I’ve been intrigued recently by a newer sound programming language, ChucK. I originally heard about it via an NPR piece on the Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), which is just a cool idea in and of itself.
ChucK is, thankfully, being developed for all 3 major platforms, and there are versions of its smaller IDE, MiniAudicle, available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Its development community is quite active, and the documentation is substantial without being overly-technical. ChucK’s concept and approach is not entirely dissimilar from that of SuperCollider. Though it is still in heavy, early development, and certain language features are broken or as-yet-unimplemented, I see a great deal of promise here. The code is released under the GPL, boding well for its ongoing development and expansion. There is a GUI control (sliders and such) package, but this only works on OS X.
I found that MiniAudicle was extremely easy to use and understand, with a crisp, simple interface. Language syntax is, to my eyes, straightforward and clear. I was modifying sample code within minutes, toying around for some time before even beginning to read its excellent documentation.
Other resources:
- Audicle, the full but cryptic IDE for ChucK
- SMELT
- ChucK wiki
I tried to compile MiniAudicle on Ubuntu Intrepid, but this yielded only a slew of cryptic error messages. On, the other hand, there’s a working command-line-only ChucK package compiled for Jack in the repositories, so it’s no great loss.
I’ve been working on a ChucK class to generate chord progressions based on a flowchart. One attractive thing about the platform is that its midi out facilities could let me feed this kind of robo-improvisation to a VST host or Reason instrument. Or, I could use its synthesis engine and feed this to effects, via Jack.
When I reach a point at which I think the code might be of use for others, I’ll likely release this under the Creative Commons. Stay tuned.
Kassen Said:
on Dec 21, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Hey there,
I fear the .deb package is fairly out of date and you will be way better off with compiling from source… but there seems to be some sort of mysterious issue. If you’d like, join the discussion at the linked URL, it’d be good to get to the bottom of this (if it’s the same issue).
ascriptedmelody Said:
on Dec 21, 2008 at 11:53 pm
The package is version 1.2.0.8. I’ve yet to run across any functionality that I need that is not supported. I’m more concerned that miniAudicle fails to compile on my system, since I like the front end. I wouldn’t mind compiling, but it appears to be a code problem that I don’t have the time to debug.
stochastic Said:
on Mar 12, 2009 at 6:47 am
MiniAudicle not compiling on Intrepid is due to GCC4.3 in intrepid not liking the older version of chuck that’s included in the MiniAudicle’s source. To fix, simply replace the chuck folder inside the Mini’s source with the up-to-date chuck source. This worked for me on Intrepid.
ascriptedmelody Said:
on Mar 12, 2009 at 7:06 am
I believe I fixed this problem and never blogged about it. It’s been several months, but IIRC, I installed the older version of GCC along with 4.3 and edited the makefiles and environment vars to use the old GCC. It compiled fine. Good to know that there are at least 2 ways to work around this. Thanks for the comment!
enveraVor Said:
on Dec 11, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Great story, I didn’t thought it was going to be so awesome when I looked at the title with link!!