Hi, I recently decided to investigate using Csound from the unix (or unix-
like) terminal in MacOSX. I was surprised to discover that when using Csound in this way the minimum buffer size is 512 samples, while on MacCsound the minimum is around 128. By minimum I mean the smallest buffer
I can use without the audio breaking up when playing (or sequencing) the
instruments in real-time.
I'm using a PowerBook G4 15" 1.25ghz, with 1gb RAM, using Csound 5.08.
I typically run Logic Express or Pro 7 to sequence the Csound instruments.
The command line options I use are:
csound -d -n -M0 -odac -b512 -B2048 rt.csd
Any insights anyone can offer into why this is would be much appreciated.
Perhaps MacCsound has some way of making sure Csound instruments are given
priority for processor time?
Thank You.
Re: csound command line compared to maccsound
MacCsound uses its own real-time audio implementation which has reportedly always ran well. On the commandline, the default audio implementation is based on PortAudio which I have personally found to not be that great. There is also an option for communicating directly with CoreAudio (OS X's audio framework). That works better for me. Try adding this flag to your commandline and see if you get better performance:
-+rtaudio=coreaudio
Anthony
Thanks very much for your
Thanks very much for your help.
Tried your suggestion, and latency is significantly improved, but still not to what I consider a usable degree.
Can you or anyone else tell me what the latency is like when using Csound from the command line on an intel-based, or even G5 mac?