Strudel REPL – a music live coding environment living in the browser
So random seeing her mentioned here today. I just discovered her yesterday
I literally came across her on my youtube feed an hour back, and thought it'd be something HN would love.
Still distracted, I opened HN's default news page. Aaaand I saw this thread and your comment. So, no free karma for me lol, but still hope to see good discussions about the software. It feels very hacker-ey in an old-skool kinda fun way!
Thanks for mentioning superdough I hadn’t seen it anywhere while I was playing with all of the above. Piqued my curiosity :)
Looks like this:
mondo`
$ note (c2 # euclid <3 6 3> <8 16>) # *2
# s "sine" # add (note [0 <12 24>]*2)
# dec(sine # range .2 2)
# room .5
# lpf (sine/3 # range 120 400)
# lpenv (rand # range .5 4)
# lpq (perlin # range 5 12 # \* 2)
# dist 1 # fm 4 # fmh 5.01 # fmdecay <.1 .2>
# postgain .6 # delay .1 # clip 5
$ s [bd bd bd bd] # bank tr909 # clip .5
# ply <1 [1 [2 4]]>
$ s oh*4 # press # bank tr909 # speed.8
# dec (<.02 .05>*2 # add (saw/8 # range 0 1)) # color "red"
`
await initTidal()
tidal`
d1
$ sub (note "12 0")
$ sometimes (|+ note "12")
$ jux rev $ voicing $ n "<0 5 4 2 3(3,8)/2>*8"
# chord "<Dm Dm7 Dm9 Dm11>"
# dec 0.5 # delay 0.5 # room 0.5 # vib "4:.25"
# crush 8 # s "sawtooth" # lpf 800 # lpd 0.1
# dist 1
d2
$ s "RolandTR909_bd*4, hh(10,16), oh(-10,16)"
# clip (range 0.1 0.9 $ fast 5 $ saw)
# release 0.04 # room 0.5
`
But it is currently broken on the REPL site because of https://codeberg.org/uzu/strudel/pulls/1510 and https://codeberg.org/uzu/strudel/issues/1335
I wonder if that could be used at some point.
What the implications are for music, I don't know.
[1] https://flok.cc
All examples I've heard from Strudel so far are pretty boring (constant beat/chord machine music).
Are there examples in other styles?
That said I’ve only seen people making house/techno/drum-n-bass kinda stuff with it.
Here is a piece inspired by Dawn of Midi and my attempt at taking a piano synth and trying to make it sound like a lof of different things.
Copy, paste, modify.
const bpm = 138; setcps(bpm/60/4);
// Pattern 1: lower melodic pulse
const bass_pulse = note("<d2 f2 a2 g2>") .s("piano") .slow(4) .gain(rand.range(0.45, 0.65)) .attack(0.005) .decay(0.8) .sustain(1.2) .release(1.2) .lpf(800) .room(0.3) .delay(0.15) .delaytime(0.375) .delayfeedback(0.25) .pan(0.5);
// Pattern 1.5 (?): layered base
const bass_pulse_2 = note("<d2 f2 a2 g2>") .s("piano") .slow(4) .gain(rand.range(0.45, 0.65)) .add(note(12)) .attack(0.005) .decay(0.8) .sustain(1.2) .release(1.2) .lpf(800) .room(0.3) .delay(0.15) .delaytime(0.375) .delayfeedback(0.25) .pan(0.5);
// Pattern 2: Mid-range polyrhythm
const mid_pattern = note("<a3 c4 d4 f4 a3>") .s("piano") .struct("x(5,8)") .gain(rand.range(0.25, 0.45)) .attack(0.008) .decay(0.4) .sustain(0.05) .release(0.6) .lpf(perlin.range(1200, 2200).slow(8)) .room(0.5) .pan(rand.range(0.3, 0.7));
// Pattern 3: repetitive pulse
const high_pulse = note("d5 [~ d5] d5 ~") .s("piano") .fast(2) .gain(rand.range(0.18, 0.35)) .attack(0.01) .decay(0.3) .sustain(0) .release(0.4) .lpf(2800) .room(0.6) .delay(0.25) .delaytime(0.1875) .delayfeedback(0.3) .pan(0.7);
// Pattern 4: Sparse accent notes (3 over 4 polyrhythm)
const accents = note("a4 ~ f4") .s("piano") .slow(2) .gain(rand.range(0.35, 0.55)) .attack(0.5) .decay(0.6) .sustain(0.9) .release(0.9) .lpf(1800) .room(0.45) .pan(0.2) .sometimes(x => x.delay(0.3).delayfeedback(0.4));
// Pattern 5: Extended mid-range polyrhythm (13 over 16 - cello thingie)
const mid_long = note("<a3 c4 d4 f4 a3 c4 e4 d4 f4 g3 a3 c4 d4>") .s("piano") .struct("x(13,16)") .gain(rand.range(0.32, 0.48)) .attack(0.06) .decay(0.9) .sustain(0.25) .release(1.1) .lpf(perlin.range(800, 1400).slow(12)) .lpq(4) .room(0.55) .delay(0.18) .delaytime(0.25) .delayfeedback(0.3) .pan(rand.range(0.35, 0.65));
const high_long = note("<d5 a4 f5 d5 c5 a4 g4>") .s("piano") .struct("x(7,8)") .gain(rand.range(0.28, 0.42)) .attack(0.05) .decay(0.8) .sustain(0.3) .release(1.0) .lpf(sine.range(1000, 1600).slow(8)) .lpq(3.5) .room(0.6) .delay(0.22) .delaytime(0.1875) .delayfeedback(0.35) .pan(0.7);
stack( bass_pulse, bass_pulse_2, mid_long, high_long, mid_pattern, high_pulse, accents );
Tide Cycles doesn't work on Fedora, so I might use this instead. Anyway to get it running as a node js script so I use it locally?
This wasn’t possible as much when the last gen of tools came out (sonic pi etc) but I think the time is right.
The next iteration that would be cool is a true two-way interface between the visualizations and the code. Right now the slider is a really awesome element, for example. I think Bret Victor would be proud.
$: arrange( [4, "<sh09_bd>(4,8)"], [4, "<sh09_bd>(4,8)"], [1, "<sh09_bd mfb512_sd>(6,6)"] ).s().fast(2).layer(x=>x.add("0,2")).gain(".4!2 .5").phaser(2).phasercenter("<4000 800 4000 4000>")
$: s("gm_tinkle_bell").distort("<1 2 1 2:.5>").crush("<8 8 8 6 6 8 8>").chop(4)
$: arrange( [2, "<c4 e4 g4>(3,8)"], [1, "<f4 a4 c5>(3,8)"], [1, "<c4 e4 g4>(3,8)"] ).note().chop(4).fast(4).distort("<3:.5>").phaser(4).phasercenter("<800>").fm(4).fmdecay("<.05 .05 .1 .2>").fmsustain(.4)._scope()
I don't know what half this stuff does but it was still so much fun and this is probably one of my favorite projects ever. What made it most fun for me is that the reference docs are in the page so it's really easy to pick something at random and just see what it does.
i remember seing a .appimage hosted on github in the releases, but they moved to a new host now
oh and if you don't know what inspired the name of the software ; a strudel is really yummy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strudel
Uncaught (in promise) ReferenceError: AudioContext is not defined
ln https://strudel.cc/_astro/spectrum.Bf7jMx6O.js:1
W https://strudel.cc/_astro/spectrum.Bf7jMx6O.js:1
un https://strudel.cc/_astro/spectrum.Bf7jMx6O.js:1
c https://strudel.cc/_astro/spectrum.Bf7jMx6O.js:1
It will explain the process DJDave uses to create music under strudel