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Supercollider 3 for linux

Intro

SuperCollider is a synthesis engine (scsynth or supernova) and programming language (sclang), originally Mac-based but now very widely used and actively developed on Linux.

Stefan Kersten first ported the code to Linux in 2003.

Build requirements

(most of these will be available in your linux distribution as packages )

Build requirements (optional features)

(most of these will be available in your linux distribution as packages)

Build requirements (debian users)

On debian (unstable) you can install the following packages and be set for building supercollider:

  • build-essential
  • libjack-dev or libjack-jackd2-dev
  • libsndfile1-dev
  • libasound2-dev
  • libavahi-client-dev
  • libicu-dev
  • libreadline6-dev
  • libfftw3-dev
  • libxt-dev
  • libudev-dev
  • libcwiid-dev (for wiimote support)
  • pkg-config
  • git (used by the Quarks package management system)
  • cmake (on some platforms, cmake >= 2.9 may require manual build)
  • qt5-default qt5-qmake qttools5-dev qttools5-dev-tools qtdeclarative5-dev libqt5webkit5-dev qtpositioning5-dev libqt5sensors5-dev libqt5opengl5-dev

More details for building on embedded linux platforms (Raspberry Pi, Beaglebone Black) can be found here:

http://supercollider.github.io/development/building

The recommended version of gcc is 4.8

Building

  • to build supercollider with cmake, it is suggested to do out-of-tree builds in a specific build directory:

    $> mkdir build
$> cd build
$> cmake -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH=/path/to/qt5 ..

    The location of /path/to/qt5 will depend on how you installed Qt:

    • If you used your Linux distribution's repositories, it will be /usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/ (32-bit) or /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ (64-bit).
    • If you downloaded Qt from the Qt website, the path is two directories down from the top-level unpacked Qt directory: Qt5.x.x/5.x/gcc/ (32-bit) or Qt5.x.x/5.x/gcc_64/ (64-bit).

    You can see the available build options with cmake -LH.

  • to run the build process run:

    $> make

    The build process can be configured using the cmake program, cmake frontends like ccmake or cmake-gui, or by simply editing the build/CMakeCache.txt file.

    For example to enable a release build run the following in your build directory:

    $> cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..

  • to install the whole program, run:

    $> make install

    For the above step you will probably need super-user privileges, e.g. using "sudo".

    Also, please run

    $> sudo ldconfig

    after installing for the first time.

  • to uninstall:

    $> make uninstall

Qt GUI

By default the Qt GUI support will be built into sclang. If you want to build without it configure cmake like this:

$> cmake -DSC_QT=OFF ..

Note: running headless SC in a X-less environment requires jackd without D-bus support. On Raspbian Jessie this requires compiling jackd rather than using the packaged version. Also note that you will get errors on sclang startup from classes requiring Qt. A workaround and more details are described in:

http://supercollider.github.io/development/building-raspberrypi

Speeding up repeated builds

If you build SuperCollider repeatedly, we recommend installing ccache which can speed up re-compilation. Here is how to configure cmake to use it:

$> cmake -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/lib/ccache/g++ -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/lib/ccache/gcc ..

This assumes your ccache executables are installed into /usr/lib/ccache - you may need to change the path to reflect your installation.

Building a Debian package

The most up-to-date debian packaging rules are maintained by the Debian Multimedia team. Repository (with debian/ folder):

http://anonscm.debian.org/gitweb/?p=pkg-multimedia/supercollider.git;a=summary

Running scsynth or supernova (standalone)

Run scsynth --help or supernova --help to get an option summary. Don't forget to start jackd before starting the server. If you want to add directories to supercollider's search path or assign default jack ports, set up your environment as described below.

You can specify the number of jack input/output channels created with the options -i and -o, respectively.

the -H option can be used to specify a jack server to connect to and to set the jack client identifier. The format is either

<SERVER-NAME>:<CLIENT-NAME>

or just

<CLIENT-NAME>

when connecting to the default server.

Running sclang

Supercollider comes with its own powerful IDE. Run it with:

$> scide

Alternatively you can use sclang in combination with your preferred text editor out of emacs/vim/gedit. See the README.md files in editors/* for installation and usage. Another alternative is to simply run the sclang executable which will provide a readline-based interface.

sclang executes the startup file ~/.config/SuperCollider/startup.scd after class library initialization. This file can contain statements to set up your supercollider environment, like setting default variables. An example can be found in linux/examples/sclang.sc.

You have to have a directory ~/.local/share/SuperCollider. This is where a synthdefs directory is automatically created. It is also the place to put Extensions to the class library, in a folder called Extensions.

The runtime directory is either the current working directory or the path specified with the -d option.

Environment

The jack audio driver interface is configured based on various environment variables:

  • SC_JACK_DEFAULT_INPUTS comma separated list of jack ports that the server's inputs should connect to by default

    $> export SC_JACK_DEFAULT_INPUTS="system:capture_1,system:capture_2"

    in order to connect the first ports of one jack client, it is possible to specify only the client name

    $> export SC_JACK_DEFAULT_INPUTS="system"

  • SC_JACK_DEFAULT_OUTPUTS comma separated list of jack ports that the server's outputs should be connected to by default.

    $> export SC_JACK_DEFAULT_OUTPUTS="system:playback_1,system:playback_2"

    In order to connect the first ports of one jack client, it is possible to specify only the client name

    $> export SC_JACK_DEFAULT_OUTPUTS="system"

Two additional environment variables substitute directories for the default search path for plugins and synth definitions, respectively. Directory names are separated by ':' as in the unix PATH variable:

  • SC_PLUGIN_PATH, SC_SYNTHDEF_PATH

    $> export SC_SYNTHDEF_PATH="./synthdefs:/home/sk/SuperCollider/synthdefs"

Contributors to this document

  • stefan kersten
  • andi pieper
  • maurizio umberto puxeddu
  • rohan drape
  • mario lang
  • john yates
  • nescivi (marije baalman)
  • dan stowell
  • tim blechmann