Introduction and my Sonic Pi goals

Hello, my name is Matt, I’m relatively new to music making. Over the last two years I have been playing with various hardware and software synthesizers, learning through YouTube videos. Unfortunately I got into a bad habit of buying new toys to avoid putting in the hard work of practice. As a New Year’s resolution I’ve decided to concentrate on one tool and see if I can build up some skill.

So, Sonic Pi. I found that what I liked the most in hardware synthesis is modular - routing, knob twiddling, sequencing, and so on. But it’s expensive and bulky. I can hardly bring a rack into work and play with it at lunchtime. I looked at Pure Data as a free virtual modular system, but I have an old school programming background, and text input is more natural for me. I looked at SuperCollider, and from there got to Sonic Pi, which feels more beginner friendly.

My goal is to learn Sonic Pi well enough to make what I call “finished music”. I’ve made cool sounds and beats, but nothing yet that I would wrap together and try to give a title to and play for someone else.

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Hi Matt,

And welcome to the Forums.

Funny. I said much the same a few years
back when I got here.

It took some effort, but now I’m prepared to show
my work to other people.

Enjoy the journey matey… there’s a lot to learn, but
the reward is immense.

Eli…

2 Likes

Hi and welcome. You can see Sonic-Pi as a complete bundle as well as a way to control your harware and digital synths later if you need to. You can also extend it with some SuperCollider custom synths. I think you wil love playing with it and going deeper into working with it.

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Welcome to our community. I’m really looking forward to seeing/hearing what you get up to with Sonic Pi.

My only advice is to ignore any voices in your head saying “this isn’t good enough to share”. Sharing can be difficult at the beginning, but it only produces good side effects - and you never know who you might inspire and how (but you’ll never inspire anyone if you never share).

Happy Live Coding!