Live coding performance video. My first!

Creations & Ideas
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Good afternoon good people,
I have recently uploaded a video of my first ‘proper’ live coding performance. This is in preparation for a concert performance next month, with a 12yo student who has been learning Sonic Pi with me for the past year. We plan to ‘take turns’ at adding and changing code in real time at the concert, and I am hoping it will serve as promo material for a live coding class my music school plans to run later this year. I aim to attract young musicians in the audience who might be interested in dance/electronic/rock music, and the first 2 or 3 minutes of the video serve as a quick learning demo (play, sleep, conditional, iterate).

There is nothing ground-breaking or cutting edge here, and there’s even a little booboo with timing (and the resulting solution). I welcome your comments and suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw3FuGUSpDY

Brendan

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(and I rewrote the Dave Stewart riff in PD, so Sonic Pi now sends the notes via OSC ;), perfectly synced to all the other nonsense!)

Screenshot 2024-03-13 at 11.55.45
Screenshot 2024-03-13 at 11.55.451920×1094 113 KB

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PS loved your performance with the student, Brendan, listened a while back and got distracted before replying. Esp when Sweet Dreams bass came in with the rippling arps above - put a big smile on my face! Bet you brought the house down! Jules

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Hi @rebelcello
thanks for your lovely comments. Apologies if the original post was misleading but we haven’t actually performed yet, that was just a test video. The gig is Saturday week and I will post a link to the video, once we’ve cleared child protection etc.

I’ve remade the performance code too, I wanted to make it more ‘live’ and also more of a ‘sales pitch’ type of demo for Sonic Pi, help spread the good word. Either way, I will post a video link.

PD-Pi

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Hello @brendanmac ! Great patch, very funky! With great musical allusions! :star_struck:? Thanks Brendan!

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Aha! Break a leg for the performance @brendanmac - you definitely will bring the house down :smiley: :musical_note: :dancer:

Interested in your work - I did a workshop at the weekend with a mixed group of YAs and older creatives, intro to sequencing/synths, and introduced SonicPi/Hydra as a next step. It was at a music gig venue, motivating for the group and a good link with the sound technician, who does light-sound mapping in a DIY way… At last some interest locally! Look forward to sharing your vid :slight_smile:

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<3 I’m hoping to get a class together locally too; and I can’t wait to get stuck into Hydra (but much later)!

Out of interest, where is ‘locally’ for you?

PD-Pi

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Demo gigs went really well. As expected, bemused looks from some parents in the audience (“that’s not Brahms?!?” kinda faces). But me and Kevyn ROCKED, and my live coding demo raised a lot of interest, especially from parents who work in IT or software development (“is that Python?”).

Video link to follow soon.

PD-Pi

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Hi Brendan, been away for a while - great to hear! Look forward to seeing the vid.

Local to me is south of Scotland. It’s quite a niche interest here :slight_smile: Have been learning Pure Data too. Is that the PD in your visual? I want ultimately to work with external data and DIY controllers, keep circling round and being pointed to Max and Arduino…

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Hi @rebelcello
video didn’t come our great sadly; in the venue (a vast church hall), the video screens were quite small and it was an incredibly reverberant space. My student and I had a great gig though, and the audience were suitably impressed.

Ah, Max and Arduino, that takes me back (they were central to my PhD design tools). My preference nowadays is Sonic Pi and PurrData, with some TouchOSC for virtual DIY controllers; haven’t use DIY hardware in ages :frowning: but I do miss it, Arduino is such a fantastic platform and community).

And I just bought myself a Korg Volca FM2 for some midi sequencing too.

Final thought (and Gregory Taylor would k*ll me for saying this) - I think Max has become a little bloated of late. Max4Live and gen~ are so useful. Max is an amazing tool but it’s trying to be all things to all artists, and disappeared up its own backside. My 2c anyway.

Arduino to PD will do most things MaxMSP does, and it’s free, more lightweight and equally reliable ;). And Miller Puckette is a legend!!

PD-Pi

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Hi @brendanmac - superhelpful advice, thanks! Have tried TouchOSC and was wondering about PurrData. I’d like to use Sonic Pi/PD and get away from mighty DAW land, lightweight for performance, sounds as though getting an Arduino is more cost effective :smiley: than Max/4Live.

Have fun with Volca! I’m using Circuit Rhythm/Tracks for sequencing. C Rhythm is great for sampling and workshops, was my way in and works with Sonic Pi.

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Yep, Arduino just keeps getting better, faster and smaller :wink:

Whereabouts in Scotland? I live in County Down, NI.

PD-Pi

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Hi, am in Borders :wave: to NI
Just trying Purrdata, nice interface but atm it keeps crashing. Prob overstretching the Surface :slight_smile: However dabbling a bit in PD has really helped with Sonic Pi. It’s given me more sense of the numbers.
Blimey, this is all a lifelong study :smiley: great you were able to do a PhD on it.

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I too have been having problems with the PD variant PurrData. Several experts over on that forum have recommended that I use the vanilla version of Pure Data, or the well-maintained extension called PlugData.

Sonic Pi + Pure Data = all I need :wink:

PD-Pi

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