TidalCycles

Last updated
TidalCycles
Developer(s) Alex McLean, others
Initial release2009;15 years ago (2009)
Stable release
1.9.5 / 7 April 2024;8 months ago (2024-04-07)
Repository https://github.com/tidalcycles/
Written in Haskell
Operating system Linux, macOS, Windows
Type Live coding environment, algorave
License GPLv3
Website tidalcycles.org

TidalCycles (also known as Tidal) is a live coding environment which is designed for improvising and composing music. Technically, it is a domain-specific language embedded in the functional programming language Haskell, and is focused on the generating and manipulating audiovisual patterns. [1] [2] [3] It was originally designed for heavily percussive and polyrhythmic grid-based music, but it now uses a flexible and functional reactive representation for patterns, by using rational time. [4] Therefore, Tidal may be applied to a wide range of musical styles, although its cyclic approach to time means that it affords use in repetitive styles such as algorave. [5]

Contents

Background

TidalCycles was created by Alex McLean who also coined the term algorave, [6] and is a domain-specific language embedded in Haskell, which focuses on generating and manipulating audiovisual patterns. [2] Tidal's representation of rhythm is based on metrical cycles, [7] which is inspired by Indian classical music, [8] supporting polyrhythmic and polymetric structures using a flexible, functional reactive representation for patterns, and rational time. This programme doesn't produce sound itself, but via the SuperCollider sound environment through the SuperDirt framework, via MIDI, or Open Sound Control.

Tidal is also used widely in academic research, including representation in music AI, [9] [10] as a language in network music, [11] and in electronic literature. [12]

Tidal is widely used at algorave algorithmic dance music events, [13] [14] and on high profile music releases. [15] [16] [17] It has been featured on BBC Radio 3's New Music Show. [18]

Since January 2022, an official port of Tidal's pattern engine has developed into the web-based live coding environment Strudel, [19] created by Felix Roos and Alex McLean. [20]

Artists using it

Related Research Articles

Audio signal processing is a subfield of signal processing that is concerned with the electronic manipulation of audio signals. Audio signals are electronic representations of sound waves—longitudinal waves which travel through air, consisting of compressions and rarefactions. The energy contained in audio signals or sound power level is typically measured in decibels. As audio signals may be represented in either digital or analog format, processing may occur in either domain. Analog processors operate directly on the electrical signal, while digital processors operate mathematically on its digital representation.

SuperCollider is an environment and programming language originally released in 1996 by James McCartney for real-time audio synthesis and algorithmic composition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roland TR-909</span> Drum machine

The Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 909, is a drum machine introduced by Roland Corporation in 1983, succeeding the TR-808. It was the first Roland drum machine to use samples for some sounds, and the first with MIDI functionality, allowing it to synchronize with other devices. Though a commercial failure, it influenced the development of electronic dance music genres such as techno, house and acid house.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ableton Live</span> Digital audio workstation

Ableton Live is a digital audio workstation for macOS and Windows developed by the German company Ableton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Live coding</span> Integration of programming as part of running program

Live coding, sometimes referred to as on-the-fly programming, just in time programming and conversational programming, makes programming an integral part of the running program.

Scott Wilson is a Canadian composer. He studied music and composition in Canada, the U.S., and Germany, and his teachers include Barry Truax, Wolfgang Rihm, Christos Hatzis, Gary Kulesha, Ron Kuivila, Alvin Lucier, Owen Underhill, Neely Bruce and David Gordon Duke. Since 2004 he has lived in Birmingham, UK, where he is Reader in Electronic Music and Director of Birmingham ElectroAcoustic Sound Theatre and the Electroacoustic Studios at the University of Birmingham.

Live electronic music is a form of music that can include traditional electronic sound-generating devices, modified electric musical instruments, hacked sound generating technologies, and computers. Initially the practice developed in reaction to sound-based composition for fixed media such as musique concrète, electronic music and early computer music. Musical improvisation often plays a large role in the performance of this music. The timbres of various sounds may be transformed extensively using devices such as amplifiers, filters, ring modulators and other forms of circuitry. Real-time generation and manipulation of audio using live coding is now commonplace.

Nick Collins is a British academic and computer music composer. From 2006–2013 he lived in Brighton, UK, and ran the music informatics degrees at the University of Sussex. In 2013 he became Reader at the University of Durham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex McLean</span> British musician and researcher (born 1975)

Alex McLean is a British musician and researcher. He is notable for his key role in developing live coding as a musical practice, including for creating TidalCycles, a live-coding environment that allows programmer musicians to code simply and quickly, and for coining the term Algorave with Nick Collins.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slub (band)</span>

Slub is an algorave group formed in 2000 by Adrian Ward and Alex McLean, joined by Dave Griffiths in 2005 and Alexandra Cardenas in 2017. They are known for making their music exclusively from their own generative software, projecting their screens so their audience can see their handmade interfaces. Their music is improvised, and advertised as falling within the ambient gabba genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barton McLean</span> Musical artist

Barton McLean is an American composer, performer, music reviewer, and writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benoît and the Mandelbrots</span> Computer music brand

Benoît and the Mandelbrots, named after French American mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot, is a Computer Music band formed in 2009 in Karlsruhe, Germany. They are known for their live coded and Algorave performances, the Digital Arts practice of improvising with programming languages that gradually dissolves the distinction between composer and performer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Algorave</span> Genre of electronic music dance event

An algorave is an event where people dance to music generated from algorithms, often using live coding techniques. Alex McLean of Slub and Nick Collins coined the word "algorave" in 2011, and the first event under such a name was organised in London, England. It has since become a movement, with algoraves taking place around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sonic Pi</span> Live coding environment

Sonic Pi is a live coding environment based on Ruby, originally designed to support both computing and music lessons in schools, developed by Sam Aaron in the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory in collaboration with Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Alexandra Cárdenas is a Colombian musician, composer and improviser now based in Berlin, who has followed a path from Western classical composition to improvisation and live electronics. Her recent work has included live coding performance, including performances at the forefront of the Algorave scene, she also co-organised a live coding community in Mexico City. At the 2014 Kurukshetra Festival Cárdenas was a keynote speaker and hosted a music live coding workshop, the first of its kind in India. Cárdenas has been invited to talk about and perform live coding at events such as the Berlin based Transmediale festival and the Ableton sponsored Loop symposium, and held residencies including at Tokyo Wonder Site in Japan and Centre for the Arts in Mexico City.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ixi lang</span> Live coding environment

Ixi lang is a programming language for live coding musical expression. It is taught at diverse levels of musical education and used in Algorave performances. Like many other live coding languages, such TidalCycles, ixi lang is a domain-specific language that embraces simplicity and constraints in design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanne Armitage</span> Musical artist

Joanne Armitage is a composer, improviser and researcher based in Leeds, England, notable for her practice in live coded music, and research into haptics in music performance. She performs internationally using the SuperCollider language, including as half of live coding duo ALGOBABEZ with Shelly Knotts associated with the Algorave movement. Her music is often performed in a club setting, while embracing error and uncertainty. She is also known as advocate for diversity in music and technology, including through invited workshops. Armitage is a lecturer in Digital Media at the School of Media and Communication, University of Leeds, UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Live Transcribe</span> Captioning application developed by Google for Android

Live Transcribe is a smartphone application to get realtime captions developed by Google for the Android operating system. Development on the application began in partnership with Gallaudet University. It was publicly released as a free beta for Android 5.0+ on the Google Play Store on February 4, 2019. As of early 2023 it had been downloaded over 500 million times. The app can be installed from an .apk file by sideloading and it will launch, but the actual transcription functionality is disabled, requiring creation of an account with Google.

References

  1. ↑ McLean, Alex. "Tidal – Pattern Language for Live Coding of Music". Sound and Music Computing. Archived from the original on 2017-10-15. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  2. 1 2 Bick, Emily (March 2016). "Pattern Recognition". The Wire. No. 385. pp. 16–17.
  3. ↑ "TidalCycles, free live coding environment for music, turns 1.0". CDM Create Digital Music. 2018-12-18. Retrieved 2018-12-27.
  4. ↑ McLean, Alex (2014). "Making programming languages to dance to". Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGPLAN international workshop on Functional art, music, modeling & design. FARM '14. New York, New York, USA: ACM. pp. 63–70. doi:10.1145/2633638.2633647. ISBN   978-1-4503-3039-8. S2CID   1190832.
  5. ↑ Mollan, Cherylann (2019-02-10). "Grooving to Algo'rhythms'". The Asian Age. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  6. ↑ "Opposing forces: Rian Treanor explains how he creates intense yet subtle club music". Mixmag. 2019-03-05. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  7. ↑ Sinow, Catherine (2020-09-26). "Deep Algebra for Deep Beats: The Beautiful Sounds of Musical Programming". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  8. ↑ "Type and jive". The Week. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  9. ↑ Stewart, Jeremy; Lawson, Shawn; Hodnick, Mike; Gold, Ben (2020-02-05). "Cibo v2: Realtime Livecoding A.I. Agent". Proceedings of the 2020 International Conference on Live Coding. Limerick, Ireland. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3939174.
  10. ↑ Miranda, Eduardo Reck (2021-07-02). Handbook of Artificial Intelligence for Music: Foundations, Advanced Approaches, and Developments for Creativity. Springer Nature. ISBN   978-3-030-72116-9.
  11. ↑ Ogborn, David; Beverley, Jamie; Navarro, Luis del Angel; Tsabary, Eldad; McLean, Alex (2017). Estuary: Browser-based Collaborative Projectional Live Coding of Musical Patterns (PDF). International Conference on Live Coding. S2CID   195836605 . Retrieved January 23, 2022.
  12. ↑ Rodriguez, Jessica; Franco, Alejandro; MacLean, Alexander; McLean, Alex; Navarro, Luis; Ogborn, David (2020-07-16). "Electronic Literature Live Coding Jam/Workshop". Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020.
  13. ↑ Mollan, Cherylann (2019-02-10). "Grooving to Algo'rhythms'". The Asian Age. Retrieved 2019-03-01.
  14. ↑ Calore, Michael. "DJs of the Future Don't Spin Records—They Write Code". Wired. ISSN   1059-1028 . Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  15. 1 2 Crilly, Lyle (2020-11-10). "Richard Devine: A Systic Approach to Acid". Roland Articles. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  16. 1 2 Mullen, Mullen (26 February 2020). "Impossible Forms: Beatrice Dilon". Inverted Audio.
  17. 1 2 "PC Music's Lil Data to release anthology of live-coded tracks". Fact Magazine. 2019-02-08. Retrieved 2022-01-19.
  18. ↑ "New Music Show". BBC Media Centre. 2020-02-02. Retrieved 2022-01-21.
  19. ↑ Kirn, Peter (2022-04-12). "Musical, powerful live coding in the browser is here with Strudel - child of Tidal". CDM Create Digital Music. Retrieved 2024-12-19.
  20. ↑ Roos, Felix; McLean, Alex (2023-04-18). Strudel: Live Coding Patterns on the Web. International Conference on Live Coding.
  21. ↑ Charli XCX – Vroom Vroom (Lil Data TidalCycles live coding edit), 21 June 2019, retrieved 2022-01-19
  22. ↑ "Sonic Futures: How Technology is Guiding Electronic Music". FACT Magazine: Transmissions from the underground. 22 October 2019. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  23. ↑ "Artist DIY: Digital Selves". Fact Magazine. 2020-06-09. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  24. ↑ "Meet the female coders pushing electronic music into the future". Mixmag. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  25. ↑ "Meet the Artists Using Coding, AI, and Machine Language to Make Music". Bandcamp Daily. 2018-01-25. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  26. ↑ "Watch the first exclusive live performance of No Man's Sky's soundtrack". PlayStation.Blog. 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  27. ↑ "Deru – Sound and Atmospheres". www.steinberg.net. Retrieved 2022-01-20.
  28. ↑ "Hsien-Yu Cheng & Tzu-Ni Hung / Abyss Zone". submarine.gallery (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2023-06-26.


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