"Csound Journal" continues to demonstrate how differently the authors of the articles approach Csound. From Jacob Joaquin's "dseq" drum machine language, Pedro Kröger's use of GNU Make, Brian Redfern's live flute synthesis, Art Hunkins's journeys with controllers, and Akito Van Troyer's massive table constructions in his piece "Gamelan_Study1", all the articles are interesting and lively in the way they approach Csound.   

For the beginner, especially one just starting out on a particular path, the build process, implementation of frontends, use of interfaces, and integration of Csound with other applications and protocols can seem somewhat problematical as one tries to create a meaningful and individual approach which compiles, is error free, and sounds good.  Thus I think interest in "How To" while Csound continues to grow, change, deprecate, and develop is important. These articles represent solutions for the authors who have spent time working with various aspects of Csound and hopefully may spur others to pursue similar goals or at least take a look at aspects they find useful, and incorporate some of those concepts in their own work.

Csound 5.08 was released, and version 5.09 is on the way.  It is really great "The Canonical Csound Manual" has kept pace and has been in synchronization with Csound releases in order to help explain "What's new in Csound...", as well as "Recent Developments", and provide definitions, examples, and explanations of new opcodes.  Csound5.08 is a long way from Csound5.0, and the developers continue to do great work.

We hope you enjoy these articles, and that "Csound Journal" continues to be a resource as well as an opportunity for you.  As always, we would like to hear more about your development, compositions, experiences, performances, ideas, and plans for the future as you enjoy working with Csound.

James Hearon


Since the last Journal we've had some wonderful developments in the community, particularly with the redesign of Csounds.com. (Many thanks to Cesare Marilungo for his work on this!) It is also nice to see more people contributing their thoughts and work on Csound; I believe the collaboration amongst everyone has helped to continue Csound's growth and lead it in positive ways.

I think the diversity of the articles in this issue highlight some of the many technical and musical interests of the community. It's great to see such wide array of concerns be able to be addressed by the same tool, and I think we'll find that as the concerns of composers and artists continue to develop, Csound will be right there continuing to grow and expand to address our needs. I have enjoyed reading this issue's articles and continue to look forward to seeing what creative work our community creates with this wonderful program.

Steven Yi