The advantage of this setup is that separate programs can collaborate to make complex sounds.
The disadvantage of this setup is that it makes it very hard to reproduce results, you basically need a Docker image with the exact same version of everything. And some script to launch and connect all programs correctly.
Some composition systems like LMMS reduce that problem by having synthesizers as plugins, so that you don't have to setup any connections yourself.
Contains a large database of instruments, and allows you to edit them. This is a fun toy.
Instruments are edited on a GUI. It is a multi-window program, and you open new windows from new windows from new windows, all filled with hundreds of virtual knobs that you drag with your keyboard, and which would be better done from textual software like Csound. It is a thing of beauty.
And they have some crappy policy of asking for 45 USD for binary downloads.
Compiling from source:
git clone https://github.com/zynaddsubfx/zynaddsubfx
cd zynaddsubfx
git checkout a789866de4d45a784c1f4d95fcf5a1938347baef
sudo apt build-dep zynaddsubfx
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j`nproc`
fails with:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/bin/cxxtestgen", line 7, in <module>
import cxxtest.cxxtestgen
File "/usr/share/cxxtest/cxxtest/__init__.py", line 33, in <module>
from cxxtest.cxxtestgen import *
File "/usr/share/cxxtest/cxxtest/cxxtestgen.py", line 18, in <module>
import __release__
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '__release__'
Ubuntu 20.04: sound preview worked, first hat that trailing Contra-like sound artifacts (like spd-say), but then it went away?
Feels like a lot of effort was put into usability, including keyboard shortcuts by default, seems like a powerful and easy to start using software to compose music!
Has OK step sequencer non-realtime up/down/left/right guitar based composition interface.
Has chord insertion.
Has bend editor.
Could be more amazing, but it is OK.
A bit limited by being very "guitar oriented". Shows you guitar strings, and you enter offset to each string. So to enter two adjacent notes you need to use two seprate strings and thing about the offsets. If only it had a more piano based interface.
Drum notation is also atrocious, you have to go to the top chord, and use high numbers starting at 36.
Video 1. Ardour 6 Quickstart (recording, editing, mixing and exporting) by unfa (2020) Source. unfa is a helpful Ardour master and open source software junkie at your YouTube service.
Very easy to use and pretty powerful MIDI creator!!!
One of the rare audio applications actually works with PulseAudio on Ubuntu 20.04 out-of-the-box, so you don't have to turn off every other audio application!!!
Has lot's of plugins built-in just working out of the box, e.g. ZynAddSubFX out-of-the-box without doing a gazillion complex setup connections.
Most plugins are just simple toys however, ZynAddSubFX is the only super powerful one. The others are more LMMS integrate however, and seem to use a more dedicated LMMS GUI style.
TODO can you do liver performance with a virtual instrument?
If you open vmpk, you can then right click on a piano track, and go MIDI, Input and it just shows up there, and it does produce sound as shown at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpeP2th08ak
TODO: what about recording the input MIDI? Yes, there is a record button on the piano roll!
XML file format (but with 99% of the action of interest in a domain-specific language on the CsInstruments and CsScore elements) that can be played and the reference implementation. Offers complex effects out-of-box apparently.
Allows you to easily define instruments with seemingly arbitrary mathematical functions, and then use them to play notes at given time intervals.
The instrument functions can be parametrized, and each note played can have different parameters.
The instrument definition actually defines a block diagram graph, much like a hardware synthesizer would.
Csound is so not-bloated that it contains an UI system. And it includes an interactive virtual MIDI keyboard that interacts with parameter knobs: www.csounds.com/manual/html/MidiTop.html
If only it had been written in Python... the array manipulation boilerplate would be likely perfect for NumPy, and this would have been exactly what Ciro Santilli wanted!
CSound states that one of its design goals is backward compatibility, and it shows. Some of the stuff is utterly arcane, e.g. you have to remember what GEN10, GEN11, etc. mean instead of having named enums.
It just worked on Ubuntu 20.04 no questions asked:
iainmccurdy.org/csound.html about 100 CC BY-SA examples. Each is a minimal study showing a specific technique, not a full composition, some seem advanced. Dude's a beast.
Documentation-wise, it's a bit lacking. The only dude who can explain it really well, Dr Richard Boulanger, made the "The Csound Book" closed source, so, congrats, this will forever hurt the popularity of Csound.
2.5.0 manual prebuilt download install on Ubuntu 20.04 just worked. Launch directly from unzip without install. Play with examples under install/Examples
Pop music cannot be good by definition: any art that appeals to the masses (Popular!) has to be a boring watered down version of everything, and therefore boring shit. Just like the movies: high budget movies are shit.
The good songs stopped before of just after Ciro Santilli was born, they were originally heard by his parent's generation. Those young new kids are boring.
Video 15. Disparada by Jair Rodrigues (1968) Source. This song is simply amazing. Not exactly MPB, a bit more towards country, but close enough. This was as the track of some soap opera.Video 16. Deixa Isso Pra Lá by Jair Rodrigues (1964) Source. Fantastic early example of early rap music!!! This is regocnized example at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfnDEuuPq4Q which builds upon the 1964 song. Amazing. An amazing live performance at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3E1uHdrJws, only not using that as the default link as it is not from the official channel.
Vinicius de Moraes. Many of his lyrics are poetry. Notably, he has some "children" songs that you think about as an adult and go "oh fuck". For some reason, Ciro can't help but think that he looks like a pedophile, but he doesn't have any scandals apparently, poor dude. He was a drunkard for sure though.
Video 17. A Casa by Vinicius de Moraes (1972) Source. Children song.Video 18. Tarde em Itapuã by Vinicius de Moraes (1971) Source.
www.dicionariotupiguarani.com.br/dicionario/itapua/ gives the meaning of "Itapuã". It originates from the Tupi Guarani language, and is the name of a beach in Salvador (Praia de Itapuã), to which the song presumably refers:
Video 22. Carcará by Maria Bethânia (1981) Source. This very good interpretation likely did much to popularize the song.
Figure 2. A carcará bird. Source. Video 23. Carcará by Planeta Aves (2020) Source. A Brazilian bird watcher channel. Interestingly he mentions that the carcará actually knows how to scour post wildfire ares searching for dead animals, as mentioned in the song "it even eats burnt snakes".
Video 24. Na Rua, Na Chuava, Na Fazenda by Hyldon (1974) Source.
Roberto Carlos makes Ciro cringe, it brings back memories of pre-New Year television Galas in the early 2000s at his great aunt's home in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil.
This is the only bearable song by the artist, as it talks about going down to Ciro's beloved Santos, São Paulo, Brazil from the city of São Paulo, which lies on a plateau of about 700 meters above sea level, a trip that takes you down through the spectacular Serra do Mar tropical rainforest.
The mountainous roads of the older road, Rodovia Anchieta there are very curvy, and can be very dangerous when there is fog. The heavy truck traffic to/from the port of Santos makes this even worse.
But it also makes everything much more spectacular, as you get closer to the forest, and at slower speeds, with occasional panoramic views of the city.
The newer road, Rodovia dos Imigrantes is a straighter, safer and boring alternative to it.
Ciro remembers quite clearly when he was riding the car with his parents when he pre teen, and he could not understand why they seemed so obsessed with The Trinity et al. Ciro in particular remembers listening to Video "Refazenda by Gilberto Gil (1975)". They had picked it up of course from the 70's and 80's when they were younger.
Young Ciro would also always confuse who was whom from the three of them.
Then Ciro got older, and he understood, they are mind blowing. You do have to look back in time a bit though, lots of lukewarm stuff on later periods. The military dictatorship in Brazil was good for music.
Within the The Holy Trinity of popular Brazilian music, Caetano has the most New Age religious feel to him. He is also perhaps the most varied of the trinity however, also covering heavier topics at times.
Amazing performance at Coliseu dos Recreios, Lisbon. 1981. Discogs says original album is Legal (1970), but wiki page and photos of back disagree...
This song talks about a man's mixed desires to remain with his partner and also escape to adventure. It contains one of the most amazing sexual innuendo ever recorded: the man describes foods that his partner will serve him, and the he endlessly eats and eats and eats:
eu como, eu como, eu como, você [... huge intentional pause ...] não está entendendo quase nada do que eu digo.
translation:
I eat, I eat, I eat, you [... huge intentional pause ...] don't understand anything that I'm saying.
which makes it unclear "you" is part of "I eat you" (to eat (comer) is a slang for fucking), or if "you" is part of the next sentence.
Composed by Jorge Ben, but this interpretation is remarkable. corpo fechado (closed body) style song. This idea is much linked to Capoeira/African religion idea. E.g. a more traditional capoeira corpo fechado song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfd9j6XFmSg
Video 11. Tigresa by Caetano Veloso (1977) Source. Talks about a strong willed, unapologetic, disenchanted, but also hopeful brown skinned lover: a tigress. Ciro once knew one, but it wasn't meant to be.
Ciro used to watch a television nature show called "Planeta Terra" in the legendary TV Cultura with his parents in the couch when he was young, and under a duvet when it was a bit cold. Those days were the best. The narrator's lady voice was particularly soothing, and would easily put you in a kind of sleepy trance, her name is Valéria Grillo
TODO what was the original show exactly? Here is a sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNwfYEMdrRU Very likely just a translation of some British nature show with a custom Brazilian intro and presenter. Credits at end mention English narrator: "Eugene Fraser", and "Thirteen WNET Nature" production, which produced Nature (1982) that ran since 1982, making that a likely candidate.
It is a song against the military dictatorship in Brazil. "Você" (you) can ambiguously refer to either a loved woman, or to the dictatorship itself throughout the song.
This song is the opening theme of the 1977 children's television series based on the renowned children books of the same name by Brazilian author Monteiro Lobato.
Mostly interpreter of songs written by others. But she's just too amazing, many of her interpretations are better than the original.
God, even Ciro Santilli is slightly shocked by her death, which happened before he was born, can you imagine it at the time? She was MPB's golden girl...
This incredibly foul mouthed band was incredibly funny.
Ciro Santilli was a bit young to understand the songs at the time, but the older boys were singing them, and he sang along. So maybe there is a nostalgia factor in play.
But it can't be just that. They are just too funny and brutal, even when Ciro re-listens to it as of 2020.
Many Brazilianreligious cranks in were really happy when their plane crashed and killed all of them in 1996.
Pelados Em Santos (1995). Not too amazing, they only try to be funny by making fun of the North-Eastern accent of Brazil, which is considered somewhat funny in São Paulo, and they fail at being funny.
But it talks about Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, Ciro's idolized city, so let's hear it. They didn't live in Santos apparently, but being from São Paulo City, they would have been familiar with that popular local beach location.
Video 1. Rorogwela by Afunakwa (1970) Source. Later used as a vocal sample in the Sweet Lullaby by Deep Forest (1992), which notably featured in Where the hell is Matt (2006), an early YouTube viral video. The original destroys the Deep Forest version however.
The 60's and 70's were the days, those great proxy wars and CIA dictatorships allowed hippies to make awesome freedom music without too imminent a fear of death.
Songs making fun of things or that are pure Brazil nostalgia are also accepted. No love songs, ever. Except some by Caetano, but that's it!
Ciro Santilli 
