I'm stealing/playing around with ideas from the tidal language here.
Tidal is more focussed on creating loop based music and manipulating samples. It has a good (although initially scary looking) DSL for this purpose.
every 6 (density 2) $ jux (iter 8) $ every 8 rev $
every 5 (0.25 <~) $ sound "[808a/4*16, 808a/2 [808a/3 ~ ~ 808b] [~ 808b/3 808b/3 ~] [~], [~ ~ ~ [~ 808b/2]]/2]"
|+| speed "[1 1 1 [1.5 0.8] 1 1 1 [1 0.5]]/8"
This is an implementation of a scale exercise widely used in jazz teaching. It's sometimes known as the "big scale" exercise.
Let's say you practice the saxophone and you want to make sure you know all your major scales. One way to test this would be to play the scale within the limits of your instrument - saxophones have a lowest note and a highest note (from :Db3 to :A5 at concert pitch in Sonic-Pi speak - see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alto_saxophone#Range - assuming you don't get fancy with harmonics!)
Playing an Eb major scale over the whole range of the instrument would mean playing from :D3 to Ab5 (concert) as the lowest and highest notes available don't appear in the scale (:Db3 and :A5 respectively). When you hit the upper or lower limit you just reverse the direction and carry on going.
More Sonic Pi experiments with randomisation of grooves.
By choosing the likelihood of certain sounds landing on certain beats we can create grooves that are unique and non-repeating yet not totally random - they maintain some feeling of a style or genre.
I'm looking to develop this idea to express these kinds of patterns in a declarative way. Any feedback to @xavriley on twitter please.
You can download Sonic Pi here: http://sonic-pi.net/get-v2.0
I was curious about making retro gaming sounds using Sonic Pi. A couple of months and a lot of Googling later, here's the original Mario Bros theme as it was heard on the NES console.
I'm (just about) old enough to remember rushing home from school to play this game at Philip Boucher's house, sitting cross-legged in front of the TV till my feet got pins and needles. Working out how to recreate it for Sonic Pi was a lot of fun!
| # Live coding example for Retune conference 2014 | |
| # 1) Press Run (Cmd+R) to start | |
| # 2) Make changes (e.g. comment in/out various lines in :beats & :amen) | |
| # 3) Press Run again (changes will only be audible from next queue point) | |
| # compute loop length (4 bars), bar & quarter note durations | |
| dur = sample_duration :loop_compus | |
| bar = dur / 4 | |
| quart = dur / 16 |
| use_bpm 130 | |
| use_synth :saw | |
| use_synth_defaults release: 0.4 | |
| bassline = (knit :a3, 4, | |
| :e3, 5, | |
| :f3, 4, | |
| :d3, 5, | |
| :b2, 4, | |
| :c3, 5, |
| use_bpm 110 | |
| live_loop(:dr) do | |
| with_fx :compressor, pre_amp: 10 do | |
| with_fx :reverb, mix: 0.1, room: 1 do | |
| with_fx :ring, freq: scale(:eb4, :minor_pentatonic).choose, mix: 0.4 do | |
| "100100101110".chars.map(&:to_i).each.with_index do |beat, i| | |
| sample :bd_808 if beat == 1 | |
| sample :bd_808 if beat != 1 and one_in(12) | |
| with_fx :bitcrusher, bits: 8 do | |
| sample :elec_blip, pan: -> {rrand(0,1)}.call, amp: 5 if [4,13].include? i |
| c_bebop = [60,62,64,65,67,68,69,71] | |
| current_scale = (c_bebop.map {|x| x - 12 } + \ | |
| c_bebop + \ | |
| c_bebop.map {|x| x + 12 } + \ | |
| c_bebop.map {|x| x + 24 }).flatten | |
| def chord_tones(n, scale) | |
| return n if n.nil? | |
| idx = scale.to_a.index(note(n).to_i) |
| uncomment do | |
| define :pad_times do |target_length, time_values| | |
| if time_values.reduce(:+) < target_length | |
| return time_values << (target_length - time_values.reduce(:+)) | |
| else | |
| truncated_times = time_values.take_while.with_index {|x,i| | |
| time_values[0..i].reduce(:+) < target_length | |
| } | |
| return truncated_times << (target_length - truncated_times.reduce(:+)) | |
| end |
| live_loop :dr do |c| | |
| with_fx :reverb do | |
| synth :zawa, note: (knit :c2, 32, :a1, 8)[c], release: 3, phase: 0.25, wave: 1, phase_offset: 0.5 if factor?(c, 16) | |
| end | |
| with_fx :echo, mix: 0.3 do | |
| synth :pulse, pan: Math.sin(vt), note: (scale :a3, :minor_pentatonic).choose, release: 0.1 if spread(7,16)[c] | |
| end | |
| sample :bd_haus if spread(5,8)[c] |