One of the most exciting aspects of Sonic Pi is that it enables you to write and modify code live to make music, just like you might perform live with a guitar. This means that given some practice you can take Sonic Pi on stage and gig with it.
Before we get into the real details of how Sonic Pi works in the rest of this tutorial, I’d like to give you an experience of what it’s like to live code. Don’t worry if you don’t understand much (or any) of this. Just try to hold onto your seats and enjoy…
Let’s get started, copy the following code into an empty buffer:
live_loop :flibble do
sample :bd_haus, rate: 1
sleep 0.5
end
Now, press the Run
button and you’ll hear a nice fast bass drum
beating away. If at any time you wish to stop the sound just hit the
Stop
button. Although don’t hit it just yet… Instead, follow these steps:
sleep
value from 0.5
to something higher like 1
.Run
button againOk, that was simple enough. Let’s add something else into the mix. Above
sample :bd_haus
add the line sample :ambi_choir, rate: 0.3
. Your
code should look like this:
live_loop :flibble do
sample :ambi_choir, rate: 0.3
sample :bd_haus, rate: 1
sleep 1
end
Now, play around. Change the rates - what happens when you use high
values, or small values or negative values? See what happens when you
change the rate:
value for the :ambi_choir
sample just slightly (say
to 0.29
). What happens if you choose a really small sleep
value? See
if you can make it go so fast your computer will stop with an error
because it can’t keep up (if that happens, just choose a bigger sleep
time and hit Run
again).
Try commenting one of the sample
lines out by adding a #
to the
beginning:
live_loop :flibble do
sample :ambi_choir, rate: 0.3
# sample :bd_haus, rate: 1
sleep 1
end
Notice how it tells the computer to ignore it, so we don’t hear it. This is called a comment. In Sonic Pi we can use comments to remove and add things into the mix.
Finally, let me leave you something fun to play with. Take the code below, and copy it into a spare buffer. Now, don’t try to understand it too much other than see that there are two loops - so two things going round at the same time. Now, do what you do best - experiment and play around. Here are some suggestions:
rate:
values to hear the sample sound change.sleep
times and hear that both loops can spin round
at different rates.#
) and enjoy the sound
of the guitar played backwards.mix:
values to numbers between 0
(not
in the mix) and 1
(fully in the mix).Remember to press Run
and you’ll hear the change next time the loop
goes round. If you end up in a pickle, don’t worry - hit Stop
, delete
the code in the buffer and paste a fresh copy in and you’re ready to
jam again. Making mistakes is how you’ll learn the quickest…
live_loop :guit do
with_fx :echo, mix: 0.3, phase: 0.25 do
sample :guit_em9, rate: 0.5
end
# sample :guit_em9, rate: -0.5
sleep 8
end
live_loop :boom do
with_fx :reverb, room: 1 do
sample :bd_boom, amp: 10, rate: 1
end
sleep 8
end
Now, keep playing and experimenting until your curiosity about how this all actually works kicks in and you start wondering what else you can do with this. You’re now ready to read the rest of the tutorial.
So what are you waiting for…