Right now I'm a junior in college Majoring in Computer Science, and am looking for a way to combine my studies with some of my interests. My interests being mostly in music.
I'm having trouble finding any resources online on how to code even a simple digital synthesizer.
I'm familiar with Csound which is interesting, but it's instruments that are made on a command line have to be scripted to be played, and I want to be able to create a stand-alone program, that can be played with either the standard keyboard used for typing or a usb keyboard. I see tons of free VST instruments at KVR and am wondering how people create those.
I'd figure creating simple single oscillator/filter synths would be a good step towards exploring the possibilities of sound design with a computer, which is how digital granular synthesis came to be.
If anyone can make any suggestions or point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.
Posts
http://ygrabit.steinberg.de/~ygrabit/public_html/index.html
Perhaps you're a mac & linux user, though, and you want to make audio units, using Apple's AU SDK:
http://developer.apple.com/audio/audiounits.html
There's a bunch of sites related to VST development, such as this one:
http://www.axiworld.be/vst.html
I've also read about a lot of windows VST instruments being created with a development environment called Synthmaker:
http://synthmaker.co.uk/
but personally they all sound bland and uninspired to me. They might get you pointed in the right direction.
If you're less of a geek than I'm assuming, you might be more into a 4th gen language like MAX: http://cycling74.com/
Does that help?
Thanks a bunch.