With the Fall 2005 edition, Csound Journal has been launched again following the earlier work of Hans Mikelson and his Csound Magazine. Csound Journal belongs to the community of Csounders, and hopefully people will feel free to contribute on a regular basis. I have found plenty of good inspiration in the Csound community, which seems to have a unique personality from the other software synthesis groups. I am not exactly sure what makes that unique quality, but nevertheless I recognize it, and believe that Csounders have a strong sense of community with many interesting voices. If I move away from csound briefly and work with other synthesis engines, I find myself missing the particular challenges Csound offers, and I miss the control that csound affords over digital audio as well. I recall secretly using Csound while at work one day, and one of the company's owners happened to walk into the studio while a particularly wild sound was being rendered. I was sure I was going to be fired. Instead he looked bemused for a second, then said..."wow Jim, you have a future in making weird sounds". I took that as compliment, and replied..."sorry, I just get tired of sine waves after a while and I was just searching for something a little different". I think Csound affords plenty of opportunities for subjects to write about, ponder over, speculate about future developments, and relate news and updates about goings on and discoveries as well as modifications and improvements. Hopefully Csound Journal will continue and be still another vehicle Csounders will use regularly to help express all those different voices, opinions and ideas.
--Jim Hearon
When I had first come across Csound in the late 90's, one of the resources that greatly helped me out in learning and exploring this wonderful tool was Hans Mikelson's Csound Magazine. I remember always looking forward to new issues and appreciating very much the contributions of the authors as well as Hans' work on producing such a fine online magazine. When the Csound Magazine ceased publishing, it seemed like a vital forum for sharing knowledge, experiences, and ideas about music making with Csound had come to a close.
Since then, Csound has grown tremendously as a music making tool, a product of many long hours of development time by generous developers giving their free time to work to further the tool, as well as thoughtful suggestions by the user community. The computing power of computers has also rapidly grown in that time, opening up many new ways to look at and work with Csound.
It has been very exciting working with Jim to put together this premiere issue of the Csound Journal and I hope with it to continue the great tradition of the Csound Magazine's high-quality articles aimed at teaching and exploring the many facets of Csound and music making with it. I hope you will enjoy reading this issue, as well as consider contributing an article yourself!
--Steven Yi