ChucK It! (Music Programming)

ChucK-ing

Yesterday was an awesome day for me, musically speaking.

Two of my passions came together – music and writing code.

I discovered how to create music by writing code.

It’s all possible through Chuck.

ChucK is a programming language for real-time sound synthesis and music creation.

It allows programmers and musicians to write code that can generate and manipulate sound in real-time,

I learned about:

  • Oscillators (Sine, Triangle, Square, etc.)
  • ADSR Envelopes
  • Converting MIDI keys to frequencies
  • Chucking
    • it means using the dedicated chuck operator (=>) to connect digital instruments or assign values to variables

Here is a snapshot of my humble beginnings in code-driven music production:

And the sound it makes when played:

 

Yes, it sounds like the music in those cartridge games from the 90’s.

Creating Electronic Music With Chuck

I’ve been “devouring” these tutorials yesterday.

I’ve been dabbling in music production for quite a few years now.

Nothing serious, but it’s something that keeps coming back in my life.

And there’s that strange feeling I get when seeing piano keys.

It triggers something on inside of me, an enthusiasm of sorts, an excitement, a longing to do, to create something music-related.

But I just couldn’t get beyond creating mixtapes when it comes to music.

But marrying code and music, this has created something unexpected in my brain.

An excitement of sorts, an eagerness to explore and go deeper into music theory territory.

The DJ-ing Bug

I learned to DJ as a hobby.

I’m mostly what they call a bedroom DJ.

But I’ve played music at live events too, about 4.

And I’ve created some mixtapes for friends.

I got the DJ-ing bug by watching Armin Van Buuren’s A State Of Trance back in 2014.

What I enjoy most is creating mixtapes.

I love figuring out transitions between songs.

And discovering which songs sound well together when mixed.

See? Mixing in progress (Ableton)

What I hope to achieve is find a way to automate my mixes by writing code.

Or perhaps to create remixes of the songs I like using this approach.

Let’s find out.

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