Nyquist is a programming language for sound synthesis and analysis based on the

Lisp programming language Lisp (historically LISP) is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized prefix notation. Originally specified in 1960, Lisp is the second-oldest high-level programming language still in common ...

. It is an extension of the XLISP dialect of Lisp, and is named after Harry Nyquist. With Nyquist, the programmer designs musical instruments by combining functions, and can call upon these instruments and generate a sound just by typing a simple expression. The programmer can combine simple expressions into complex ones to create a whole composition, and can also generate various other kinds of musical and non-musical sounds. The Nyquist interpreter can read and write sound files, MIDI files, and Adagio text-based music score files. On many platforms, it can also produce direct audio output in real time. The Nyquist programming language can also be used to write plug-in effects for the Audacity digital audio editor. One notable difference between Nyquist and more traditional MUSIC-N languages is that Nyquist does not segregate synthesis functions (see unit generator) from "scoring" functions. For example

Csound Csound is a domain-specific computer programming language for audio programming. It is called Csound because it is written in C, as opposed to some of its predecessors. It is free software, available under the LGPL-2.1-or-later. Csound was ...

is actually two languages, one for creating "orchestras" the other for writing "scores". With Nyquist these two domains are combined. Nyquist runs under

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

and other

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

environments,

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded " ...

, and Microsoft Windows. The Nyquist programming language and interpreter were written by Roger Dannenberg at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, with support from

Yamaha Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation and conglomerate with a very wide range of products and services. It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the world's largest musical instrument manufacturing company. The former motorcycle d ...

and IBM.

References

External links

Computer Music Project
at Carnegie Mellon, home of the Nyquist interpreter {{Lisp Audio programming languages Software synthesizers Carnegie Mellon University