The https://strudel.cc/learn/visual-feedback/ section is a great demo.
Strudel is neat! A friend sent me a video recently of someone using it to make breakbeat music, which got me looking into it. I've known about live coding music for a long time but never actually investigated how it works.
I find the fluent API plus "display-oriented REPL" a very cool way to do things. The docs need a lot of work, though… The only API reference is in a sidebar of the REPL (i.e. not in the docs site), and discoverability depends entirely on guessing the name of the function. There's multiple ways to do things and all of them are explained with reference to each other, so it's very difficult to track down an authoritative, explicit overview of how something works.
A colleague recently introduced this to me via https://x.com/bantg/status/1933967436459503662 and I was instantly blown away.
After diving in and reading through the docs (the workshop intro is a great way to get started) I can say I am really impressed.
What I like about strudel is the concept of cycles and how they work. Combine that with note numbers rather than names and it’s actually a pretty interesting way to compose melodies and jam out song ideas.
There is support for randomization like Euclidean patterns so you can really play around and tinker with it until you stumble on something you like.
Switch Angel has a really nice video showing their workflow here: https://youtu.be/sefJz9biLCY?si=QRb6g8qZ48qlfLtT
The editor is really cool, how it highlights what parts of the file are active as the song plays.
Currently using the Superdough and transpiler parts of Strudel as part of the game engine I'm making. God I wish it was better documented though.
Even if you’re not interested in making your own music with Strudel, this site is worth a visit for the showcase. A lot of folks are making a lot of interesting music with it!
This is so cool. Years ago I was at a maker conference and there was a tent hosting an Algorave (https://algorave.com/) which introduced me to the whole scene of live coded music. Really niche subject but very interesting.
This takes me back - I was playing around with Tidal and Supercollider over a decade ago at uni. I was terrible but it was great fun.
Note: if you’re on iOS and want to listen to the example, disable silent mode. At least that’s what I had to do to hear the sound.
tangential: just two days ago, Strudel has moved from Github to Codeberg (sparse discussion on their Discord homebase as to the motivations).
For anyone having done a migration from Github to another platform (Codeberg, gitlab.org, selfhosted etc.): was it worth it? What went well, what went wrong?
I love this site! Great tool to make music and save music ideas and it’s low threshold fun way for people to get into code as well.
Am I the only one who clicked through because they were looking for tips on how to make apple strudel?
Editor is the coolest part about this. Makes the display of work easy and fun
I wish there was a LLM you could sing and beatbox too- that would translate that into strudel code.
The underrated aspect with Strudel is that you don't have to install anything.
Neat, this is the first project I've seen in the wild that uses astro.
someone watches theprimagen
Cool, this feels like OpenSCAD, but for music. I'm very visually oriented, so I don't think this would work for me (neither does OpenSCAD), but I really like the concept.
This is fantastic!
"getting started with strudel"
apfel.
enjoy.
It is a very interesting way of making music.
That being said I think something needs to be highlighted. For some reason, it sees itself as "low barrier to entry" relative to traditional ways of making music (ie partiture or an actual music instrument). How is possessing a phone, ability to read English and knowing how to program lower barrier to entry than picking an instrument like a piano and playing some music?
Clearly, Strudel assumes some knowledge of basic music theory (melody, rhythm and harmony) so having that, what is it exactly that makes Strudel lower barrier to entry.
Is Strudel assuming that learning to program is inherently easier than learning to play any instrument?
It would be nice if whatever assumptions it has could be made explicit as it's not the first time that I see [insert here software tool to make music] claim that it's a lower barrier to entry to make music without saying why.
Obviously, this being HN people will likely prefer software and algorithmic approaches to making music in your room as opposed to the traditional and more social way of learning with a teacher and a cohort of students.
Love this for you, but I think we have to be more careful. People want to make music with instruments, orthodox or otherwise. The optics are crazy here.
I released this remix with Strudel last year: https://strudel.cc/?mTeJt_ICoPrw
https://open.spotify.com/track/39K9sFCNCv7H5kyQAfcePr?si=8a1...