Tech

Patternuary 2023

February 5, 2023
Tech

During January 2023 a number of people active in the livecoding community participated together in a ‘patternuary’ https://club.tidalcycles.org/t/patternuary-2023/4474/1 aiming to make one pattern every day during the month. Some people worked in TidalCycles https://tidalcycles.org/, while many chose to use the Strudel platform https://strudel.tidalcycles.org/. Some of the patterns were posted on the Tidal Club thread above, while many otherers appeared under the #patternuary thread on Mastodon https://post.lurk.org/tags/patternuary. Given the strong likelihood of bitrot, I created a single video https://archive. ...

Livecoding Audacity – the outcome

December 23, 2022
Tech

So, here’s how it turned out: attempting to ’livecode’ Audacity by saving a file out periodically to SuperCollider. A slow start, but gets more interesting towards the end of the twenty minutes. https://youtu.be/0YpgHdJY-Kw Also available here https://archive.org/details/nightstream-dec-2022-tedthetrumpet

Tiny Estuary Jams

December 3, 2021
Tech

I seem to have started doing that thing where I post a small piece of work each day: so far, four very short jam sessions in Estuary: https://youtu.be/MeCpvXLMQe4 https://youtu.be/b5MQBuA5SWA https://youtu.be/ddkhm-JRj5I https://youtu.be/dRgQwRuUYsM

Gamelan sounds in GarageBand on iPad

March 10, 2021
Tech

This posting shows how I was able to get the sounds of the pelog half of the Spirit of Hope gamelan here in Glasgow to work in GarageBand on an iPad. First install an app called ‘SoundFonts’ from the App Store: it’s £4.99. Go to this link https://archive.org/download/sohgamelanbalunganpelog, and download the file called SoH Gamelan balungan pelog.sf2 The file should end up saved in the Downloads folder in iCloud Drive. ...

Sound from SuperCollider to OBS on macOS

March 14, 2020
Tech

The principle here is that sound is sent from SuperCollider to the virtual audio driver BlackHole, and from BlackHole to OBS. You then listen to the sound through OBS. Install https://github.com/ExistentialAudio/BlackHole Set the mac sound output to ‘BlackHole 16ch’ using the widget in the menu bar: Boot or reboot the server in SuperCollider – this is a key step, the SC server will not pick up a change of audio device without a fresh boot or a reboot: ...

Livecoding brass

December 31, 2019
News, Tech

As 2019 draws to a close, I’m spending some time getting ready for the International Conference on Livecoding in February in Limerick. I put in two proposals. The first of these was to be called The ‘All-Pressure No-Method’ System, and would have involved me working with four live brass players. I say ‘would have’: this has had to be abandoned, we were not able to fund the travel and accomodation for the players. ...

Livecoding gamelan

December 31, 2019
News, Tech

The work that I will be taking to ICLC 2020 in Limerick is entitled ‘Perang Gagal: a Series of Inconclusive Battles’, and is a collaboration with Professor Mel Mercier at the Irish Word Academy of Music and Dance. I will performing livecode in SuperCollider as part of a small gamelan ensemble let by Mel. Here’s the demo video I submitted to the conference call: https://youtu.be/yN1STGvmRqY I had thought that the eventual piece would be straightforward to devise, but it is proving trickier than I thought. ...

That syncing feeling

December 31, 2019
News, Tech

In order to be able to work up sketches for ‘Perang Gagal’ at ICLC in Limerick, I wanted to use Logic to compose demos of the material for the live players that I could then improvise with in SuperCollider. This poses the problem of how to sync the pulse and tempo between the two programmes, which proved annoyingly difficult to accomplish! Ideally, I would have liked to set the tempo in SuperCollider for Logic to follow. ...

Algorave at Sound Thought

February 18, 2019
News, Tech

I shared an algorave spot at Sound Thought with Claire Quigley, that was streamed as part of the TOPLAP 15th anniversary stream. You can see her set here and mine is here, although I have to say not that happy with the way my performance turned out on the day. The rehearsal was better: https://youtu.be/zQwASJEnYEY As you can see, combining my livecoding work with my passion for table tennis! And, in fact, this was a new technical discovery just the day before: it is possible to use Atom to livecode simultaneously in Hydra and SuperCollider, using a plugin for SC. ...

Callout for Scottish algo-ravers 16-2-2019

January 28, 2019
News, Tech

I’m looking for music and/or visual artists working with live code who are interested in joining me for an improvised algorave as part of Sound Thought 2019. ‘Livecoding’ is a practice where creative artists who work with computer code perform live, often producing music and/or visuals, with the audience typically able to watch the evolution of the code on a projected screen. ‘Algorave’ is a subgenre where the aim is to produce beat-driven music and/or visuals for dancing. ...