Talks to Watch

Sam Aaron live coding a DJ set with Sonic Pi

95K views · Apr 15, 2016 · 2:25:57 · 3 HN recommenders · 4 mentions · discussed 2017–2020

A long live-coded DJ set in which Sam Aaron creates all the music in real time by writing code in his Sonic Pi system. It demonstrates algorithmic electronic music performance.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN people recommend it as the most impressive demonstration of live coding music, especially to those curious about programmable music.

“The most impressive thing you can do with it is live coding”HN comment, 2018

What Hacker News said 4

RecommendsbeaconstudiosApr 2017

“you might enjoy the emerging school of live coding”

Live coding performance for fans of algorithmic chiptunes

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if you like that kind of thing (algorithmic chiptunes), you might enjoy the emerging school of live coding: link this video

Recommendspjc50Jul 2018

“The most impressive thing you can do with it is live coding”

Most impressive thing you can do with programmable music

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It's a species of programmable synthesiser. If it looks like a lot of work, you should see someone playing an analog modular synth. In fact, you should see someone playing classical piano; that's years of practice and a whole chunk of music theory. The most impressive thing you can do with it is live coding: this video

in “Sonic Pi: Compose electronic music with code” · view on HN
Recommendsthrowaway9482Jun 2020

“Sonic Pi might interest you if you don’t know it already.”

Demo of making music with Ruby code

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Sonic Pi might interest you if you don’t know it already. It’s an alternative to DAWs where you use ruby code to make music Here’s a demo this video

in “Ask HN: Those who left software development for a different technical field?” · view on HN
Cites itbirracervezaMay 2020
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Sonic Pi is really fun to play around. However, the editor is fucking abysmal and turns me off every time I try to use it, since I can't use my muscle memory to copy/paste/multiselect and have to otherwise learn another set of keybinding that make no sense whatsoever (instead of CTRL-X to cut you have ALT-X, for example). I wish I were able to use VSCode. I know an extension exists, but it only sends the current file to the Sonic Pi session and has no autocompletion, which is fairly necessary during a live-coding music session to keep the tunes flowing. If I'll ever get around to understand how to develop an extension I'll try my hand at it, I guess. But otherwise yeah, it's some good stuff and has lots of unexplored potential. this video

in “Sonic Pi is a code-based music creation and performance tool” · view on HN