/ Topics / Live Coding

Wherein we discuss approaches to live-coding audio performances with Hz.

Live coding is a performing arts form and a creativity technique where source code is written and modified in real-time, often during a performance, to create music, visuals, or other interactive experiences. It involves using interactive programming in an improvised way, allowing for spontaneous artistic expression.

Motivation

Programming is a great way to express musical ideas. Out of the box, Hz allows you to enter and modify Songs.hz, JavaScript and Lua programs that describe sounds and songs. Your scripts can connect to external event generators like MIDI Controllers, your computer keyboard or other network devices via OSC, websockets or even MusicAPI/Loader. Such events can guide the evolution of your musical performance. You can launch multiple programs simultaneously or describe separately performing fibers in a single script. And since Hz is built atop web technologies, tools/apps that produce compelling visuals (from background video to psychedelic abstractions) can readily be integrated into your performance.

Yeah, but…

While Hz is a great toolbox for concocting a custom live-coding environment, most people would rather use one that's already been developed. There are many livecoding environments to choose from, so does Hz bring anything to the table?

• Hz can host web-based livecoding applications.
• Hz has built-in OSC support.
• our custom audio engine supports arbitrary (CLAP) 3rd party plugins. This means that your soundscaping opportunites are limited only by your kit.
• web-tech programmability makes it possible to integrate disparate tools into a larger environment.
• there is no fundamental dependency on internet access so it can be used offline.
• the same toolset can be used for both live and offline sound production.

Approaches

Any Desktop Tool + OSC

Many livecoding systems use OSC to connect to a sound engine.

The gist:

• establish an OSC connection between livecoding environment and Hz. This mostly involves making sure that the correct UDP port is agreed upon.
• establish OSC handlers for livecoding messages. Typically OSC messages from a message source reside below well defined namespaces. For example, a message generator could precede all messages with /play or, to target Hz explicitly, '/play_to/hz`.

Roll your own

The key requirement of a livecoding system is that it support iterative development of control scripts without interrupting the audio experience. In the context of Hz, the support for multiple audio-engine fibers and the ability to programtically create and cancel them is important. A central arbiter for time synchronization between independent fibers may also be required. Our TimeKeeper class may be of some use. A special worker thread may be created that delivers regular ticks to interested fibers may also be worth considering.

See Also

Wikipedia Page

Livecoding Resource List (Github)