Installing and Testing the STK

The first step is to go to the STK home page, navigate to the download page, and download the latest ``source distribution'' (stk-4.2.1.tar.gz as of this writing, but any later 4.2.x release should be fine as well). Unpack this file wherever you want it, such as ~/stk/:

$ cd ~
$ mkdir stk
$ cd stk
$ wget http://ccrma.stanford.edu/software/stk/release/stk-4.2.1.tar.gz
$ tar -xzf stk-4.2.1.tar.gz
$ ln -s stk-4.2.1 stk

The tar command uncompresses and unpacks the tar file into the directory stk-4.2.1 in the current working directory (assumed to be ~/stk/ here and below). The ``stk'' symbolic link saves typing and enables release-independent access from scripts and such.

After downloading and unpacking the STK as described above, one might

• read the file ~/stk/stk/README to get oriented a bit,
• read the file ~/stk/stk/INSTALL about configuring and compiling the STK,
• study the documentation in ~/stk/stk/doc/, and
• start developing virtual musical instruments and audio effects!

Alternatively, the remainder of this appendix describes downloading and using the ``JOS Overlay'' which adds a few small example programs to the STK, and gives some recommended conventions for software development using the STK.^A.1

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written by Julius Orion Smith III
Julius Smith's background is in electrical engineering (BS Rice 1975, PhD Stanford 1983). He is presently Professor of Music and Associate Professor (by courtesy) of Electrical Engineering at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA), teaching courses and pursuing research related to signal processing applied to music and audio systems. See http://ccrma.stanford.edu/~jos/ for details.