This page is dedicated to the continuing development of Csound for MacOS 9 and earlier (the "Legacy MacOS"). Included here are links to the latest official versions of "Mills" Csound, downloads of preview releases with enhanced features, and several packages that may make using Csound on the Legacy Mac platform more enjoyable.
With the release of Csound 5, I am no longer distributing or working on the MacOS X version of Csound. Everyone is strongly encouraged to install one of the official MacOS X packages of Csound 5 available from the Sourceforge site.
Csound is originally by Barry Vercoe of the MIT Media Lab. Mills Csound was created at Mills College by Matt Ingalls, Mike Berry, and Dave Madole. They were working from a version of MIT Csound for the Mac created by Bill Gardner and Dan Ellis with assistance from Richard Boulanger. For a time, Mills Csound was updated and supported by John ffitch of Bath University. Most recently, Csound 5 and Csound 4.23f12 have supported MacOS 7-9 because of my efforts. Csound 5 was developed by a collaborative team from around the world including John ffitch, Istvan Varga, Michael Gogins, Victor Lazzarini, Steven Yi, Andres Cabrera, John Ramsdell, and myself. Csound includes the contributions of countless other individuals.
The versions of Csound provided on this page are based on the latest Mills "Perf" sources and the latest canonical Csound 4.23 sources available from the Csound Sourceforge project. I am providing complete source code files as well. Canonical Csound ("Perf" on MacOS) is now free software released under the terms of the GNU LGPL license.
Csound 5.07 released on October 12, 2007
Csound 5.00 was released in February of 2006 and several updates have been released since then. The most recent version available for MacOS 7-9 is Csound 5.07. Csound 5 packages for the Legacy MacOS are available from the Csound Sourceforge project.
Csound 5 is highly recommended for all users -- it has many improvements, new features, and advantages over the previous Csound 4.xx series. Version 5.04 for MacOS fixes the most significant issues of version 5.01 (such as the utilities not working) and begins to implement many new features in the front end. With version 5.05, CsoundFront can now run multiple non-real-time renders simultaneously. Version 5.06 ensures that appropriate file types and icons are assigned to all new files written by Csound.
It is no longer necessary to keep Csound 4 on your computer. If you do desire to keep it around though, the Csound 4 packages available below are the ones that I recommend using the most.
I am not always able to prepare a new MacOS package everytime a new version of Csound is released. If you do not see an OS 9 package under the latest release on Sourceforge, check the other recent releases or see which version is linked to on the Csound front page.
New February 23, 2005
This package is a snapshot of the final development work that I did on Csound 4 for Macintosh computers running System 7 through OS 9. The snapshot is based on Csound 4.23f12 and is a preview release that includes new features which were in the experimental stage of development. These features were not all finished for this release and many of them (but not all) have been incorporated into Csound 5. The main applications (Csound and Perf) are stable enough for everyday use, but other included software may be tempermental.
This package will be useful to any Csound user who wants a complete set of utilities. The analysis utilities are fully functional and the other utilities are included as separate console applications (most of which work). If you download and use any version of MacOS Csound, I would really appreciate your feedback.
Download binary release: Csound-20050223.img.bin (2.7MB)
Download source code: Csound-source-20050223.img.bin (3.2MB)
Read the Release Notes
Changes in this snapshot:
Updated February 7, 2005
This is a package of new opcodes for Csound 4 packaged as "plugins." The libraries in this distribution are designed to be used with Mills Csound 4.23f12 and the development snapshots on this page. They do not work with Csound 5 or MacCsound. Many of the included opcodes are now a part of Csound 5 though (and, by extension, the latest versions of MacCsound). The following opcode libraries have NOT been added to Csound 5 yet because they are flawed or deemed not useful enough (by me): chosclib, spirallib, shapelib, and hardsynclib. Please send me an email if you use them and would like them added to Csound 5.
Plugin Pack A adds a collection of new opcodes from several different authors to your Csound resources. There are 7 plugin libraries with a total of 22 new unit generators. Included are: pvsbasiclib, newfilterslib, and syncgrainlib by Victor Lazzarini; chosclib by John ffitch; spirallib from Bradley Bell; and shapelib and hardsynclib by Anthony Kozar.
Examples, documentation, and source code are included.
Download Mac package: OpcodePluginPackA1.0.smi.bin (949K)
Download platform-independent sources: OpcodePluginPackA1.0.tgz (577K)
New September 10, 2004
This is the previous preview release of Mills Csound 4. The same caveats apply as for the above release.
Download binary release: Csound-20040910.img.bin (2.1MB)
Download source code: Csound-source-20040910.img.bin (3.0MB)
Read the Release Notes
This snapshot includes:
New August 19, 2004
The latest version of canonical Csound for MacOS has been released on Sourceforge!! Binary and source code releases are available in the "csoundmac" package on Sourceforge.
This is an update of the Mills College version of Csound developed by Matt Ingalls, Dave Madole, and Mike Berry. It includes Perf 4.23f12, fully updated with the latest canonical code including all bug fixes that were in CVS as of Aug. 18th . This release also includes Csound 1.5.4, a new version of the Mac graphical front-end which includes numerous bug fixes and feature updates that allow it to take advantage of recent changes in canonical Csound.
See the release notes on Sourceforge or the information in the distribution itself for full details of the changes in Csound 4.23f12 for Macs.
New July 20, 2004
A software development kit for making Cscore standalone programs and Cscore plugins for MacOS 9 and earlier. Version 1.1 of the SDK adds support and project files for CodeWarrior Pro 4 or later. This file is a self-mounting disk image.
Standalone Cscore programs will work with any version of Csound. Cscore plugins only work with the Csound 4 snapshots on this page (for now). Csound 5 includes an updated Cscore API but it is still buggy at this time. Once it is stable, I will try to provide a new SDK.
Download: MacCscoreSDK1.1.smi.bin (784K)
New July 7, 2004
The first release, version 1.0 of the SDK only has projects for CodeWarrior Pro 8 or later. This file is a self-mounting disk image.
Download: MacCscoreSDK1.0.smi.bin (632K)
The Score Changer software has moved to my music software page.
This is a very old (1996) utility written by Dave Madole for importing and exporting Csound analysis files as text. For example, you can export a hetro analysis file as text and edit the amplitude values by hand, then import it back to the hetro format for use with Csound. Includes support for heterodyne filter analysis, LPC analysis, phase vocoder, and convolution (impulse response) data files. Comes with C source code.
Download: MrTweaky.img.bin (132K)
This package is a Macintosh port of three Csound score utilities written by Istvan Varga. The utilities are Midi2Score, ScoreProc, and TempoMod. The ports of very minimalistic and require an understanding of the command-line usage of the originals. Full source code and CodeWarrior projects are included.
Download: ScoreUtilities1_0_0.smi.bin (384K)
If any of these links become inaccessible, please email me and I will send you a copy of the software.
I am always happy to hear from people who are using my work or to hear any suggestions that you have for improvements. Please send all feedback to the temporary email address below and I will reply from my "real" address.
THANKS!! :)
Anthony Kozar
web-feedback-1001@anthonykozar.net.
Last modified December 18, 2007.