Over the years Cmix/RTcmix has run on a variety of computer platforms and operating systems, including NeXT , Sun Microsystems , Linux , and Mac OS X . It is and has always been an Open Source project, differentiating it from commercial Synthesizers and music software. It is currently developed by a group of computer music researchers at Princeton, Columbia University , and the University Of Virginia .
RTcmix has a number of unique (or highly unusual) features when compared with other synthesis and Signal Processing languages. For one, it has a built-in MINC parser, which enables the user to write C -style code within the score file, extending its innate capability for algorithmic composition and making it closer in some respects to later music software such as SuperCollider and Max/MSP . It uses a single-script instruction file (the score file), and synthesis and signal processing routines (called instruments) exist as compile Shared Libraries . This is different from MUSIC-N languages such as Csound where the instruments exist in a second file written in a specification language that builds the routines out of simple building blocks (organized as Opcode s or Unit Generator s). RTcmix has similar functionality to Csound and other computer music languages, however, and their shared lineage means that scripts written for one language will be extremely familiar-looking (if not immediately comprehensible) to users of the other language.
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