Rasika software for Windows was first released in Dec 1998. It took many users by surprise as it produced synthetic carnatic music with all the required nuances (Gamakams). This first version was followed by 5 upgrades and the current version RasikaV2 is a major upgrade released two years ago, adding more tools for the Student and the Musician.
The present version (installable with a single setup program) has 6 programs in addition to a Sruthi box and Thamboora.
Rasika takes you on a tour of Carnatic Music System (or Carnatic Music Theory) with text, visuals and audio. It is like a text book on Carnatic Music with visuals and audio in tones of Veena or Flute. The raga explanations and the audio samples in the program put adequate stress on the Gamakam (nuances or smooth movements between and around notes). An ideal program for a Carnatic Music Rasika who would like to know more about the system.
Gaayaka enables you to enter 'sa ri ga ma' notation and play it in Flute or Veena - useful for experimenting or practicing carnatic music lessons in ones own sruthi - (lessons up to geethams and sample krithis, varnams etc. are supplied with the software). You can enter and play even lessons not supplied with the program. The notation system has been extended to enable introduction of smooth Gamakams. Gaayaka can be an aid for experimenting, understanding the nuances and setting songs to notation, making it easy to check the durations and the tune. For full details of Rasika and Gaayaka click on the links on the left or above.
Sishya gives you lessons (in the tones of Veena or Flute) in a user friendly format with pictures showing the thaalam gestures (thaalam kriya) synchronised with the music and as in Gaayaka there is facility to change sruthi, tempo, selectively playing a part, looping etc. Novice is for the very new comer and takes him step by step through the elementary concepts and using Sishya.
The 2 Student's music players give a high resolution 'time line' for choosing any part of the music, enable marking blocks for playing (if need be also looping), naming and saving the blocks etc.
The Sruthi Box and the Thamboora programs convert your PC into a Sruthi box or Thamboora with a wide range of Sruthis (try both simultaneously and see the effect!)
The software has been developed by a musician - programmer!
Carnatic Music can never be portrayed fully without the Gamakams . Here are some sample clips of music generated by the software. Listen to Pallavi of Mamavasadaa in Kaanada (streamed) 
or Pallavi of Mamavasadaa in Kaanada(.mp3) and pallavi of Enthanerchina in Suddha Dhanyasi(streamed) or pallavi of Enthanerchina in Suddha Dhanyasi(.mp3) . These have been put in mp3 format only for the web site. The music in the software is directly generated and does not require any other program.
To appreciate the importance of Gamakam, just listen to some notation played plain without gamakam (streamed) or plain without gamakam (.mp3) - as it is written. This does not sound like Carnatic Music at all! Listen to the same notation
with gamakam (streamed) or with gamakam (.mp3) - how it should really sound. That is why this package puts lot of emphasis on Gamakam.
Other links on the left give you free downloads of some notation files (including those written by users) which can be played with Gaayaka, and a
program for testing your tuning ability. There are 2 pages explaining the
Carnatic music notation system and the
Gaayaka file format. The Miscellanous group has a page on problems of creating
midi files for Carnatic music (with some sample midi files with gamakam) a page of
links to some Carnatic Music sites and of course a page about
the author!.
The Articles link takes you to the page where you can go to some articles including a few by myself. The new link Automatic Gamakam talks of my attempts to generate gamakam automatically from bare notation and gives a further link to the web site where audio and notation examples of this effort are available
You can contact the author M.Subramanian either by posting your queries in the contact page or sending email to
