Sonic Pi: Making music with code!

1.rb

##| You can play notes, chords, scales Oh my!

##| Midi notes
play 64

##| Or with more human-friendly note names :<letter><octave>
##| play :c2

##| play has attack, decay, sustain, release parameters to shape the sound
##| play :c, attack: 1, decay: 0.5, sustain: 2, release: 0.1

##| Chords
##| play chord(:c, :major)
##| play chord(:c, :minor)
##| play chord(:c, )

##| but this will let us play the notes in succession
##| play_pattern scale(:c, :major_pentatonic)

2.rb

# You can use different synths!

# Woah! this reminds me of {withr}
with_synth :saw do
  play_pattern scale(:c, :minor), attack: 1, release: 0.5, amp: 0.5
end

3.rb

## You can make beats!

sample :drum_bass_hard

##| sleep 0.125

##| sample :drum_bass_soft

##| sleep 0.25

##| sample :drum_cymbal_open

4.rb

##| Live loop sounds to repeat

live_loop :notes do
  play scale(:c, :minor).tick
  sleep 0.25
end

live_loop :beat do
  sample :bd_haus
  sleep 0.5
end

5.rb

# EFFECTS!!!

live_loop :notes do
  with_fx :reverb, room: 0.0, damp: 0, mix: 0.0 do
    with_synth :piano do
      play scale(:c2, :minor).choose, release: 0.25
    end
    sleep 0.25
  end
end

6.rb

##| Recreating a Colin Bender arppegio pattern from lockdown day 40:
##| https://youtu.be/iF8Lgj-jzAo?t=9132

##| intervals for readability
root = 0
second = 1
third = 2
fourth = 3
fifth = 4
eighth = 7
tenth = 9

##| the 4 arpeggios
cm = scale(:c5, :minor, num_octaves: 2)
abM = scale(:ab4, :major, num_octaves: 2)
ebM = scale(:eb5, :major, num_octaves: 2)
bdim = chord(:b4, 'm+5', num_octaves: 2)

##| interval pattern for the first 3 arps
indices = [root, third, fifth, third, eighth, fifth, tenth, eighth]

##| the bdim has a slightly different interval pattern
dim_indices = [root, second, third, second, fourth, third, fifth, fourth]

##| setup the scales and intervals list to iterate
scales = [cm, abM, ebM, bdim]
intervals = [indices, indices, indices, dim_indices]

##| constant for the time (0.1 ish is nice but can be too fast for some PCs so change as needed)
note_duration = 0.115

##| loop through the arpeggios!
live_loop :main_arp do
  amp = 0.5
  s = scales.tick
  i = intervals.look
  with_fx :reverb, room: 0.8, mix: 0.5 do
    16.times do
      
      # get the next note for the current arpeggio
      # Note: we specify :note value for `i.tick()` so that we separate
      # this tick from the main tick and iterate within the current
      # interval recipe for current arppegio
      note = s[i.tick(:note)]
      
      ##| with_synth :saw do
      ##|   play note - 12, amp: amp, attack: 0.05, sustain: 0.01, release: 0.05
      ##| end
      
      ##| with_synth :saw do
      ##|   play note, amp: amp, attack: 0.025, sustain: 0.01, release: 0.05
      ##| end
      
      ##| with_synth :saw do
      ##|   play note - 12 * 2, amp: amp, attack: 0.01, sustain: 0.01, release: 0.08
      ##| end
      
      ##| with_synth :saw do
      ##|   play note - 12 * 3, amp: amp, attack: 0.025, sustain: 0.01, release: 0.08
      ##| end
      
      with_synth :saw do
        play note - 12 * 4, amp: amp + 0.25, attack: 0.05, sustain: 0.01, release: 0.08
      end
      
      ##| with_synth :beep do
      ##|   play note, amp: 0.5, attack: 0.05, sustain: 0.05, release: 0.01, pan: rrand_i(-1, 1)
      ##| end
      
      sleep note_duration
    end
  end
end


# simple bass drum
live_loop :bass_drum do
  with_fx :lpf, cutoff: 100 do
    sample :bd_haus, amp: 2
    sleep note_duration * 16
  end
end


##| chord swells
roots_low = [chord(:c2, :minor), chord(:ab2, :major), chord(:eb2, :major), chord(:b2, 'm+5')]
roots_high = [chord(:c5, :minor), chord(:ab4, :major), chord(:eb5, :major), chord(:b4, 'm+5')]

live_loop :swells do
  r1 = roots_low.tick
  r2 = roots_high.look
  amp = 0.5
  with_fx :reverb, room: 0.9, mix: 0.9 do
    with_fx :lpf, cutoff: 0 do
      ##| set attack to glide into the peak volume of each note
      with_synth :saw do
        play r1, amp: amp, attack: 0.2, sustain: 0.5, release: 1, pan: -0.5
        play r1, amp: amp, attack: 0.4, sustain: 0.5, release: 1, pan: 0.5
        play r2, amp: amp + 0.5, attack: 0.5, sustain: 0.1, release: 1, pan: 0
      end
    end
    sleep note_duration * 16
  end
end