emit \ eerik inpuj sound
"the removal of earth as a metaphor for the end of summer"

- defence

  after a long silence i have finally composed a little something for eerik inpuj sound.  the track is called "the removal of earth as a metaphor for the end of summer" and i have composed it using a musical rendering language called Csound.  
  given that most of the audience who downloads and listens to the music of eerik inpuj sound has a tracking background, i feel a need to justify using Csound.  first and foremost, eerik inpuj sound is about exploring the fringes of music and sound, and what better way to explore than to follow new paths?  to be certain, Csound is significantly more complicated than any tracking program.  i will certainly admit this, but follow it with the question as to why the complexity is of any importance?  while Csound is esoteric and demanding, it is capable of things which would be difficult to implement in a tracker format, such as the dynamic control of instruments and variables within the instruments.  whereas trackers operate at the level of samples, Csound allows a composer to zoom-in, if we may use optical metaphors, to the level of the signal.
  furthermore, Csound has been ported to almost every major operating system in the world, bypassing the implicit PC-bias of most module formats.  finally, as opposed to modules or MP3's, the components of a Csound orchestra and score are simply text files with an almost negligable download time.


- advice

  compiling the Csound files may be a bit confusing, so here is my quick help section.

  first, you will need some version of Csound.  The official Csound homepage is at:

http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/csound/frontpage.html

  here you will find both the source code and pre-complied versions for just about any operating system.

  after you have downloaded and installed a version of Csound, you may want to get a front end. There are several available, but i recommend downloading Csounder, an excellent windows front end for Csound.  while this is not essential, but aids in the management of files and makes compiling files conceptually easier.  
  Csounder is available at http://www.omnids.com

  those of you using the windows GUI version will get a dialogue box in which you enter the names of the orchestra (in_rem.orc), score (in_rem.sco), and output filename (your choice), as well as the file format and bit depth (16 bit recommended).  simply enter this information and hit the render button.

  for those of you using a command line version, here is a quick run through:

  if you have unzipped the in_rem.sco and in_rem.orc files to c:\csound, this is what you would type in a dos box or at the dos prompt:

csound.exe -Wsg -o in_rem.wav c:\csound\in_rem.orc c:\csound\in_rem.sco

  this will generate a 16 bit wav file named "in_rem.wav" in the csound directory.  it will be stereo 44.1kHz (as defined in the orc file) and about 4:50 long, just under 50 megs.  on my p233 it takes a little under 6 minutes to compile, so be patient.

  I have tested compiling these files under Csound 3.53 (DOS version), DirectCsound 3.52 (Windows command line DirectX based version), and Winsound 3.53 (Windows GUI version).  Theoretically, all up to date versions of Csound (3.53+) should compile these files identically, regardless of operating system.

  if you have problems feel free to contact me at kkrebs@sfu.ca, although be warned that i am only just learning Csound as well, and may not be able to solve your problems.