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Programming languages used for music

Programming languages used for music

ofalkaed

Comments (92)

  • sandebert
    Switch Angel live-code using Strudel. Really impressive and interesting stuff.https://youtu.be/aPsq5nqvhxg
  • Blackthorn
    In order, the most popular ones of these are probably* Max. It's built into a popular DAW, and is shockingly capable as an actual programming language too. The entire editor for the Haken line of products is written in Max.* Pure Data or Supercollider.* Csound.Not ordering things like Scala or LilyPond that are much more domain-specific.
  • bthallplz
    It isn't mentioned there, but you all might be interested in the python music libraries called SCAMP: https://scamp.marcevanstein.comI learned about it after stumbling across the creator's short, fun videos showing it being used: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_yUKG0GRuliL65l_qEG1uwCC... ("Python Music Shorts")
  • iansteyn
    Sonic Pi is missing imo. (Some have mentioned Strudel, it’s a similar live-coding music platform). Admittedly Ruby-based, but it seems some of the other ones on the list are libraries/forms of other langs too.
  • azath92
    Almost an esolang, but orca is an amazing example of spatial programming for music production (GH https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca and video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSFrBFBd7vY to see it in action)
  • fnordlord
    I really hope that Max becomes fully accessible in a text based format one day. It's so cool and I've spent a few months randomly through the years building neat plugins for Ableton but, for me, it would be so much stickier if it was code. Especially now with AI assistance, Claude can still be helpful but it hallucinates a lot harder when trying to describe visual code.
  • rriley
    Great compilation. The ".cgi" in the URL clearly tells me this is an old collection of links :-)Another fun esoteric music language missing in the comments is ORCA: https://git.sr.ht/~rabbits/orca
  • benrutter
    Looks interesting, but I think it's a little dated- sadly most of the links I tried on this page don't seem to be active anymore?Here's a currently active list on github in case somebody's left needing a fix of music programming: https://github.com/zoejane/awesome-music-programming
  • chaosprint
    Relevant to this discussion - my project Glicol (https://glicol.org) addresses this space. Currently working on a no_std rewrite, demo coming next year :)
  • scelerat
    I love seeing a Definition List (DL/DT/DD html tags) in the wild. Often more hassle than its worth to make them appear the way you want, but semantically pleasing and underused.
  • zX41ZdbW
  • listenfaster
    Very creative guy operating this site (look at this! https://timthompson.com/spacepalette/) though it looks like it’s been idle the past 4 years or so? The live-coding community around tidal cycles will point you to a the fruit of missing projects like tidal-cycles and strudel. A strong inviting community: https://club.tidalcycles.org/
  • erk__
    There was a music language made for the Danish GIER machine, made in 1971 (at least the 2nd edition of the handbook is from there)The handbook for the language is sadly only in Danish so it might not be super interesting: https://datamuseum.dk/bits/30002486Here is the code for movement 1 and 2 of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: https://datamuseum.dk/aa/gier/30000644.html
  • rausr
    I recently tripped over Dogalog (live-coding with prolog-like code), which could be an addition: https://danja.github.io/dogalog/
  • philprx
    Strudel.cc ?
  • opminion
    No Sonic Pi, which is a Ruby dialect?
  • ako
    Yesterday i used Claude Code to define and implement a YAML based DSL for playing backing tracks. I can ask an LLM to generate this DSL for any well known song, and it will include chord progression, lyrics, bass, drums, strumming pattern, etc. It's a go command line tool that plays the DSL via midi, and displays the chords, strumming patterns, and lyrics. Also does export to Strudel.
  • jim_lawless
    I saw a post about the SKOAR language here on HN in late 2015:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10180423In the comments, I saw reference to MML ( Music Macro Language ... not exactly what I think the MML is on the list. ) Here's the one referenced in the HN post.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_Macro_LanguageAt the time, I built a small interpreter that included MML as an embedded language, but I don't think I have the (Windows) binaries handy.
  • bebb
    There was one on HN a few weeks ago, tailored towards loops: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46072280One interesting feature is it has built-in vibe coding, to produce an LLM-generated loop program to start one's creative journey.
  • 3ds
    It's missing "Strudel" and "tidal cycles"
  • jackkinsella
    Musicabc has some really nice JS and Obsidian plugins that essentially allow you to create little scrapbooks of musical ideas in markdown that are also playable as sound and viewable as sheet music.https://abc.hieuthi.com/
  • incanus77
    Surprised no mention of Alda. I’ve only tinkered with it, but it’s clever:https://alda.io/
  • shevy-java
    I kind of want to create music programmatically but so far it has been way too difficult. I also can barely find anything useful via oldschool google search anymore. I am almost stuck like with MIDI here ...
  • heuermh
    I have been using ChucK for a long time. Like others here, I appreciate Max/Pure Sound but would rather use my text editor. Delay delay; LPF filter; Reverb reverb; Gain feedback; adc => delay => filter => reverb => dac; filter => feedback => delay;
  • mackeye
    i was transcribing some songs for violin after picking it back up (mostly metal, which i have to take some liberties with to sound good on a violin + kick drum :> ), and thought about writing a language (maybe a rust steel module) to hand the typesetting for me, as writing out & erasing e.g. slurs can take a while. but lilypond really is good enough that there wasn't much about it i'd want to change, either syntactically or semantically (as really, i only need a very small subset of it). any language i do write, if i choose to, would probably use it as a backend --- its rendering is very good :)
  • turboladen
    It’s quite new, but I’ve been interested to try out this Rust-y syntax language that compiles to SuperCollider: https://vibelang.org/
  • gdelfino01
    There is some sound and music functionality in the Wolfram Language:http://reference.wolfram.com/language/guide/SoundAndSonifica...
  • mike_ivanov
    Opus Modus (mentioned there) is quite notably Common Lisp
  • lynx97
    Csound (I think v3) was the first music language I played with, back in the early 90s, under DOS even. Back then, running in real-time wasn't a thing. Generate a WAV file and play it after the program finished. Later, at the end of the 90s, I remember playing with CLM/CM, in common lisp.But the most productive experience was definitely SuperCollider. I can only recommend giving it a try. Its real-time sound synthesis architecture is great. Basically works sending timestamped OSC messages AOT (usually 0.2s). It also has a very interesting way of building up so-called SynthDefs from code into a DAG. I always wondered if a modern rewrite of the same architecture using JIT/AOT technology would be useful. But I digress... SC3 is a great platform to play with sound synthesis... Give it a try if you find the time.
  • asupkay
    There's a community in NYC called Livecode that hosts in person events for programming music and it's awesome
  • dmd
    And at least 5 times a year someone designs a new one where it is painfully obvious that they're almost entirely unaware that anyone has ever designed one before - or if you're very lucky, maybe they've heard of ABC.
  • anondawg55
    Max is great.
  • hellobluelings
    There is also literate programming for music, right? Just like Donald Knuth describes it in his literate programming approach? See for example the videos by Fauci etc. They say things like eh eh, pause then play music using items such as a pen, there is even a conductor. Very entertaining. Is that true? Or just my imagination?
  • yakshaving_jgt
    Haskell is also a popular choice for music production and live music performance.https://youtu.be/XYe8AKYPUYc?si=ZYP4QM5FLn00-5u6
  • jarmitage
  • oliverpaddock
    A few months ago I outlined a spec for a new modern programming language inspired by LilyPond I call Capo. I haven’t done anything with it yet but the idea is that it compiles to MNX, which is the (still in development) successor to MusicXML, becoming a language that could be used as a scripting language in any program that supports MNX or as a standalone text-based music tool. Thought this group might find it interesting: https://github.com/Capo-Lang/capo