The programmer can combine simple expressions into complex ones to create a whole composition, and can also generate various other kinds of musical and non-musical sounds.
On many platforms, it can also produce direct audio output in real time.
The Nyquist programming language can also be used to write plug-in effects for the Audacity digital audio editor.
Nyquist runs under Linux and other Unix environments, Mac OS, and Microsoft Windows.
The Nyquist programming language and interpreter were written by Roger Dannenberg at Carnegie Mellon University, with support from Yamaha Corporation and IBM.