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Comment by goldenkey | Hacker News Reader

Another one? So how is this one different than all the languages that do this (like Chuck or Overtone) AND the libs for C++/all other languages that generate audio as well? The original THX sound was generated in C.

I would be inclined to use a language that had more signal processing built in, ie Mathematica:

https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/SoundAndSonific...

https://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/SignalProcessin...

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You're going to really hate this page https://github.com/lvm/awesome-livecoding/blob/master/README...

Wow the bytebeat is fascinating!!

If i understand what they are doing then it's not really equivalent as this seems to be a DSL for transforming textual patterns into music, rather than a general purpose music language. While you can dive under the covers it's not required. Getting to this point in Overtone would be some work, so here you can just get started playing with it. Chuck i have less experience with enough to think the same thing applies.

The pedant in me already observes that any programming language is "a DSL for transforming textual patterns into..." but i hope my sense in representing the difference is clear enough.

That's exactly what this is - it's a small DSL that evaluates to create triggers at moments in time. These triggers are then evaluated by an endpoint (like the sampler included with tidal) to make sound.

I'm in a related field (I do a lot of signal processing in Pure Data), and I also keep an eye on the live coding scene. You're absolutely right here in that Tidal isn't about signal processing, it's about a flexible, creative, and expressive way to issue musical commands as text. It isn't so much an audio programming language, as it is a musical programming language.

Other languages such as Chuck, Supercollider, Pd, or Max are much better suited to the signal processing side of things (though there are certainly plenty of pained souls who have done plenty of musical work in these languages).

Edit: I can safely say that if you're planning on getting into live coding, Tidal is the way to go. I wouldn't recommend anything else. There be dragons.

Yes it's for exploring patterns. It's not unique in this (cf supercollider patterns, foxdot, isobar, gibber patterns, ixilang etc) but is fairly unique in its purist focus on pattern.

This gibber? http://gibber.mat.ucsb.edu

(I have yet to run into anyone else that's heard of the thing I linked, and I think it's really awesome.)

Yes! Gibber is indeed ace.

Thanks for explaining its strength succintly

It's in Haskell. That makes it much better than C.

I think you're being downvoted for negativity, but you make a fair point.

The THX logo is a classic of sound design made entirely with code.

Given all the newer langs, it should be easy to do better.

Oddly, this doesn't happen. It's very rare that anyone makes non-toy music with these langs, never mind creating an acknowleged classic.

There may be reasons for this.

Yeah... most musicians (i.e. "creatives") aren't coders. They prefer high-level GUIs (that strangely always look like expensive vintage analogue gear). And most coders aren't musicians.

How dare they!

There's enough fun in the world already.

That wasn't what was implied. Usually if a project isnt named "Johns treehouse" and instead "X: The Ytinator" you might care if there is a bit of hyperbole or there really is actual scene person who decided to improve upon the current landscape given their breadth of knowledge. As oppose to John who doesnt know much about woodworking but likes creating bullshit with "made by John" carved into it.

More like "How is this news?" but take offense if you wish

You didn't communicate that very well. All I got was that you didn't understand what it was but you sure as hell had an opinion anyway.

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