Csound is a highly flexible and portable music synthesis software environment that runs on Linux, Unix, Macintosh, and Windows computers. From 2003 to 2008, I maintained the Csound "port" for Mac OS 9 and earlier (the "Legacy Mac OS" or "Classic Mac OS") which used to be called "Mills Csound". Below is information about various Mac versions of Csound 4 and Csound 5 plus several other related applications and utilities.
The versions of Csound described here run on PowerPC-based Macintosh computers with System 7.5, OS 7.6, OS 8, or OS 9. If you are looking for Csound for Mac OS X, I strongly encourage you to install one of the official Mac OS X packages of Csound 5 available from the Sourceforge site.
Csound was originally written by Barry Vercoe of the MIT Media Lab. Mills Csound is a Power Macintosh version that was created at Mills College by Matt Ingalls, Mike Berry, and Dave Madole. They were working from a version of MIT Csound for 68k Macs 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. In 2004, I released Mills Csound 4.23f12, the result of a year-and-a-half of maintenance and updates. Most recently, I ported and supported Csound 5 for Mac OS 7-9 and developed the Mac OS front end CsoundFront which is heavily based on the Mills Csound codebase. 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.
Since 2003, public Csound has been free software released under the terms of the GNU LGPL 2.1 license. Csound continues to be developed by an international team of programmers, researchers, and teachers using an open-source development model hosted at csound.sourceforge.net.
Announcement June 8, 2009
Because of diminishing interest in using Csound with the Classic Mac OS, both my own and others, development and maintainence of new versions of Csound for the Legacy Mac platform have stopped.
Csound 5.08 released on March 18, 2008
Csound 5.00 was released in February of 2006 and several updates have been released since then. The last version available for Mac OS 7-9 is Csound 5.08 and no new versions are expected at this time. Csound 5 packages for the Legacy Mac OS are available from the Csound Sourceforge project and include the Csound system as a set of shared libraries plus the Mac OS Classic front-end redesigned for Csound 5 and now called CsoundFront.
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 Mac OS 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 and version 5.08 fixes numerous Mac OS bugs and restores real-time audio input and xyin opcode functionality.
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.
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 Mac OS 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 Mac OS has been released on Sourceforge!! Binary and source code releases are available from the Csound Sourceforge project.
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 Mac OS 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-1003@anthonykozar.net
Last modified May 29, 2011.
