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Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

sonic-pi.net

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Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#41

Post by severak_cz »

pvinis wrote: post #14
djaychela wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a better definition than nice music? I think one reason why tools like this lead to creation of dance music is that the structures are readily created using them, and in addition they tend to make synth and sample sounds which are often heard in dance... It's pretty quick to code a 4 on the floor dance beat, but programming Gene Krupa will be much more challenging!

"nice music" I mean music that is not repeating with a period of less that 8 seconds. I don't care for a 3-loop made using code. I know it can be done, and I know it's easy to do compared to other ways. I wanna see if it's possible to use code as an real instrument. Yes, a keyboard and a looper can be used for club music. Same for sonicpi. But a keyboard can be used to play/compose classical, or even "The Office" int…

Look into Alda music programming language - it's possible to write classical music with it. It's more like MIDI or classical notation - you don't care about sound but you specify notes.

https://alda.io/

Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#42

Post by intrepidhero »

djaychela wrote: post #4

I've spent some time trying to work with Sonic Pi, but I've really struggled with the syntax, finding it difficult to work with. I'm fluent in Python but find the use of colons is the real sticking point. If anyone's got any suggestions, or can point to a python version of the same (I spent a fair bit of time working with FoxDot which does use python so it made more sense to me) it'd be appreciated - this is somethin…

For what it's worth, I have a python background and Sonic Pi was my introduction to Ruby too. It does feel a bit weird but the built in tutorials are really quite good. You can get pretty far just copying and pasting samples. Play around until bits of it start to make sense.

If you just don't want to mess with Ruby, there are python libraries for supercollider (the same backend that Sonic Pi is using). The only gotcha is I think a lot of the value of Sonic Pi comes from the built in samples and synths.

Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#44

Post by smrq »

d--b wrote: post #31

Live coding music is nice, but the interface is awful. Having someone type at a laptop is so boring to watch, it totally kills the mood. I'd rather have them manipulate lego like bricks on a physical screen or even write on a chalkboard... Something has to be better than this

Perhaps ORCA [1] might pique your interest. I've mostly bounced off of live coding because of the interface issue, but something about the ORCA interface tickles my eyeballs and gets the creative juices flowing.

Shameless self-promo example of the language in action [2]

[1] https://100r.co/site/orca.html [2] https://youtu.be/fhYi958qqac

Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#46

Post by discardedrefuse »

djaychela wrote: post #4

I've spent some time trying to work with Sonic Pi, but I've really struggled with the syntax, finding it difficult to work with. I'm fluent in Python but find the use of colons is the real sticking point. If anyone's got any suggestions, or can point to a python version of the same (I spent a fair bit of time working with FoxDot which does use python so it made more sense to me) it'd be appreciated - this is somethin…

FoxDot is probably what you're looking for.

https://foxdot.org/

Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#47

Post by _c3ag »

pvinis wrote: post #14
djaychela wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a better definition than nice music? I think one reason why tools like this lead to creation of dance music is that the structures are readily created using them, and in addition they tend to make synth and sample sounds which are often heard in dance... It's pretty quick to code a 4 on the floor dance beat, but programming Gene Krupa will be much more challenging!

"nice music" I mean music that is not repeating with a period of less that 8 seconds. I don't care for a 3-loop made using code. I know it can be done, and I know it's easy to do compared to other ways. I wanna see if it's possible to use code as an real instrument. Yes, a keyboard and a looper can be used for club music. Same for sonicpi. But a keyboard can be used to play/compose classical, or even "The Office" int…

yes, tho, verbose… you may have a better time using Csound and its score paradigm! http://www.csounds.com/manual/html/ScoreTop.html

Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#48

Post by crocktucker »

smrq wrote: post #44
d--b wrote: post #31

Live coding music is nice, but the interface is awful. Having someone type at a laptop is so boring to watch, it totally kills the mood. I'd rather have them manipulate lego like bricks on a physical screen or even write on a chalkboard... Something has to be better than this

Perhaps ORCA [1] might pique your interest. I've mostly bounced off of live coding because of the interface issue, but something about the ORCA interface tickles my eyeballs and gets the creative juices flowing. Shameless self-promo example of the language in action [2] [1] https://100r.co/site/orca.html [2] https://youtu.be/fhYi958qqac

I thought the same. And thanks for sharing your compositions -- I particularly enjoyed "killed in the light of a crescent moon".

Re: Sonic Pi – The Live Coding Music Synth for Everyone

#50

Post by jhbadger »

d--b wrote: post #31

Live coding music is nice, but the interface is awful. Having someone type at a laptop is so boring to watch, it totally kills the mood. I'd rather have them manipulate lego like bricks on a physical screen or even write on a chalkboard... Something has to be better than this

I don't think "live coding" music means that musicians would actually write code in front of an audience live -- it's not like musicians compose music in real time even without computers. In either case there is a lot of trial and error in getting things right that you wouldn't want an audience to see (or hear). I think "live coding" is just a fancy way of saying a programming experience with immediate feedback -- like a REPL but even more so.
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