Comparison of audio synthesis environments

Software audio synthesis environments typically consist of an audio programming language (which may be graphical) and a user environment to design/run the language in. Although many of these environments are comparable in their abilities to produce high-quality audio, their differences and specialties are what draw users to a particular platform. This article compares noteworthy audio synthesis environments, and enumerates basic issues associated with their use.

Subjective comparisons

Audio synthesis environments comprise a wide and varying range of software and hardware configurations. Even different versions of the same environment can differ dramatically. Because of this broad variability, certain aspects of different systems cannot be directly compared. Moreover, some levels of comparison are either very difficult to objectively quantify, or depend purely on personal preference.

Some of the commonly considered subjective attributes for comparison include:

• Usability (how difficult is it for beginners to generate some kind of meaningful output)
• Learnability (how steep the learning curve is for new, average, and advancing users)
• Sound "quality" (which environment produces the most subjectively appealing sound)
• Creative flow (in what ways does the environment affect the creative process - e.g. guiding the user in certain directions)

These attributes can vary strongly depending on the tasks used for evaluation.

Some other common comparisons include:

• Audio performance (issues such as throughput, latency, concurrency, etc.)
• System performance (issues such as buggyness or stability)
• Support and community (who uses the system and who provides help, advice, training and tutorials)
• System capabilities (what is possible and what is not possible [regardless of effort] with the system)
• Interoperability (how well does the system integrate with other systems from different vendors)

Building blocks of sound and sound "quality"

Audio software often has a slightly different "sound" when compared against others. This is because there are different ways to implement the basic building blocks (such as sinewaves, pink noise, or FFT) which result in slightly different aural characteristics. Although people can of course prefer one system's "sound" over another, perhaps the best output can be determined by using sophisticated audio analyzers in combination with the listener's ears. The idea of this would be to arrive at what most would agree is as "pure" a sound as possible.

User interface

The interface to an audio system often has a significant influence on the creative flow of the user, not because of what is possible (the stable/mature systems listed here are fully featured enough to be able to achieve an enormous range of sonic/compositional objectives), but because of what is made easy and what is made difficult. This is again very difficult to boil down to a brief comparative statement. One issue may be which interface metaphors are used (e.g. boxes-and-wires, documents, flow graphs, hardware mixing desks).

General

Name	Creator	Primary Purpose(s)	First release date	Most recent update	Cost	License	Main user interface type	Development status
ChucK	Ge Wang and Perry Cook	Realtime synthesis, live coding, pedagogy, acoustic research, algorithmic composition	2004	v1.2.1.3, Oct 2009	Free	GPL	Document	Immature (32bit-only)
Csound	Barry Vercoe	Realtime performance, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, acoustic research	1986	v5.12, September 2010	Free	LGPL	Document, graphical for realtime	Mature
Impromptu	Andrew Sorensen	Live coding, algorithmic composition, hardware control, realtime synthesis, 2d/3d graphics programming	2006	v2.5, October 2010	Free	Proprietary	Document	Stable
Max/MSP	Miller Puckette	Realtime audio + video synthesis, hardware control	mid-1980s	v5.1.7, December 2010	$699.00	Proprietary	Graphical	Mature
nsound	Nick Hilton	Realtime synthesis, offline audio rendering, algorithmic composition, acoustic research	2003	0.7.3, December 7, 2009	Free	GPL	Document	Mature
Pure Data	Miller Puckette	Realtime synthesis, hardware control, acoustic research	1990s	v0.43, March 29, 2011	Free	BSD-like	Graphical	Stable
Reaktor	Native Instruments	Realtime synthesis, hardware control, GUI design	1996	5.6.1, Sept. 2011	$399	Proprietary	Graphical	Mature
SuperCollider	James McCartney	Realtime synthesis, live coding, algorithmic composition, acoustic research, all-purpose programming language	March 1996	v3.4, July 2010	Free	GPL	Document	Mature
sfront	John Lazzaro	MPEG-4/SA implementation, Realtime synthesis, algorithmic composition, structured Web audio.	1997	0.96, 1/12/10	Free	BSD-like	Document	Stable
Usine	Olivier Sens	Audio manipulation, live coding, algorithmic composition	2006	v5.20, June 2010	Free/120€	Proprietary	Graphical	Mature

Programming language features

Name	Textual/graphical	Object-oriented	Type system
ChucK	Textual	Yes	Static
Csound	Textual/Graphical (FLTK)	No
Impromptu	Mostly textual	-	Dynamic & static
Max/MSP	Graphical	No
nsound	Textual	Yes	Dynamic
Pure Data	Graphical	No
Reaktor	Graphical	No
SuperCollider	Textual/Graphical (Cocoa/Swing/Qt)	Yes	Dynamic
MPEG-4/SA	Textual	No	No
Usine	Graphical	Yes (scripts)	Dynamic

Data interface methods

Interfaces between the language environment and other software or hardware (not user interfaces).

Name	Shell scripting		MIDI		OSC		HID	VST	Audio Units		Other
	In	Out	In	Out	In	Out			As host	As unit
ChucK			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Csound	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes			binding from Haskell (hCsound)
Impromptu			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes			Yes	No	Bidirectional Scheme to Objective-C bridge
Max/MSP			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
nsound	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	C++ API, Python API
Pure Data	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	bindings for Python, Lua, Java, GStreamer
Reaktor			Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		Yes	No	Yes
SuperCollider	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes		No	Yes	LADSPA Host, scsynth can be controlled by OSC messages (Python, Scala, Ruby etc.)
sfront			Yes	Yes	No	No	No				MPEG-4/SA language implementation.
Usine	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes			Multi-touch

Technical

Name	Operating system(s)	Source code language(s)	Programming (plugin) API language(s)	Other technical features
ChucK	Mac OS X, Linux, Windows	C++		Unified timing mechanism (no separation between audio-rate and control-rate), command-line access
Common Music	Mac OS X, Linux, Windows	Scheme, C++	Scheme, SAL	command-line access
Csound	Mac OS X, Linux, Windows	C, C++	C; also Python, Java, Lisp, Lua, Tcl, C++	IDE (QuteCsound), multitrack interface (blue); several analysis/resynthesis facilities; can compute double-precision audio; Python algorithmic composition library
Impromptu	Mac OS X	C, C++, Objective-C, Scheme	C, C++, Objective-C, Scheme	Native access to most OS X APIs including Core Image, Quartz, Quicktime and OpenGL. Impromptu also includes its own statically typed (inferencing) systems language for heavy numeric processing - OpenGL, RT AudioDSP etc..
Max/MSP	Mac OS X, Windows	C, Objective-C	C, Java, JavaScript, also Python and Ruby via externals
nsound	Mac OS X, Linux, Windows	C++	C++, Python	Real-Time Dynamic Digital Filters
Pure Data	Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, iPod	C	C, C++, FAUST, Haskell, Java, Lua, Python, Q, Ruby, Scheme, others
Reaktor	Mac OS X, Windows
SuperCollider	Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, FreeBSD	C, C++, Objective-C	C++	Client-server architecture; client and server can be used independently, command-line access
sfront	Linux, Windows(via cygwin)	C++		Conforming MPEG-4/SA implementation.
Usine	Windows	Delphi	C++