So random seeing her mentioned here today. I just discovered her yesterday, saw a Youtube short where she's operating a Eurorack synth at Switched On in Austin, TX. It's a cool little synth shop that's worth checking out if you're ever in town. Looks like they've moved locations recently though.
Strudel is a JavaScript port of TidalCycles (Haskell). While TC uses SuperCollider for the synthesis, Strudel uses superdough which seems to be a custom implementation. I'm currently learning SuperCollider sclang and waiting for a version upgrade to have a reason to submit it here - usually some of the discussion is quite insightful. Anyway sclang is the PHP of music - just uglier and less consistent. But it's also powerful and and quite fun.
When I last played with SuperCollider I used Overtone, that wraps everything in a Closure API. With that you use s-expressions instead of sclang to define your sounds. I am not sure what the state of Overtone is these days, but there seems to still be some activity: https://overtone.github.io/
This is cool because a lot of the current tools are a bit old and I feel a bit like they suffer from NIH (not invented here) syndrome, where what is actually needed is for things to just be in javascript.
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.
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.
Oh and there is flok[1] which combines the strudel repl with visuals from hydra. Also there are sclang and other algorave environments available. Everything is synced (with crdts i guess) so it’s live collaborative. Which is nice to remotely jam with friends
There are plenty of instruments in there. I did a quick and dirty encoding of the first bar of “City of Star” with the piano when I first discovered it.
note("G2@2 A#2 D@2 G@2 ~ G F@2 D@1.5")
.sound("piano")
Strudel can use custom samples in addition to the built in synths and samples. The language is really expressive. I’ve not gone too far into playing with it but from what I’ve seen it’s pretty flexible.
That said I’ve only seen people making house/techno/drum-n-bass kinda stuff with it.
The syntax is pretty relevant for the kind/compexity of the aspired music. The music from the examples is quite simple compared to what Soerensen does with his Lisp-like syntax. Strudel seems to go more towards SuperCollider syntax, which from my humble point of view is better suited for offline productions.
It will explain the process DJDave uses to create music under strudel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkgV_-nJOuE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkgV_-nJOuE
https://youtu.be/E1K6Sv-oIb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWXCCBsOMSg
So stoked to play with this.
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
Thanks for mentioning superdough I hadn’t seen it anywhere while I was playing with all of the above. Piqued my curiosity :)
I wonder if that could be used at some point.
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.
[1] https://flok.cc
For some music ed stuff I work on, I actually have s7 Scheme in WASM controlling csound in WASM, both were surprisingly easy to get going!
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?
My only criticism is it makes music feel like CSS. In some ways it helps with theory, yes, but the DX is more like Tailwind.
note("G2@2 A#2 D@2 G@2 ~ G F@2 D@1.5") .sound("piano")
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.