Fellow live coders,
Given all the new members (and it's been a while since many of the
older members got together), I would like to give a status update /
introduction on ChucK + miniAudicle + Audicle development.
Firstly, in case you missed the link, here is the ToplapSystems page,
which links to many of the languages and systems for live coding:
http://www.toplap.org/index.php/ToplapSystems
ChucK is but one way to do on-the-fly programming, though it has its own
unique way of thinking and quirks. It is open source and fully supported
on OSX, Linux, and Windows. The language provides a concurrent
programming model based on time, and allows one to do on-the-fly
programming via these mechanisms (the unified time-based mechanism
provides a flexible and precise way to synthesize sound and create
music "together").
http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/
If you last used ChucK in its early days (before late 2005), much has
changed since. v2 was released in August 2005, finally supporting
objects/inheritance, arrays, stereo, events, OSC, and much better
documentation. Since then, we have added many more features, including
multi-channel audio, HID support, new UGen's and new language features.
Development is continuing rapidly (several full-time developers, plus more
than a dozen part-time contributors). Documentation can found here:
http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/doc/
Traditionally, ChucK has been a command line program (like java, gcc,
perl) on Linux/OSX/Windows. Now, it's also possible to use a integrated
environment called the miniAudicle (so far only released on OS X), which
is another way to code chuck on-the-fly:
http://audicle.cs.princeton.edu/mini/
Finally, there is the Audicle, which is meant to be a graphical
programming environment for writing ChucK code. Implemented in OpenGL
(also cross-platform, but in pre-pre-alpha), the Audicle intends to
be an interface and a program monitor for live coding and at once,
provides insight both to the programmer and to the audience:
http://audicle.cs.princeton.edu/
We have also been using ChucK to teaching for performance in the Princeton
Laptop Orchestra:
http://plork.cs.princeton.edu/
Some audiovisuals:
ICMC 2004 presentation:
http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/listen/audicle_icmc2004.mov
"On-the-fly Counterpoint (2005)" with Perry Cook:
http://soundlab.cs.princeton.edu/listen/otfc2005x.mp3
"Non-Specific Gamelan Taiko Fusion" with Perry Cook
(for 15 computers + humans, synchronized):
http://plork.cs.princeton.edu/video/nonspecific.mov
"Assignment 2: make a drum machine, perform it on-the-fly"
(PLOrk freshman seminar, 2005)
http://plork.cs.princeton.edu/video/plork_drum.mov
If you are still reading, and interested (and haven't used ChucK
recently), I encourage you to give the more recent chuck/miniAudicle a
try. If you are interested in at least keeping an eye on the progress,
there is the 'chuck' mailing list:
http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/community/
Thanks and sorry. Feel free to email us if you have any questions or to
call us idiots, etc.
Best wishes,
Ge!
Received on Tue Apr 25 2006 - 01:45:18 BST