Csound – sound and music computing system

Csound is a domain-specific computer programming language for audio programming. It is called Csound because it is written in C, unlike some of its predecessors.

Csound has a strong tradition as a tool for composing electro-acoustic pieces. It is used by composers and musicians for any kind of music that can be made with the help of the computer. Csound has traditionally been used in a non-interactive score driven context, but nowadays it is mostly used in in a real-time context. Csound can run on a host of different platforms including all major operating systems as well as Android and iOS. Csound can also be called through other programming languages such as Python, Lua, C/C++, Java, etc.

One of the main principles in Csound development is to guarantee backwards compatibility. You can still render a Csound source file from 1986 on the latest Csound release, and you should be able to render a file written today with the latest Csound in 2036.

This is free and open source software.

Website: csound.com
Support: GitHub Code Repository
Developer: Many contributors
License: GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1

Csound is written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

Return to Audio Programming Languages Home Page

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