Loved playing with it! https://strudel.cc/?qVv8Cr0OD6cc

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'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

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/

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.

EDIT: fixed link to not have trailing semicolon.

I posted this link, some days ago:

Coding Trance Music from Scratch (Again) [video]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu5rnQkfO6M

It´s a well done programming and music performance

I was just talking to JChris Anderson about Strudel last week, he forked it, adding "snaps" where users can snapshot their work allowing for the creation of multi-layered songs, added a "vibe" tab so anyone can easily update the code with pompts, and a few other changes.

Here's the fork on GitHub: https://github.com/VibesDIY/strudel

Here's a preview of what it would look like when merged: https://strudel.use-vibes.com/

Here he is playing around with the preview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oJhnkWDafM

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!

Let me introduce you to a good time.

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.

I have submitted a talk for FOSDEM26 on Live Coding Music and Hardware with Strudel and MicroPython. Hope to get in :)

If you enjoy this kind of tutorials then you will also enjoy this one:

> How to Synthesize a House Loop[0]

[0]: https://loopmaster.xyz/tutorials/how-to-synthesize-a-house-l...

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:

<pre> const SCALE = 'C#:minor' const CPM = 56 const SOUND = 'piano'

$: arrange( [4, n("<-7, 0>.25")], [4, n("<-8, -1>.25")],

  [2, n("<-9, -2>*.5")],
  [2, n("<-11, -4>*.5")],
  
  [4, n("<-10, -3>*.5")],
  
  [4, n("<0, -3, -7>*.25")],
  [4, n("<-1#, -3, -8#>*.25")],
  
  [2, n("<-2, -9>*.5")],
  [2, n("<-6, -13>*.5")],
  
  [4, n("<-3, -10>*.5")],
  
  [4, n("<0, -7>*.25")],

).sound(SOUND) .scale(SCALE) .cpm(CPM);

$: arrange( [8, n("4 7 9")],

  [2, n("5 7 9")], 
  [2, n("5 8b 10")],
  
  [1, n("4*.1 6# 10")], 
  [1, n("4 7 9")],
  [1, n("4 7 8")], 
  [1, n("3 6# 8")],
  
  [1, n("0 2 5")],
  [2, n("2 7 9")],
  [1, n("2 7 9, 11 - - 11")],
  
  [1, n("2 8 10, 11 -")],
  [2, n("2 8 10")],
  [1, n("2 8 10, 11 - - 11")],

  [1, n("2 7 9, 11 -")],
  [1, n("2 7 9")],
  [1, n("1 7 10, 12 - -")],
  [1, n("1 7 10")],

  [1, n("2 4 9, 11 - -")],
  [1, n("2 4 9")],
  [1, n("3 4 8, 10 - -")],
  [1, n("3 4 8, 13 - -")],

  [1, n("2 4 9, 9 -")],
  [3, n("2 4 9")],

).sound(SOUND) .scale(SCALE) .cpm(CPM);

</pre>

I was excited to see this, but then realized only chapter 1 is done out of what ultimately will/should be a 25 chapter tome.

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

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.

A really great source for this is DJ Dave

I've been working on a similar project, also open source: https://www.june.kim/jamdojo/

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.

Even though Algorave is quite new, everyone who ever touched .mod/.s3m/.xm/.it can fell young again haha.

DJ_Dave live events are the best illustration for all of it. If you love electronic music, ever touched any generative art, and know basic coding this is for you.

Besides Strudel, there's also http://glicol.org/. It seems Glicol is more geared towards sound synthesis, while Strudel's sequencer is more powerful.

if you need a 4/4 clicker metronome I crafted this one :) https://strudel.cc/hNV6sevsZERY

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.

I have just discovered Strudel last month. Even as an owner of Ableton, there is just something compelling about coding music in.

made this with opus 4.5 few days ago:

https://strudel.cc/#CnNldGNwbSg3Mi8yKQoKbGV0IGJhc3MgPSBub3Rl...

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!

Anyone have any experience improving performance of their Strudel patches?

I find I get close to something ready to perform... but then the webapp starts struggling and I find myself back at the drawing board.

I get the sense I'm not using it right and making the DSP work much harder than it needs to :P

A slightly older Switch Angel trance video is how I learned about Strudel/TidalCycles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWXCCBsOMSg. Her narration over top makes it the perfect trance track. "More chaos brings more power. More power brings more control." I desperately want a clean sample of that.

+1 Switch Angels performances

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.

Tangent, but...is that her real/natural voice? It's like studio-level female vocals for Hardstyle without even trying. I am mesmerized.

Edit: it looks like she has a filter on. I'm an audio noob so I can't tell.

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.

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.

Is this real library/editor/programming-language ?? I don’t see anything on how it’s made?

Every time I watch one of her performances, I smile when she says "... with the scope."