The original method for running Csound was as a console program. This, of course, still works. Running csound without any arguments prints out a list of command-line options, which are more fully explained below. Normally, the user executes something like csound -W -omysoundfile myorchestra.orc myscore.sco or, to use the single-file Csound structured data (.csd) format, csound myscore.csd.
Csound can read and write soundfiles (off-line rendering), read and write digital audio using a sound card (real-time rendering), read and write MIDI files, and read and write MIDI using a MIDI interface and controller (real-time control).