Starting Live coding

Performing
1

Hola!
I am very new in live coding, I just started but I’m very excited. What program do you recommend to start?

Thanks!!+

2

It depends what you want out of it…

The two most popular currently (based on my own unreliable heuristics) are:

  • TidalCycles - https://tidalcycles.org/
    Based on Haskell, active community, sample based sequencing usually using SuperCollider as audio engine.
  • Foxdot - https://foxdot.org/
    Similar, but based on Python, good for EDM. I’ve not tried it but seems fun too.

You can also live-code from SuperCollider directly - https://supercollider.github.io/

Ultimately there are many options, see here:

I feel ChucK is underrated from what I’ve seen, but could be more of a learning curve.
There are also languages for visual or even physical coding.

If you’re a beginner then maybe one that has an active friendly community and good documentation would be best to try first.

(And then of course there is my own humble offering if you’re onto sound design/synthesis/musique concrète, but at the moment only available for Linux/FreeBSD users: GitHub - SynteLang/SynteLang: Public repository for the Syntə live-coding language )

:smile:

3

Interesting! What makes you say Foxdot is good for EDM?

4

I’ve seen demonstration videos (I think on main channel?) that showed fast and convincing development of that kind of style.
When I say EDM, I don’t mean generic or boring, simply something that someone new to live coding might easily be able to relate to.
As far as I’m aware Foxdot is a versatile language, so I see no reason why it shouldn’t EDM?

Bear in mind that I’m by no means an expert on any live-coding languages, just enough to be dangerous :slight_smile:

5

Oh ok! I’ve been trying to make EDM in Foxdot myself but haven’t seen other examples of it, so I got excited for a sec heh heh. Which main channel has examples of this?

6

If I recall correctly the video I’m thinking of is the one on the front page of the foxdot link above.

url for convenience - Live Coding with FoxDot and SuperCollider - YouTube

What interests me most about live coding is the new directions it opens up - so if you don’t make exactly what you had in mind, at least you have made something new/different :slight_smile:

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