I shed an actual tear. I dreamed of days like this. I got close, building a small language for generating generic music, but with decay, sawtooth and stuff? It's a functional DAW.
That's absolutely sick. I love seeing a full arrangement like this as opposed to destructive live coding--that's cool too, but I don't really vibe with it as a workflow. Definitely taking some inspiration from this.
I found that annoying on the editor, but if used on a 2nd screen to build graphics programmatically (fractals, etc), or via an external port to drive RGB LEDs arrays or matrices, results could be spectacular. Imagine fractals driven by music or a giant spectrum analyzer made of LED strips.
I've been following this project with great interest.
Quite possibly one of the most interesting things is just how competent the REPL is. It does some things that no other programming environment does in a prompt, all centered around real-time processing:
- All code in the prompt is being constantly evaluated
- What parts of expressions are currently in use are highlighted
- Visualization widgets sit side-by-side with the code
That last one is playfully rendered as pseudo-TUI "graphics", but is also presented with no borders or chrome around it. That's in sharp contrast to notebooks like Jypyter or Mathematica. They use minimal screen real-estate which also minimizes scrolling. If you look at videos of using this live, the ability to navigate the REPL quickly is crucial for performances.
So it's a lot like a kind of step-wise debugger, only more minimalist and moving at the (slow) speed of the music.
Ever since seeing Strudel, I've wondered what various programming sandboxes would be like if they could visually demonstrate operations in slow-motion.
I've been seeing a few links to Strudel recently so I went digging to see how old the project is - looks like it launched in April 2022 https://loophole-letters.vercel.app/strudel
IIRC, that team are also (now) live-music-coding veterans, which in turn has informed how Strudel is built. It's not just a project that does stuff, it's a pretty well crafted instrument that is ideal for these performances.
As an engineer, I love letting the requirements shape the solution, but this is just on a whole other level.
Have you taken a look at how to install the Haskell variant? It's a full-on recipe, or a docker container. I'd take a desktop application over a website any day, but that was not on the menu. It was an SPA vs a devops exercise. Of course the SPA wins.
I've run across more and more strudel musicians (developers?) doing a kind of live coding performance art and posting clips on tiktok and reels. It's really entertaining to watch. I've been meaning to dabble in it.
I went to a basement party/rave recently where the DJ was live-coding strudel, was incredibly cool to see in person. people would watch them type out new lines in anticipation of a beat drop
Pretty cool to see this post, I had no idea where to find more info about it!
This is an excellent example. It also highlights how if I tried this it would sound terrible as I lack have vocabulary to describe what I want, and how that relates to the code.
this is awesome. The only code instruction video instructions that I have watched that doubled as a song. At first I thought it was the Euro dance hall lyrics and then I realized it was actually the code instructions.
Yeah, thanks for both posts. I love the narration with the live coding (like a conversation with voice and code). If I can get to that level, I'll die a happy man.
I was trying to make it automatically randomly choose between the normal speed and twice speed after a long time. I think appending
.fast(chooseCycles(1, 2).slow(128))
at the very end does it. But I'm not actually sure. Would a strudel user mind informing me how this is done? Also, I was hoping to make it automatically shift the key, but I couldn't figure it out.
There's also a neovim plugin for those who want to play around with this locally https://github.com/gruvw/strudel.nvim ; it essentially launches strudel in a browser but synchronizes the strudel and nvim editors.
Is there a way (like a CSS rule or something similar) that when you look at the main strudel window, it only shows the piano rolls, punch cards, sliders, etc - but not the code?
Maybe with just the comments? This would be killer, since I have dual displays, and on one I can just focus on the code, the other one can have all the visual stuff.
I'm using this plugin, but having the code twice distracts me a lot (but I prefer the original neovim instead the integrated vim mode inside strudel).
I've only just started playing around with it, so I don't know enough about it unfortunately. You could open an issue against the repo; the plugin owner might be able to answer your question.
Love Strudel, trying to learn it but inevitably you also need some musical foundation. It's a fascinating blend of specialties. Also I found AI is complete garbage at generating Strudel.
Here is my weak attempt at Beethoven:
Live-coding music environments like Strudel are powerful because they externalize the creative process. When your composition is visible code, you can iterate faster, debug musical ideas, and even collaborate in ways traditional DAWs don't support. Code-as-instrument is genuinely innovative.
but DAWs plugins and instruments are just like code but with an GUI interface to mess with. don't get me wrong, PureData freedom is astonishing but one can also go quite far with esoteric sequencers or modulation in DAWs found out there
Allow me to use this post to give big kudos to the maintainers of Strudel for having put together a brilliant set of official docs. I found them incredibly well put together and hence really useful to learn. I have played around with Strudel many evenings and I am always amazed about how intuitive Strudel is to create beats and sounds, to the point that I prefer to create music in Strudel over the established DAW software. I would love for there to be a good bridge between producing sounds and beats with Strudel code and structurering and mastering an entire track. This is missing in Strudel since it’s clearly build for a live coding environment. Any tips from users about ways or tools to make this bridge are always welcome!
Does anyone know if it's possible to run Strudel code on VS Code (or NeoVim)? Tidle Cycles has add-ons where I can play/stop updated code or part of code with ctrl(cmd)-. and ctrl(cmd)-space. I mean, one of Strudel strong point is the browser based rich visualization, but I just want to edit JS code with my favorite editor.
Strudel is dope and a ton of fun, but every single piece of its interface seems determined to confuse people who already know music theory and composition.
That's not really a point against it, it's a great tool and it's a ton of fun, but I wish there was a way to use it that at least kind of sort of mapped back to traditional music notation, especially rhythm notation.
It would be unergonomic, if not painful, to use a western classical approach to rhythm in a programming environment. Alex McLean, the main author of Tidal/Strudel, is very much into Indian classical, and this is reflected in the approach to rhythm. IMO this is an good choice, and people who know music theory and composition should feel right at home, assuming we're talking about the right theory.
When it comes to pitch (and I guess we agree on this) Strudel is firmly on the western traditional side. It generally assumes 12-tone equal temperament, uses ABC notation, has built-in facilities to express chords using their classical names...
Meanwhile I'm over here programming music where I express all frequencies as fractions or monzos. I find this better suited to a music programming environment, but this might be more personal.
Strudel is my favorite music coding environment. I mostly play on acoustic instruments but coding music has been really helpful as I try to learn music theory. Being able to just play in the browser without setup helps me focus on the music and less on fiddling with the tool. And it supports vim key bindings!
Strudel is a great tool and is helping me to make EDM from scratch. There are good tutorials and music that is easy to get started or to make something really interesting.
Also this music brings really good vibes!
I get more motivated when I can see it working directly and change some code here and there!
Thanks for sharing.
Quite possibly one of the most interesting things is just how competent the REPL is. It does some things that no other programming environment does in a prompt, all centered around real-time processing:
- All code in the prompt is being constantly evaluated - What parts of expressions are currently in use are highlighted - Visualization widgets sit side-by-side with the code
That last one is playfully rendered as pseudo-TUI "graphics", but is also presented with no borders or chrome around it. That's in sharp contrast to notebooks like Jypyter or Mathematica. They use minimal screen real-estate which also minimizes scrolling. If you look at videos of using this live, the ability to navigate the REPL quickly is crucial for performances.
So it's a lot like a kind of step-wise debugger, only more minimalist and moving at the (slow) speed of the music.
Ever since seeing Strudel, I've wondered what various programming sandboxes would be like if they could visually demonstrate operations in slow-motion.
It came out of the same team as Tidal Cycles, a Haskell live-coding music tool which was first released around 2009. https://tidalcycles.org/docs/around_tidal/tidal_history/
As an engineer, I love letting the requirements shape the solution, but this is just on a whole other level.
Everything is becoming js because everything is becoming js.
Pretty cool to see this post, I had no idea where to find more info about it!
I wrote a whole album of material about 10 years ago with it, just remastered/re-released it. It's a fun way to write music while on an airplane!
Coding Trance Music from Scratch (Again) [video]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu5rnQkfO6M
It´s a well done programming and music performance
She is using https://strudel.cc/
https://strudel.cc/
Step 1: https://strudel.cc/workshop/getting-started/ . Click play on coastline" @by eddyflux
Step 2: Listen for a while
Step 3: setcps(.75) -> setcps(1.5)
Step 4: Listen :)
That is the extent of my strudel knowledge, but damn this is cool.
.fast(chooseCycles(1, 2).slow(128))
at the very end does it. But I'm not actually sure. Would a strudel user mind informing me how this is done? Also, I was hoping to make it automatically shift the key, but I couldn't figure it out.
uBlock/uMatrix perhaps? At least that was for me the issue on Firefox.
EDIT: fixed link to not have trailing semicolon.
Maybe with just the comments? This would be killer, since I have dual displays, and on one I can just focus on the code, the other one can have all the visual stuff.
I'm using this plugin, but having the code twice distracts me a lot (but I prefer the original neovim instead the integrated vim mode inside strudel).
Thanks in advance!
.cm-line span { outline: none !important; color: transparent; background: transparent !important; }
Now with no added punctuation!
<pre> const SCALE = 'C#:minor' const CPM = 56 const SOUND = 'piano'
$: arrange( [4, n("<-7, 0>.25")], [4, n("<-8, -1>.25")],
).sound(SOUND) .scale(SCALE) .cpm(CPM);$: arrange( [8, n("4 7 9")],
).sound(SOUND) .scale(SCALE) .cpm(CPM);</pre>
but DAWs plugins and instruments are just like code but with an GUI interface to mess with. don't get me wrong, PureData freedom is astonishing but one can also go quite far with esoteric sequencers or modulation in DAWs found out there
[0] https://100r.co/site/orca.html [1] https://stochas.org/ [2] https://cardinal.kx.studio/
Strudel docs leave something to be desired as well.
What I've found to be the most useful so far is to ask an LLM to make a line of whatever: a beat, a synth, etc., tweak it, then layer it.
It gives a really good sense of how to architect a song file, which is missing from the little snippets in the strudel docs
She's using a live computational notebook as an instrument.
This resource is very helpful
NeoVim: https://github.com/gruvw/strudel.nvim
That's not really a point against it, it's a great tool and it's a ton of fun, but I wish there was a way to use it that at least kind of sort of mapped back to traditional music notation, especially rhythm notation.
When it comes to pitch (and I guess we agree on this) Strudel is firmly on the western traditional side. It generally assumes 12-tone equal temperament, uses ABC notation, has built-in facilities to express chords using their classical names...
Meanwhile I'm over here programming music where I express all frequencies as fractions or monzos. I find this better suited to a music programming environment, but this might be more personal.
https://strudel.cc/#CnNldGNwbSg3Mi8yKQoKbGV0IGJhc3MgPSBub3Rl...
A nitpick: Isn't the below statement wrong? I thought "RolandTR909" was the name of the soundbank which is used for both bd and sd?
"bd is bass drum (also called kick-drums), sd is snare drum. RolandTR909 is the name of the sound."