Once cmake has finished successfully,

run make and, when done, run make in-

stall as root to copy all the bits and
pieces into place.
One of the most important SuperCol-
lider dependencies is the Jack [3] sound
server. Interestingly, SuperCollider in-
stalls just fine without the package that
contains the Jack daemon (jackd)
proper; its only when you try to run the
SuperCollider server (more about this
below) that it will bomb and inform you
that Jack is missing.
Most Linux distros contain precom-
piled packages of Jack in their repos, so
you can usually just install it using your
software manager. In Debian, for exam-
ple, you would do
# apt-get install jackd1
You also dont have to worry about run-
ning the jackd server by hand because
SuperCollider (SC) will do that for you
when you start the SC server.
What you will have to do is kill the
Jack daemon when you exit SuperCol-
lider:
$ killall jackd
S
uperCollider [1] is not all about
particle physics, but it could be.
Although its described as
an environment and program-
ming language for real time audio syn-
thesis and algorithmic composition, it
is much more than that, as you will see.
Installation
As usual, I chose to use a base Debian
Wheezy with all updates applied. You
can get precompiled SuperCollider pack-
ages for several operating systems and
Linux flavors [2], or you can clone the
development tree with
$ git clone https://github.com/U
supercollider/supercollider.git
So that I could enjoy the latest features, I
went for the clone; but, as usual, you
will also have to install some dependen-
cies before you can get a clean compile.
Installing on Debian, you will need the
following:
# apt-get install cmake U
libsndfile1-dev libx11-dev U
libxt-dev libjack-dev libasound2-dev U
libqt4-dev emacs
For certain extensions and plugins, the
following items might be useful as well:
# apt-get install lame alsaplayer-jack
After these things are all installed, cd
into the supercollider directory and cre-
ate a build directory before building the
packages:
$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake ..
During the build process, cmake may re-
port the following error and then stop:
nova-simd submodule is missing: please
run 'git submodule init && git submodule
update' from the toplevel of your git
working tree
The solution is quite easy: cd out of the
build directory and run
$ git submodule init && U
git submodule update
Then, you can re-enter build and run
cmake again.
SuperCollider
sound generator
Super Sound
SuperCollider is a versatile and powerful sound generator that can be used to create,
filter, and modulate sound. In this article, we tackle the basics. By Paul C. Brown
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FEATURES
SuperCollider
APRIL 2014 ISSUE 161 LINUX-MAGAZINE.COM | LINUXPROMAGAZINE.COM
If you dont, most of your audio pro-
grams (including Firefox when playing
videos and so on) will freeze while they
try to access PulseAudio or Alsa.
Boot Time
With the installation out of the way,
youll find most of the important files
under /usr/local and in your own home
directory under .local/share/SuperCol-
lider. The SuperCollider executables
will be in /usr/local/bin, and some con-
figuration files and documentation will
be in /usr/local/share/SuperCollider.
As for the executables, SuperCollider
installs scide, sclang, sclangpipe_app, sc-
synth, scvim, and supernova. The most in-
teresting two are scide and sclang, but
just for the record, sclangpipe_app is
used by scvim, which in turn is a Vim-
like front end for sclang, and scsynth is
the server proper, which Ill address
shortly. Finally, supernova is an imple-
mentation of the SuperCollider server for
parallel processing, although you wont
need it for the purposes of this article.
On the other hand, sclang, short for
SuperCollider language, is a command-
line interpreter similar to Bash or the Py-
thon terminal that works well if you just
want to try things out but is not so use-
ful for complex coding. You can run it by
entering sclang in a terminal window.
Much more useful is scide, the Super-
Collider IDE (Figure 1), which is also run
in a terminal window.
The left pane is the workspace, which
is where you write (and often run) your
code. Several workspaces can be ac-
cessed via tabs across the top of the win-
dow. On the top right is the very useful
SuperCollider Help system, which youll
be using a lot. Below that, the Post win-
dow displays output, errors, and so on.
To run SuperCollider commands, type
them into the workspace and press
Ctrl+Enter while the cursor is on the
same line. The SuperCollider language is
an object-oriented functional language
similar to Smalltalk, with syntactical
characteristics borrowed from LISP and
C++. You can declare a single-character
variable (which are all objects) just by
setting it to a value:
a=3;
Note the semicolon that ends a com-
mand. Now you can access the value of
a by calling the value method:
a.value;
If you press Ctrl+Enter while the cursor
is on the first line and then do the same
on the second line, a 3 should appear in
the Post window for each command.
Nearly all SuperCollider commands
are really functions with a return value,
and in this case, the only value the inter-
preter can find is the content of a.
Longer variable names are advisable
because some single-character variables
are used internally by the interpreter. To
do this, use the var keyword. When
using var, the variable must belong to a
certain scope (i.e., a group of commands
executed together).
For example, if you execute the lines
var ab;
ab=3;
the Post window will print an error stat-
ing that the variable ab is not defined.
To create a scope so you can use ab,
you have to group the commands be-
tween brackets:
(
var ab;
ab=3;
)
Now, when you place your cursor any-
where within the brackets and hit
Ctrl+Enter, the value is assigned to ab
correctly. Also try
"Hello".postln;
"World".postln;
and
(
"Hello".postln;
"World".postln;
)
and note how the outputs differ in the
Post window. In the first example, you
have to press Ctrl+Enter on each line
for each word to output.
In the second example, you just have
to press Ctrl+Enter once while your cur-
sor is on any of the lines to get both
words to output. I could go on, but writ-
ing about SuperColliders programming
language deserves a book in itself, and
there a plenty of good ones [4] online for
free.
From now on, Ill explain the language
through examples. SuperCollider was
created to engineer sounds, so Ill pro-
ceed to make some noise!
Making a Ruckus
Before you can begin, you have to run
the SuperCollider server by entering
s.boot
Figure 1: The SuperCollider IDE on startup.
FEATURES
SuperCollider
35
LINUX-MAGAZINE.COM | LINUXPROMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 161 APRIL 2014
You probably dont want to go past 1.
Another way to pass parameters to a
function is by naming them. In this
case, you can place them in any order.
For example,
{SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7)}.play;
is the same as
{SinOsc.ar(mul:0.7, freq:261.26, U
phase:pi)}.play;
To silence the sound, press Ctrl+. (pe-
riod). If you want to see what the wave
looks like as it plays, try
{SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7)}.scope;
(Figure 3). To take a static snapshot, use
{SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7)}.plot;
All of these methods play, scope, and
plot have their own set of parameters.
For example, if you try
{SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7)}.plot(1);
youll see a whole second of the wave
instead of the default 100th of a second.
When using headphones, you can
hear sound only through the left speaker
because each channel is assigned inde-
pendently through an array and channel
0 corresponds to the left speaker. If you
enter
{[SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7), U
SinOsc.ar(300, pi, 0.7)]}.play;
you will hear a sine wave at 261.26Hz
through your left speaker and a sine
wave at 300Hz through your right
speaker. This command can be short-
ened to
{SinOsc.ar([261.26, 300], pi, 0.7)}.play;
and it also works with different volumes:
{SinOsc.ar([261.26, 300], pi, U
[0.7, 0.5])}.play;
If you only want the right speaker, enter
{SinOsc.ar([0, 300], pi, 0.7)}.play;
or:
in the IDE window (and hitting
Ctrl+Enter). The s object is one of those
internal single-character variables I men-
tioned earlier, and it represents the local
server and has its own methods and at-
tributes. (You can also use a remote
server, if you like.) To stop the server,
you would use s.quit.
From the menubar, you can run the
server with Language | Boot Server, or
using the keyboard, you press Ctrl+B.
Check for any errors in the Post window
and make sure the volume of your head-
phones is up, but not too high: Mistakes
in SC code tend to make SuperColliders
output very noisy, indeed, and you dont
want to damage your headphones,
speakers, or, worse, your eardrums.
The simplest sound you can generate
with SuperCollider is an unfiltered and
unmodulated wave, and the shortest
way to do that is with an unnamed func-
tion (curly brackets enclose functions in
SuperCollider):
{SinOsc.ar(261.26, 0, 0.7)}.play;
The SinOsc object calls a sine wave oscil-
lator, similar to the image in the top left
corner of Figure 2.
The ar method tells the interpreter to
generate an audio signal. As you will see
later, you can also generate control sig-
nals (kr), but for a smooth, high-quality
sound, you need to call ar.
Parameters appear within brackets.
The first value, 261.26, is the frequency
or pitch, measured in hertz (i.e., phases
per second). The higher the number, the
higher the pitch (261.26, by the way, is
middle C). In this case, the oscillator
runs through 261.26 cycles per second.
If you are familiar with midi notation,
you can give the value using the .mid-
icps attribute:
{SinOsc.ar(60.midicps, 0, 0.7)}.play;
The midi value 60 is middle C.
The second value in SinOsc is the
phase offset in radians, which is the po-
sition from which the wave starts. If you
look at the top left-hand corner of Figure
2 again, youll see that the wave starts at
0. If you used
{SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7)}.play;
the wave would start halfway though
(i.e, cutting the 0 axis), but on the way
down.
The third parameter is the multiplier
and affects the volume of the wave. It
varies from 0 (silence) to very loud.
Figure 2: Different types of sound waves. Top row, left to right: simple sine wave, parabolic
sine wave, and cubic sine wave. Middle row: sawtooth wave, triangle wave, and pulse wave.
Bottom: white noise wave.
36
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{[nil, SinOsc.ar(300, pi, 0.7)]}.play;
To assign a function to a variable and
then free one channel at a time, use
x = {SinOsc.ar(261.26, pi, 0.7)}.play;
y = {[nil, SinOsc.ar(U
300, pi, 0.5)]}.play;
x.free;
y.free;
instead of shutting them all down with
the Ctrl+. key combination.
Piling Em Up
Until now, the examples have been
pretty boring, but they are the basic
building blocks of much more complex
and interesting sounds. Because all func-
tions and commands in SuperCollider re-
turn a value, you can use the output of
one oscillator (e.g., sine) as a parameter
for another oscillator. The following
{LFSaw.ar(200, 0, 1 * U
SinOsc.kr(1, 0, 1))}.scope;
modifies the multiplier (volume) param-
eter of the sawtooth wave (Figure 2,
middle row, far left; a twangy, guitar-like
sound), with the sine oscillator.
The scope at the end lets you see
whats happening. Note the kr method
appended to SinOsc, which is a control
function (i.e, it is modulating, not gener-
ating, a sound) instead of ar, which is
much more CPU intensive.
The sine oscillator frequency is set to
1Hz (1 cycle per second), so the saw os-
cillators volume varies between 1 and -1
every second, rendering a siren-like
sound.
Piling on as many functions as you
like allows you to create really sophisti-
cated effects. The following, for exam-
ple, pans the sound from one speaker to
the other:
{Pan2.ar( LFSaw.ar(200, 0, 1 * U
SinOsc.kr(1, 0, 1).abs), U
SinOsc.kr(0.5))}.play;
The Pan2 function is used to pan be-
tween two channels the Pan4 function
handles four-channel output and takes
as arguments the audio signal and a
number between -1 (left) and +1
(right).
The default multiplier of the sine oscil-
lator is 1, so in the second argument of
Pan2 (SinOsc.kr(0.5)), you only have to
specify the frequency. Now you will hear
the siren on the right panning over to the
left and back again every half second.
Mix and Match
Next, Ill look closely at the following
line from the inside out:
{ Pan2.ar( U
Mix.fill( 8, { LFSaw.ar(U
200 + 200.0.rand, 0, 1/8)}), U
SinOsc.kr( 0.5 ) ) }.play;
Among the confusing array of fences, the
Pan2.ar function has two parameters:
Mix.fill( <n>, { LFSaw.ar(200 + U
200.0.rand, 0, 1/<n>) })
and
SinOsc.kr( <n> )
LFSaw.ar(200 + 200.0.rand, 0, 1/8),
the innermost function of the first pa-
rameter, looks similar to an earlier ex-
ample: the sawtooth wave generator.
The rand method affixed to 200.0 (a
float number) returns a random num-
ber between 0.0 and 200.0, thus gener-
ating a sawtooth wave with a fre-
quency between 200 and 400. The
pulse starts at 0 with an amplitude
(volume) of 1/8.
SinOsc.kr( 0.5 ), the second parame-
ter of the Pan2.ar function, is also fa-
miliar. This function pans the sound
wave between the right and left
speaker every half a second.
Mix.fill( 8, { ... }) is new. The Mix
function, as advertised, mixes two (or
more) sound waves. In this case, its
fill method mixes as many waves as
indicated by the first parameter (8).
The second parameter to Mix is the
wave generator (i.e., the sawtooth os-
cillator). Here, eight slightly different
sawtooth waves (i.e., with frequencies
that vary randomly between 200 and
400Hz) are mixed to achieve some-
thing that sounds like a trucks horn in
a traffic jam. The volumes of mixed
waves are additive, so each wave is as-
signed a volume of 1/8; with eight
waves, the total mixed signal has vol-
ume of 1.
Pan2.ar( ... ), finally, pans the effect
from one speaker to the other every
half second.
Although piling up functions gives you
very sophisticated results, it can also get
confusing quickly, which is why group-
ing is useful.
Listing 1 produces exactly the same ef-
fect as the one-line instruction, but it is
much easier to read. Additionally, you
can use a multicharacter variable to de-
Figure 3: The scope method shows the wave as it plays.
38
SuperCollider
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FEATURES
tions compared with functions. For start-
ers, a SynthDef is compiled, then the
server runs the compiled, static version
every time it is called. Therefore, if the
SynthDef contains a random number
generator, the random number will be
calculated at run time, and the result is
stored statically within the Synth, so it
will not change any of the times the
Synth is called.
You also cannot define dynamically
the number of channels (buses) or
waves you are going to use, again, be-
cause this has to be compiled into the
Synth.
Beyond the IDE
As mentioned elsewhere, SuperCollider
is a means to an end. Apart from an ex-
tensive vocabulary for sound, sclang of-
fers a complete toolset that allows you to
create your own interfaces. Listing 3, for
example, creates the interface shown in
Figure 4.
This program recycles the sinewave
SynthDef seen earlier and, from lines 9
to 31, creates a simple window with
three elements a slider, a knob, and a
button to control the wave. Line 12
creates the window with FlowView, set-
ting the title to Example.
EZSlider in line 13 creates the volume
slider, and its parameters set the parent
window (i.e., the window that contains
it), the values it can take (between 0 and
1), the action it controls (a volume
change of x, which is an object of the
sinewave SynthDef, set in line 22), and
the initial value (0.5).
used later as pa-
rameters when
called. The new
function in line 4,
Out, writes a sig-
nal to a bus
(channel).
Here, the first
parameter is an
array ([0, 1]) that
indicates it will be
writing to channel
0 (left) and 1
(right). The sec-
ond parameter is
the function that
will be generating
the wave (i.e., a
simple audio (ar)
sine wave).
Finally, on line
5, the SynthDef
gets added to the server with add so that
it can be called from anywhere. If your
SynthDef is really useful, you can save it
for future sessions by changing add to
writeDefFile and executing the block.
Your SynthDef will then be loaded into
the server every time it boots.
Next, call the SynthDef (line 1) and
pass it some parameters (line 2) or
change the tone and volume as it plays:
x=Synth("sinewave");
x=Synth("sinewave", [myfreq:400]);
x.set("myfreq", 200);
Although the SynthDef structures are
very useful, they do have certain limita-
fine how many waves (line 2) you want
to mix.
SynthDefs
Once you have built your own building
blocks, you will want to save them and
turn them into a shortcut for creating
more sophisticated soundblocks by
using SynthDefs. For those familiar with
object-oriented programming (OOP),
think of SynthDefs as classes that you
can then use to generate objects by in-
stantiating the Synths.
Listing 2 is an example of building on
a simple sine wave oscillator. Line 2 de-
fines a SynthDef named ("sinewave") and
declares some arguments that can be
01 (
02 SynthDef("sinewave",
03 {arg myfreq=261.626, myvol=0.5;
04 Out.ar([0, 1], SinOsc.ar(myfreq, 0, myvol))
05 }).add;
06 )
LISTING 2: Sine SynthDef
01 s.boot;
02
03 (
04 SynthDef("sinewave", {arg myfreq=261.626, myvol=0.5;
05 Out.ar(0, SinOsc.ar(myfreq,0,myvol))
06 }).send(s);
07 )
08
09 (
10 var awindow, myslider, myknob, mybutton;
11
12 awindow=FlowView.new(windowTitle:"Example");
13 myslider=EZSlider(awindow, label:"Volume",controlSpec:[0,
1], action:{|mv| x.set("myvol",mv.value)}, initVal:0.5);
14 myknob=EZKnob(awindow, label:"Pitch",controlSpec:\freq,
action:{|mn| x.set("myfreq",mn.value)}, initVal:261.626);
15
16 mybutton=Button(awindow, Rect(20,20, 50, 25))
17 .states_([["Off", Color.black, Color.grey],
18 ["On",Color.black,Color.yellow]])
19 .action_({ arg vbutton;
20 if(vbutton.value==1,
21 {(
22 x=Synth("sinewave");
23 myslider.value=0.5;
24 myknob.value=261.262;
25 )}
26 ,
27 {x.free});
28 });
29
30 mybutton.value=0;
31 )
LISTING 3: guiexample.scd
01 (
02 var waves=8;
03
04 {Pan2.ar
05 (Mix.fill(waves,
06 { LFSaw.ar(200 + 200.0.rand, 0, 1 / waves) }
07 ),
08 SinOsc.kr(0.5)
09 )}.play;
10 )
LISTING 1: Truck Horn
SuperCollider
39
LINUX-MAGAZINE.COM | LINUXPROMAGAZINE.COM ISSUE 161 APRIL 2014
FEATURES
Ctrl+Enter, and click the Update Quarks
Listing button in the window. If nothing
happens in a reasonable stretch of time,
check the SC IDE Post window for er-
rors. It may instruct you to erase a direc-
tory, such as /home/[user]/.local/share/
SuperCollider/quarks and run Quarks.gui
again. After installing or deleting
Quarks, you might have to update the li-
braries and help systems by clicking
Language | Recompile Class Library.
Plugins enhance the environment and
add functionality to the language. To
download the latest set of plugins from
GitHub, use
$ git clone https://github.com/U
supercollider/sc3-plugins.git
and then compile as you would any
source code program.
Conclusion
SuperCollider is not for the faint of
heart. As with particle physics, sound
creation and manipulation are difficult.
Also, SuperCollider is immense, and I
have only covered the bare basics in this
article. SuperCollider broaches literally
everything you will ever need for sound
engineering, allowing you to use it at
nearly any level of competence.
SuperCollider is useful for educational
purposes (plot and scope are great to
show students what happens when a
sound is being produced), composing,
and live performances. If you want to ex-
periment, check out the MouseX and
MouseY functions to create a two-dimen-
sional virtual theremin on your screen
with a couple of lines of code. Also, see
how easy it is to create a Vocoder or to
develop your own tools for your per-
sonal recording studio.
The EZKnob widget in line 14 is virtu-
ally the same as EZSlider, except it con-
trols the frequency of x.
The Button widget in line 16 creates a
multistate button (with the values "Off"
and "On") and starts and stops the sound
depending on whether it transitions from
one state to the other or vice versa. Fi-
nally, line 30 sets the buttons initial
state; otherwise, the button will not
show up in the window.
To run this pro-
gram, first execute
the sinewave Syn-
thDef (place your
cursor somewhere
within the brack-
ets and press
Ctrl+Enter) then
the program
proper (move to
line 10, for exam-
ple, and press
Ctrl+Enter
again). At this
point, the window
will pop up. Press
the On/Off button
to start and stop
the sound, drag
the slider to
change its volume,
or twist the knob
to change the
pitch.
Quarks and
Plugins
Extensions are
called Quarks in
the SuperCollider
lingo. These com-
prise anything from musical games (e.g.,
Chordtris, a musical Tetris played with a
midi keyboard; Figure 5) to graphical in-
terfaces for live performances.
SuperCollider comes with its own
package manager, also named Quarks
(Figure 6). To get a list of Quarks, type
Quarks.gui in the SC IDE, press
Figure 4: A simple graphic interface to
change pitch and volume of a sine wave.
Figure 6: SuperCollider comes with its own package manager for
extensions (Quarks).
Figure 5: Chordtris is a Quark (extension) that
allows you to play a musical version of Tetris.
[1] SuperCollider official site:
http://supercollider.github.io/
[2] SuperCollider download page:
http://supercollider.github.io/
download.html
[3] Jack sound server:
http://jackaudio.org/
[4] SuperCollider programming lan-
guage tutorial:
http://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/
Fedora/15/html/Musicians_Guide/
sect-Musicians_Guide-SuperCol-
lider-Basic_Programming.html
INFO
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