Worse, the articles on the CD-ROM are not indexed at all. Because The Csound Book is encyclopedic in scope, it should offer many different ways to access the information it holds.
The Csound Book is really a kind of hyperbook: you don't so much read it as use it. The book combines executable software, instrument (patch) manuals, white papers, application notes, operation theories, user contributions, and source code to one of the most powerful sound-synthesis programs ever. The Csound Book is real value for the money.