Software Tools Links

Csound is a prototypical software package for generating sound and scoring those sounds into a music composition. The link above is listed as the official Csound website. But there are several different distributions depending on what your operating system is. Do a web search for Csound.

Sox is a general sound file editing program. It can convert a wide range of sound formats, as well as perform filtering and add effects to a sound file. It is a command-line program, which is what you want for running shell scripts.

Ecasound is a general sound editing program and multi-track recording software. The effects (reverb, phasing, compressor) that are included with Ecasound are VERY good. This is a command-line program, which is what you want for running shell scripts.

Midge is a MIDI composing tool. It uses a scripting language for scoring MIDI instruments and produces a .mid file for you that you can play with your sound card synth or an external keyboard synth. It will also convert a .mid binary file into its native script language. I see that Debian Linux now supports Midge? Good choice Debian!

Ascore is a scoring front end for Csound. It is a text script parser that relies on the use of notes arranged in parallel "tracks" down the page so as to visualize the note synchronization.

Scilab is the most useful general software tool for analyzing sound data. It does nearly all of the mathematics functions you will need, in particular, the fast fourier transform (FFT).

A finite element modeling program. You can use this to calculate the frequencies and mode shapes for various resonating objects like guitar strings, drum heads, etc.