Impromptu - A Scheme Based Language for AV Live Coding

impromptu.moso.com.au

37 points·gnubardt··7 comments

The sole author of Impropmptu, Andrew Sorensen, is also currently the best live performer. Some chosen samples:

A study in Keith: a poignant piano part http://vimeo.com/2433947. When the code is evaluated (usually one function at a time), you can see the code block flash in a pale yellow/green color.

Stained: This one comes with visualizations. Simple yet psychedelic. http://vimeo.com/2502546.

Seeing this posted today, I figure someone would have linked his recent holiday performance, "Variations on a Christmas Theme": http://vimeo.com/18008372

When I first heard/saw Stained it blew my mind -- truly an impressive work of art.

If I could somehow appropriate the Scheme-to-LLVM compiler for producing ARM code to run on the iPhone! Doing what Gambit Scheme does [1] without Gambit Scheme would be great. The LLVM code it generates looks pretty neat [2]. Alas, it looks like the source code for this is not available.

[1] http://jlongster.com/software/iphone/scheme-iphone-example/

[2] http://impromptu.moso.com.au/extras/imp_tech_notes.pdf

He ditched the Scheme -> LLVM compiler in favor of a Scheme derived, statically typed sublanguage with C-like Arrays (ie as low level as possible) for its core data structure.

http://impromptu.moso.com.au/extras/ICR.html http://lists.moso.com.au/pipermail/impromptu/2010-October/00...

Imprompty won't be released as open source, but a subset of the code will probably be opened at some point in order to create a cross-platform alter-ego.

http://lists.moso.com.au/pipermail/impromptu/2010-December/0...

Related (but for doing the visuals, and not the audio) -- Fluxus: http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/

I suggest trying this stuff out, because it's a ton of fun.

More goodies: http://www.pawfal.org/fluxus/projects-using-fluxus/

Example video with piano: http://vimeo.com/8732631 .

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