Software audio synthesis environments typically consist of an

audio programming language This is a list of notable programming languages optimized for sound production, algorithmic composition, and sound synthesis. * ABC notation, a language for notating music using the ASCII character set * ChucK, strongly timed, concurrent, and on- ...

(which may be

graphical Graphics () are visual images or designs on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, screen, paper, or stone, to inform, illustrate, or entertain. In contemporary usage, it includes a pictorial representation of data, as in design and manufacture ...

) 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 Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a soft ...

(how difficult is it for beginners to generate some kind of meaningful output) *

Learnability Learnability is a quality of products and interfaces that allows users to quickly become familiar with them and able to make good use of all their features and capabilities. Software testing In software testing learnability, according to ISO/IEC 9 ...

(how steep the

learning curve A learning curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between how Skill, proficient people are at a task and the amount of experience they have. Proficiency (measured on the vertical axis) usually increases with increased experience ...

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 egardless of effortwith 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

sinewave A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a mathematical curve defined in terms of the ''sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a smooth periodic function. It occurs often in ma ...

pink noise Pink noise or noise is a signal or process with a frequency spectrum such that the power spectral density (power per frequency interval) is inversely proportional to the frequency of the signal. In pink noise, each octave interval (halving ...

, or

FFT A fast Fourier transform (FFT) is an algorithm that computes the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) of a sequence, or its inverse (IDFT). Fourier analysis converts a signal from its original domain (often time or space) to a representation in the ...

) 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 metaphor In user interface design, an interface metaphor is a set of user interface visuals, actions and procedures that exploit specific knowledge that users already have of other domains. The purpose of the interface metaphor is to give the user instanta ...

s are used (e.g. boxes-and-wires, documents, flow graphs, hardware mixing desks).

General

Programming language features

Data interface methods

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

Subjective comparisons

Building blocks of sound and sound "quality"

User interface

General

Programming language features

Data interface methods

Technical

References

See also