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The Csound Book: Perspectives in Software Synthesis, Sound Design, Signal Processing,and Programming PAP/CDR Edition

by Richard Boulanger (Editor)

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Created in 1985 by Barry Vercoe, Csound is one of the most widely used software sound synthesis systems. Because it is so powerful, mastering Csound can take a good deal of time and effort. But this long-awaited guide will dramatically straighten the learning curve and enable musicians to take advantage of this rich computer technology available for creating music.

Written by the world's leading educators, programmers, sound designers, and composers, this comprehensive guide covers both the basics of Csound and the theoretical and musical concepts necessary to use the program effectively. The thirty-two tutorial chapters cover: additive, subtractive, FM, AM, FOF, granular, wavetable, waveguide, vector, LA, and other hybrid methods; analysis and resynthesis using ADSYN, LP, and the Phase Vocoder; sample processing; mathematical and physical modeling; and digital signal processing, including room simulation and 3D modeling.

CDs for this book are no longer produced. To request files, please email digitalproducts-cs@mit.edu.

ISBN-10

0262522616
ISBN-13

978-0262522618
Edition

PAP/CDR
Publisher

The MIT Press
Publication date

March 6, 2000
Language

English
Dimensions

8.97 x 7.89 x 1.47 inches
Print length

782 pages
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Editorial Reviews

Review

This book provides both a theoretical introduction and practical hints to use Csound and to tailor it to the reader's own needs. It is an excellent tutorial and much more, since a host of distinguished contributors make their own developments available. I look forward myself to developing my own sonic and musical tools with the Csound Book.

―Jean-Claude Risset, composer, Directeur de recherche, Laboratoire de Mecanique et d'Acoustique of CNRS

About the Author

Richard Boulanger is Professor of Electronic Production and Design at the Berklee College of Music and editor of The Csound Book: Perspectives in Software Synthesis, Sound Design, Signal Processing, and Programming (MIT Press, 2000).

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; PAP/CDR edition (March 6, 2000)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 782 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0262522616
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0262522618
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.95 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.97 x 7.89 x 1.47 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,653,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #507 in Personal Computer Books
- #852 in Music Composition (Books)
- #1,515 in Book Design

Customer Reviews:
32 ratings

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3.9 out of 5

32 global ratings

5 star		45%
4 star		23%
3 star		9%
2 star		23%
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Joseph Ervin Jr.

Caveat: excellent book but you'll need to download ISO files from MIT Press

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 8, 2014

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My apologies for the length of this review, but there's some "late-breaking news" you might want to know, especially as this book ain't cheap!

I almost dinged this book another star when I opened it up and discovered that it no longer comes with CDs. No problem, I thought. I'll go to the URL provided in the text and download the files. Oops, no files there. Just an e-mail link to request them from the webmaster at MIT Press. Well, the folks at MIT Press were very responsive, and I had the supplemental files on my roll-your-own CDs less than 24 hours later. No harm, no foul. Just FYI: I was given FTP access to two ISO images totaling about 1.2 gigabytes. Good thing I wasn't on dialup.

So, let me stress that, as of November, 2014, you'll need to request the supplemental files from MIT Press. This wasn't mentioned in any of the reviews here, but most of them are some years old. If you're like me and you learn best from hands-on experimentation, you're gonna want that material.

OK, here's the scoop from the perspective of a computer-savvy novice in computer music. First, CSound has a formidable learning curve. Unlike Reason or GarageBand or many other current consumer-level music programs, you don't just draw notes in instrument or loop tracks and mix them down into music. If you're here looking for CSound guidance, you probably already know this. The book is heavy on acoustic theory and the theory of sound production (that's SOUND, not just music). CSound gives you enormous control of SOUNDS at the most fundamental level. Whether or not they sound MUSICAL is an entirely separate discussion.

Second, I would have probably considered returning the book to Amazon were the folks at MIT Press not so responsive in providing the supplemental materials. You really need some of that stuff. Copying instrument parameters from the text into an editor would waste a lot of time and offer lots of chances for typos. More important, many of the chapters seem to provide instrument code (.orc), but not fully elaborated score code (.sco) in which to give instruments a workout. SCORE CODE IS ON THE CDS! Good to know. And, having immediate access to MP3 samples of the many, many instruments in action should aid your study.

One final caveat: this book dates from 2000 and the CD material is from generally the same period. The newest version of CSound I could find on the CDs was version 4-something and I'm using 6.03.1 on my iMac. Sound is sound and the fundamentals of producing it digitally are what they are. Still, the book was written when Windows XP was a "thing" and most Mac users were still using the Classic OS. There may well be code on the CD that uses opcodes that have been deprecated or which have seen a change in their required parameters. Our mileage is likely to vary.

My initial rating will be four stars, but only because the lack of supplemental material could have been a significant problem and wasn't mentioned previously. Perhaps I'll revise it to "five" after I've had a chance to delve into those 700-plus pages.

5 people found this helpful

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Riccardo

Too long a wait? too many expectation?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 16, 2000

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I have been subscribed to the csound mailing (on and off) list for 4 years now. All the topic of the book have been discussed at full length and sometimes even more thouroghly on the mailing list. This book was awaited for 2 years now and most of us thought it would never see the light. I am not impressed, Boulanger chapter, the main tutorial, is all over the place, it might waste time explaining what an envelope is and just fly over the FOSCIL oscillator, i.e. you cannot read this book away from your computer (you will need the reference to CSOUND which is not included in the book). The other chapters do a better job, even if there is a lot of crosstalk across chapters (granular synthesis is presented in several chapters, and some repeat the same material over and over). I find remarkably clear the chapters of Ffitch about the internal workings of CSOUND.

The CD ROM. Never seen content so badly organized, half of it is a download of the CSOUND page at MIT press... the main cdrom has even the ad page for the imminent release of the book (which supposedly you are already reading). The content is layed out very badly, the navigation is atrocious. It is nice to have most of the scores rendered as audio file, however the choice of the format is unfortunate (quick time MOV) and you can hear compression artifacts in the audio samples (why not use a more down to earth MP3 which is not proprietary and it is still cross platform?)

To wrap up, this is an "advanced topics in CSOUND" and not a book for everybody. CSOUND culture is for hackers, if you're one of them you'll benefit immensely from this book.

10 people found this helpful

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An opus work on both Csound and computer music

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 11, 2006

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This book is one of a relatively small number of texts that are essential for the library of the computer music practitioner. The book has two CD-ROMs full of several books worth of material. This book is not only a remarkable reservoir of information specific to the Csound compiler, it is also very useful as a general source concerning many aspects of computer music techniques and synthesis methods.

Many have lamented the terse documentation of the Csound manual since it does not provide sufficient examples of how the various opcodes and features of the language may be used by composers and researchers. The Csound Book succeeds brilliantly in filling the void. Even for the seasoned computer musician, the text provides numerous opportunities for "ah ha!" moments and spurs renewed creative responses to musical problems. Part of the reason for this lies in the abundant resources of the language itself and its continued development and refinement by members of the Csound community.

This is a great companion book, allowing the reader to explore practical applications of concepts such as Fourier synthesis, digital filter theory, chaotic systems, reverberation, and algorithmic composition. This is accomplished very elegantly and always with reference to direct experience with the aid of numerous examples of Csound code. The book serves an important function by providing concrete examples of myriad synthesis methods, digital signal processing techniques, and specialized applications within one conceptual framework.

This book is full of excellent graphics, uniform and well commented coding examples, illustrative instrument-design flowcharts, thorough indexing, appendices of various kinds, all of it extremely well edited. There is an impressive unity to the text even though different authors have written the various chapters.

There is a treasure trove of instruments and compositions contained on the CD-ROMs. Many of these are by established composers of computer music and by the authors of the various chapters. Others, however, are by students from around the world. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in computer music in general and Csound specifically.

4 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

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Jack

The one and only Reference

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 12, 2012

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This book is for CSound users who want to have a good reference on the subject of sound synthesis.

The book starts off with a simple introduction to get started using CSound. Several authors have contributed chapters to this book, to explain many aspects of creating audio from scratch using CSound. Analog synths, FM synths, sampled, granular synthesis, are all explained very well, and in great detail. Then there are the effects (delay, reverb....).

Anyone who wants to use CSound reasonably seriously must have this book on their shelf. Excelllent reference material, written in a way that I can follow to get the results I am after.

SMD

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on March 7, 2016

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Bought for a present for a friend who asked for it.

Cliente Amazon

Usato pagato "come nuovo" tutto macchiato di muffa e con cd allegato rotto

Reviewed in Italy 🇮🇹 on December 5, 2022

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La descrizione diceva come nuovo invece come si vede dalla foto il cd allegato era rotto e tutte le pagine macchiate dalla muffa. Sono insoddisfatto dell'acquisto e dispiaciuto di aver pagato come nuovo un libro in condizioni mediocri

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kkwweett

Référence absolue

Reviewed in France 🇫🇷 on September 12, 2013

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Ne serait-ce que pour l'intérêt historique (sur l'échelle de l'histoire de la musique électronique), cet ouvrage peut sans peine être considéré comme indispensable - que ne donnerai-je pas pour quelque chose d'équivalent avec pure-data!
La pertinence de ses nombreux snippets est, de plus, toujours d'actualité et tous les codes marchent aussi bien en 2013 qu'à l'époque.

One person found this helpful

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