Bringing Csound to a Modern Production Environment With Csound for Live

Csound is a powerful and versatile synthesis and signal processing system and yet, it has been far from convenient to use the program in tandem with a modern Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) setup. While it is possible to route MIDI to Csound, and audio from Csound, there has never been a solution that fully integrated Csound into a DAW. Csound for Live attempts to solve this problem by using csound~, Max and Ableton Live. Over the course of this paper, we will discuss how users can use Csound for Live to create Max for Live Devices for their Csound instruments that allow for quick editing via a GUI; tempo-synced and transport-synced operations and automation; the ability to control and receive information from Live via Ableton’s API; and how to save and recall presets. In this paper, the reader will learn best practices for designing devices that leverage both Max and Live, and in the presentation, they will see and hear demonstrations of devices used in a full song, as well as how to integrate the powerful features of Max and Live into a production workflow.