Welcome to the world of musical code!

Sonic Pi is a FREE application one can download using Mac, Windows, or Linux. With it, the user has the ability to create music with code! The nicest thing about the program is that it is a welcoming starting point to everyone. If you code but don’t play music, this is a great place to learn, and vice versa!

This isn’t a tutorial per-say, but to more-so show you how the app works, to get you excited, and to give examples on the possibilities. The app itself has a strong and in depth tutorial at length you should follow if you wish to!

Sonic Pi can also be played with and updated live, allowing one to potentially change their recordings on the fly by changing their code, or even play a live event with other musicians as a drum machine or synthesizer.

Getting Started

Navigating the program is simple, and laid out for the user with a great tutorial guide. While the program can end up being as complicated as you would like it to be, it really is a typical example of easy to use and hard to master.

Here you can see the lay out of your music creator. Let’s break it down fo ra second.

A) These are your play controls. They do exactly what they sound like they should! Play your code, stop it, record it… It is your fundamental control of your music output.

B) These control your editor. These less so control how you edit, and more-so your editing experience. Let you change the size of your code editor, show wavelength feedback, etc.

C) Info and help is exactly what it sounds like. These sections are robust and great for beginners, of which I found myself constantly referring to.

D) The code editor is where you write your code to create your music. It’s essentially your instrument! This we will get into more depth on later.

E) The prefs panel sets your preferences, such as if you want your output to be mono or stereo, and how you want to deal with your volume controls.

F) The log viewer is interesting. It is a live update of all the loops and code being played, showing you in real time how the music is passing.

G) The help system is what comes up when you ask for it with the help button (section C). It is extremely… well… helpful and I suggest you use it often!

H) Scope viewer is where you see the visual feedback, such as the wavelengths, in real time as they are generated.

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