Best practices for structuring songs in Sonic Pi?

Hi Sonic Pi community,

  1. Are there any best practices to efficiently structure a song in Sonic Pi?

I worked through Sam’s tutorial and have a first understanding of the syntax, but i am wondering how a whole song would look like.

I was thinking something like:

a) First define variables /instruments
b) Then write a bunch of functions to have the building blocks.
c) Then threads and loops for the actual song?

I am not an experienced coder.

  1. How would things be different between a “normal” arrangement and a live coding Performance?

Do you have to prepare code for live coding performances? Or do you really start with a blank canvas?

Thank you very much!!

2 Likes

Hi @han.siebo,

I think there is not such a thing that like this is the best way. Everyone creates their own way to make music and I think this is the richness of live coding. You dont have to be an exprienced coder, Im not either :smiley: So we can say, which method is easy for you, just use it.

To give you an idea, I can explain my method. Sometimes I make my sounds with using Sonic Pi synths but most of time I create my sounds with Ableton Live. Than I store these samples in one file and call them from Sonic Pi. I try these samples with_fx’s, if there is interesting result than I use it.

If you are interested you can check up my last concert codes and record. But I’ve to tell you I use different methods all my concerts.

Here codes:

Here record:

Hi @Berke ,

Thanks for sharing this! Looking at other people’s (your) code is super helpful. And I am starting to see differences between different musicians (how they approach things).

One more question:
For your live performance, do you code the mix in advance and then change parameters when performing live?

Dope mix btw!

Thank you

1 Like

For your live performance, do you code the mix in advance and then change parameters when performing live?

It really depends on what do I create for the performance, sometimes yes and sometimes no. This was my techno example and I reached 148 bpm. Its really difficult to change parameters in this 148 bpm while live performing. So I wrote a script and most of the code live coding itself. Meanwhile I manipulated my visuals lively. To be honest I didnt write this script, I found in this here, I dont remember who but somebody made a script and I take it and adapt to my code. :joy: Btw everyone doing that :nerd_face:

Anyways, as I said before, everyone have their own ways. My suggestion for you, try every one of code you see and adapt to yourself.

Dope mix btw!

Thank you very much, I’m so glad that you like it :star_struck: :star_struck: