The Csound Catalog with Audio (review)

Richard Boulanger, editor: The Csound Catalog with Audio. CD-ROM, 2000; US$ 19.95; available from cSounds.com; http://www.cSounds.com

Introduction

The Csound Catalog with Audio (CCWA) is a CD-ROM containing over 2,000 Csound orchestra and score text files along with their rendered audio (in mp3 format in the most recent version). This project is an outgrowth of The Csound Book, also edited by Richard Boulanger, a recently published, authoritative reference guide to the popular, if somewhat arcane, direct digital synthesis software. The first chapter of The Csound Book, an extensive tutorial on instrument design written by Richard Boulanger, is provided on the CCWA disc in HTML format. The disc also includes Csound binaries for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux; the Csound source code; and a large collection of WAV and AIFF sound files grouped under the heading "Impulses and Samples."

Because CCWA is an offshoot of the book--it has been described as the "missing 3^rd CD-ROM" from that publication--the question arises as to how much it depends on the user owning the book as well. CCWA duplicates the score and orchestra files from the book's CD-ROMs, except for most of the instruments actually referenced in the book chapters (though some are provided in collections listed under the authors' names), and adds pre-rendered audio. Because the first chapter of The Csound Book is also available on CCWA, the score and orchestra files (without rendered audio) for that chapter are included.

For those who own the book, the primary value added to those materials by CCWA is the provision of pre-rendered audio for the Csound instruments. This is a significant feature in that the time required to render the audio for such a large number of instruments would be prohibitive. The presence of the pre-rendered audio enables a more experimental and experiential approach to examining the instruments than would otherwise be possible. The only drawback is that, because most of the instruments from the book chapters themselves are not included on CCWA, one must still render all of those examples manually.

For users without the book, the material provides a wealth of Csound examples to imitate and explore. Of particular value is the inclusion of the comprehensive Csound instrument design chapter from The Csound Book in HTML format. At US$ 19.95, CCWA provides an inexpensive entrée to the large set of features available in Csound, while still providing some valuable written tutorial materials via the included chapter.

Description

The interface to the resources of CCWA is provided in HTML format with separate index pages for Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. After a Splash screen, the catalog is set up as a navigation frame and a content frame. The primary sections in the initial navigation frame are "The Csound Catalog," "Learning Csound," "Csound References," "Csound Music," and "Csound Software."

The Csound Catalog

The Csound Catalog section--by title presumably the most important--has several categories, each of which leads to score and orchestra files along with the rendered audio. In general, it is not clear what aspect of Csound each of the instruments in the catalog is meant to demonstrate. Some instruments are clearly documented in the orchestra or score files, but many contain no documentation whatsoever. Even as a fairly experienced Csound user, I often had difficulty gleaning the purpose of an example from its naming shortcuts and cryptic comments. Only by carefully examining the orchestras is it possible to discover their purpose. For a new user looking for clear examples of specific techniques to emulate, this is a problem.

The most important category in the Catalog section is "Instruments with Audio," which leads to the subcategories "Collections," "Students," "Internet," and "Authors." The "Authors" section refers to instruments provided by authors of some of the chapters in The Csound Book (and some of the chapters on the book's CD-ROMs) that are sometimes related to the content of the chapters, but not necessarily so. These seem...