Playing with Music: Ruby and Sonic Pi

Sonic Pi is a fantastic tool for playing music and learning to code. And it uses Ruby!!!

In this talk we'll have a quick overview of Sonic Pi's capabilities and explore how much it can benefit from the power and flexibility provided by Ruby.

And we'll try to play some music while we're at it!!

A Madrid.rb talk: https://www.madridrb.com/events/october-2022-playing-with-music-ruby-and-sonic-pi-715

Transcript

1. PLAYING WITH MUSIC: RUBY AND SONIC PI JOSEP EGEA jes@josepegea.com
2. KICK OFF!!
3. THANKS FOR COMING!!! Thanks to members of Madrid.rb Thanks to people from outside of Madrid! Thanks to our Sponsors! We ❤️ you!
4. WHO'S JOSEP Software developer & Entrepreneur jes@josepegea.com https://www.josepegea.com https://github.com/josepegea
5. BEFORE WE START …
6. 🇺🇦 STOP THE WAR 🇺🇦
7. ABOUT TODAY
8. I'M NOT A MUSICIAN!! But I do love music!! Specially, I love to play with music And I love to play with Ruby So Ruby and Music mixed must be super fun!!
9. EXPECTED TAKEWAYS You get a new reason to love Ruby We have some fun
10. WHY I WANT TO GIVE THIS TALK
11. MUSIC AND CODING
12. STEREOTYPE??? Music lives in the right side of your brain. Coding lives in the left one
13. LET'S PLAY A GAME!!
14. MUSICIAN OR CODER??
15. MUSICIAN OR CODER??
16. MUSICIAN OR CODER??
17. MUSICIAN OR CODER??
18. MEET SONIC PI
19. A RUBY REPL, FOR MUSIC!!!
20. WITH MUCH TO LOVE ABOUT IT A completely self-sufficient music environment Open source Oriented to education It uses Ruby (and many other cool technologies!!!)
21. AND SOME STRONG OPINIONS… 😃
22. SOME OF ITS FEATURES It can synthesize sounds It can work with samples It has convenient music helpers It can apply great effects It can manage timing and concurrence It can interact with other instruments
23. SYNTHESIZING SOUNDS play :c sleep 1 play :e sleep 1 play :g sleep 1
24. WORKING WITH SAMPLES sample :drum_bass_hard sleep 1 sample :drum_snare_hard sleep 1
25. MUSIC HELPERS s = scale :c, :major loop do play s.pick sleep 0.5 end
26. APPLYING EFFECTS use_bpm 120 with_fx :reverb, room:1 do 3.times do use_synth :blade use_synth_defaults amp: 1 play :c sleep 1 play :e sleep 1 play :g sleep 2 end end
27. MANAGING CONCURRENCE in_thread do c = chord :c, :major loop do play c.pick sleep 0.5 end end in_thread do loop do sample :drum_bass_hard sleep 1 sample :drum_snare_hard sleep 1 end end
28. INTERACTING WITH OTHER INSTRUMENTS use_bpm 90 in_thread do loop do use_real_time note, velocity = sync "/midi:lpk25:1/note_on" synth :piano, note: note, amp: velocity / 127.0 end end in_thread do loop do sample :drum_bass_hard sleep 1 sample :drum_snare_hard sleep 1 end end
29. MAKING IT MORE INTERESTING manual_beats = { 48 => :drum_bass_hard, 50 => :drum_snare_hard, 52 => :drum_splash_hard } in_thread do loop do use_real_time note, velocity = sync "/midi:lpk25:1/note_on" if manual_beats[note] sample manual_beats[note] else synth :piano, note: note, amp: velocity / 127.0 end end end
30. OR EVEN MORE … live_audio :guitar, input: 1, amp: 1 with_fx :lpf, cutoff: 115 do with_fx :distortion, distort: 0.99 do live_audio :guitar, input: 1, amp: 1 end end
31. HOW SONIC PI IS USED
32. TEACHING
33. DJ PERFORMANCES Sam Aaron live coding an ambient electro set w/ Sonic Pi Sam Aaron live coding an ambient electro set w/ Sonic Pi
34. WHAT CAN WE ADD HERE? Something that's not techno/DJ oriented Some more emphasis on Ruby
35. LET'S PLAY A SONG
36. LET'S START WITH A RIFF song_tick = 0.125 riff_notes = [:g5, :a5, :fs6, :a5, :g5, :a5, :d6, :a5].ring riff_note_duration = song_tick * 2 riff_idx = 0 use_synth :supersaw live_loop :riff do note = riff_notes[riff_idx] play note sleep riff_note_duration riff_idx += 1 end
37. LET'S ADD SOME DRUMS live_loop :drums_1 do sample :drum_bass_hard sleep song_tick * 4 end live_loop :drums_2 do sleep song_tick * 4 sample :drum_snare_hard sleep song_tick * 4 end
38. A BASS LINE… chord_values = [:D2, :C2, :G1, :D2].ring chords = chord_values.map { |c| chord(c, :major) }.ring bass_idx = 0 live_loop :bass do use_synth :bass_foundation chord_notes = chords[bass_idx / 16] play chord_notes.pick sleep song_tick * 2 bass_idx += 1 end
39. MAYBE SOME STRINGS string_chord_values = [:D4, :C4, :G3, :D4].ring string_chords = string_chord_values .map { |c| chord(c, :major) }.ring strings_idx = 0 live_loop :strings do use_synth :zawa chord_notes = string_chords[strings_idx] play chord_notes, amp: 2, range: 10, phase: 2, attack: 1, sustain: song_tick * 30 sleep song_tick * 32 strings_idx += 1 end
40. ISN'T IT A BIT MANUAL?
41. WHAT IF WE WANT A MORE COMPLEX RHYTHM? def make_bool_ring(pattern) pattern.chars .reject { |c| c == '|' } .map { |c| c == '*' } .ring end alias mbr make_bool_ring def sample_pattern_live_loop(*args, **kwargs) sample_patterns = kwargs.delete(:sample_patterns) sample_tick = kwargs.delete(:sample_tick) sample_idx = 0 live_loop(*args, **kwargs) do sample_patterns.each do |sample_key, pattern| sample sample_key if pattern[sample_idx] end sleep sample_tick sample_idx += 1 end end drum_patterns = {
42. AND HOW DO WE COMBINE OUR PIECES? DEFAULT_TIME_PARTS = { half_pulse: 2, pulse: 2, bar: 4, chord: 2, verse: 4 } class SongController < Object attr_accessor :time_parts, :song_parts, :tick_name, :tick_time def initialize(time_parts: DEFAULT_TIME_PARTS, song_parts:, tic @time_parts = time_parts @song_parts = song_parts @tick_name = tick_name @tick_time = tick_time @total_ticks = time_parts.values.reduce(1, &:*) end def run(start_part = 0) @idx = start_part * @total_ticks $sonic_pi.live_loop @tick_name, delay: 1 do $sonic_pi.cue @tick_name
43. LET'S STITCH IT TOGETHER
44. RECAP
45. TAKEAWAY If you like Ruby and you like Music you have to try Sonic Pi
46. DID I DO MY JOB? Are you more in love with Ruby? Did you have fun?
47. REFERENCES Sonic Pi Ruby Fragments used in this talk https://sonic-pi.net/ https://github.com/josepegea/sonic_pi_talk
48. BIG THANKS!! And thank you for the music!! | jes@josepegea.com www.josepegea.com