Code has proven itself flexible once again, this time in an activity that usually requires dedicated tools: making music. The project is called Sonic Pi, a live-coding synthesizer that can turn hardware like the Raspberry Pi into an almost complete instrument, while also serving as an excellent learning platform.
Sonic Pi: A Synthesizer You Program
Anyone who imagines programming as cold and rigid needs to look at projects like this more closely. For years we've enjoyed tools available on multiple platforms, loaded with small samples that together have the potential to form excellent melodies. But what we have here today offers the possibility of writing code to make music. Traditional tools, so to speak, have a strong visual component, where we must cut, paste, adapt, and mix waves according to what we want. Sonic Pi, on the other hand, is pure text, and if we judge its capabilities with this video, its performance is excellent:
A Look at the Demo
Needless to say, a trained ear could detect some errors, but according to Sébastien Rannou, the creator of Sonic Pi, this is just a simple demonstration, showcasing the software's resources. He has even published a tutorial explaining how he created this demo, clearly based on "Aerodynamic" by Daft Punk. The official Sonic Pi page also has several samples, small pieces of code that generate different sounds. The software may seem intimidating at first, but it's actually designed to make learning both code and music easier.
Availability and Open Source
Sonic Pi is already part of Raspbian Jessie, so any Raspberry Pi user running that OS already has a copy. Alternatively, you can download its build for Windows (Windows 7 and above) or for Apple systems (OS X Lion minimum). Finally, the fact that Sonic Pi is an open source project under the MIT license should make it much easier to port to other platforms.
Official site and download: Sonic Pi
