Hi from Montreal, Canada

[garaughty]

hi all…

I just stumbled across Sonic Pi today as well as a few of Sam Aaron’s videos on YouTube so I guess I’m here by accident !

Normally I use synths(u-he) and samplers (Kontakt) in my music but for some reason, was fascinated by the Sonic Pi project. I have no idea how I’ll be using Sonic Pi but for now I’ll be watching more videos and reading the intro tutorials to try and get my feet wet.

My music background is as a composer/producer/studio musician. Did music for commercials(jingles) for about 12 years and left the music biz when I fell into the art world. A few years ago I decided to get back to my 1st love which is music and have been working on various projects, soundscapes, ambient piano pieces, etc…

If you’re curious, you can hear some of my work on YouTube at…
https://youtube.com/c/garaughty/

Other than that, I’m just looking forward to seeing how everyone else is using Sonic Pi and hoping I’ll learn along the way. Later…

marti

[Eli]

Welcome to the madness… we can’t guarantee your sanity from
here on in, I’m afraid.

Eli…

[garaughty]

Thx @Eli… I’ll consider myself warned !

[samaaron]

Hey @garaughty,

it’s wonderful to welcome you to our community. Thank-you so much for playing and experimenting with Sonic Pi.

I’m sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that you’re experience and skills as a composer/producer/studio musician will be be greatly appreciated here. I’m sure you’ll have a positive impact

Personally, I’d be deeply interested in any thoughts/issues/wishes/frustrations you might have whilst you learn and play with Sonic Pi. Whilst it was originally designed and built for an education context, I really want to see it be a valuable tool in the toolkit of people like yourself. Any feedback towards that goal would be fabulous.

Do have fun, and please share as much of your journey as you can here. There are no wrong/bad questions. We’re all here to share and learn together

[garaughty]

Thx much @samaaron, I just stumbled across Sonic Pi over the weekend. Saw some of your YouTube videos & performances. Seriously impressed by what you were able to do with this. Will be checking out more of the videos and tutorials when I have time. Looking forward to trying it out. Will post questions/ideas as they pop up. Hope you’re doing well, have an awesome Monday !

[minced_mind]

Hi Marti,

you have some nice music there. I like the ambient stuff. Maybe changing reverb parameters over time could be something interesting for you in sonic-pi or generally changing parameters of effects over time through the control parameter. That way you can create some nice soundscapes.
Short (not so good) example:

with_fx :reverb, room: 0.99, room_slide: 4, room_slide_shape: 1 do |r|
  synth :piano, note: :C5, sustain: 2
  control r, room: 0.1
end

Cu:)

[garaughty]

Thx for the feedback/input @minced_mind. I’ve slowly been going through the manual and some excellent tutorials I found on YouTube. Since I come from a music background (not a coder), I’m just trying out very simple ideas for now and hopefully will find more interesting ways to use Sonic Pi rather than just replicating what I already do with piano, cellos, soft synths, etc…

[minced_mind]

Hi Marti,

go at the speed you like to. In the end the most important thing is to have fun and experiment with sonic-pi to get some interesting sound insights
I’m doing quite some sound design in sonic-pi since some months and you can easily create pretty complex soundscapes in sonic-pi just with minimal amount of code.
For compositioning I like the integrated chords and scales in sonic-pi to reduce writing. Together with the randomisation you can quickly create nice arpeggios.

Cu.

[garaughty]

I love the concepts you’re describing. I think my biggest challenge will be to learn some basic programming techniques to take advantage of what Sonic Pi can do that can’t be done with traditional instruments.

[minced_mind]

I think compared to a typical DAW I would say you can create the same results in Sonic Pi. It’s not so much about what you can do with it but how. Instead of fiddling with a huge amount of knobs you can write an algorithm doing this stuff for you. If you meant that.

Cu.

[siimphh]

I was watching this Twitch stream of someone making a (admittedly, very cool) track in their DAW and they spent like 10 minutes effectively adding a base note to every base drum hit in a section of their track (with some variation though). They had something like:

BD -- -- -- BD -- -- BD BD -- BD -- BD -- -- --... etc

And then painted on a matching base note:

BD -- -- -- BD -- -- BD BD -- BD -- BD -- -- --...
BB -- -- -- BB -- -- BB BB -- BB -- BB -- -- --...

In Sonic Pi you would just have a function for your base drum:

define :bd do
  sample :bd_haus
end

live_loop :drums do
  at [0, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12] do
    bd
  end
  sleep 16
end

And would add a base note:

define :bd do
  sample :bd_haus
  with_synth :fm do
    play :c2
  end
end

This is a minimal example of how you can encapsulate a musical concept (in this case, the sound of a base drum hit) in a bit of code so you can later tweak how that concept is realized.

You can do the same for higher-level concepts, say arppegios:

define :arppegiate do |n, s: :major|
  at [0, 1, 2, 3], [:i, :iii, :v, :i] do |d|
    play degree(d, n, s)
  end 
end

Depending on how much you like flexibility vs grand structures, you can decide how far you want to take that structuring, perhaps eventually:

define :section do |section_scale, next_scale: nil, enable_base_drums: true, enable_brass: false, bars: 32| do
  # ... stuff here
end

section scale(:c, :major), next_scale: scale(:a, :minor), enable_base_drums: false, bars: 16
section scale(:a, :minor), bars: 32
section scale(:a, :minor), enable_brass: true, bars: 8
section scale(:a, :minor), enable_base_drums: false, bars: 16

In any case - I wholeheartedly agree that appling programming techniques to take advantage of Sonic Pi is the way to go. Look to encapsulate musical concepts, there will usually be a some way of doing that. Research yourself or ask around!

[garaughty]

Thx much for the pointers & advice @siimphh. Excellent examples and yes, I definitely have to get my head around some programming techniques to make the most of Sonic Pi ! I’m starting with the simple stuff and over time, will work my way up to more creative ways of using this !

[minced_mind]

Hi siimphh,

exactly what I mean Structuring music and music production in a logical way instead of repeatedly doing the same stuff. Reducing work on production related things and concentrate on the creational, creative, compositional side. And code allows you to encapsulate stuff, you normally do in common and reuse it without any work on your side. Some really good examples from you.

Cu.