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TidalCycles
Live coding environment designed for musical improvisation

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. 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. 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.

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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.7 Tidal's representation of rhythm is based on metrical cycles,8 which is inspired by Indian classical music,9 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,1011 as a language in network music,12 and in electronic literature.13

Tidal is widely used at algorave algorithmic dance music events,1415 and on high profile music releases.161718 It has been featured on BBC Radio 3's New Music Show.19

Since January 2022, an official port of Tidal's pattern engine has developed into the web-based live coding environment Strudel,20 created by Felix Roos and Alex McLean.21

Artists using it

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. /wiki/Alex_McLean ↩

  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. http://cdm.link/2018/12/tidalcycles-free-live-coding-environment-for-music-turns-1-0/ ↩

  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. 978-1-4503-3039-8 ↩

  5. Mollan, Cherylann (2019-02-10). "Grooving to Algo'rhythms'". The Asian Age. Retrieved 2019-03-01. http://www.asianage.com/life/more-features/090219/grooving-to-algorhythms.html ↩

  6. "Opposing forces: Rian Treanor explains how he creates intense yet subtle club music". Mixmag. 2019-03-05. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://mixmag.net/feature/rian-treanor-impact-mix-planet-mu ↩

  7. Bick, Emily (March 2016). "Pattern Recognition". The Wire. No. 385. pp. 16–17. ↩

  8. Sinow, Catherine (2020-09-26). "Deep Algebra for Deep Beats: The Beautiful Sounds of Musical Programming". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/09/turning-code-into-music-anagrams-open-source-marxism-and-vr-raves/ ↩

  9. "Type and jive". The Week. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://www.theweek.in/theweek/leisure/2020/04/04/type-and-jive.html ↩

  10. 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. https://zenodo.org/record/3939174 ↩

  11. 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. 978-3-030-72116-9 ↩

  12. 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. /wiki/Alex_McLean ↩

  13. 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. /wiki/Alex_McLean ↩

  14. Mollan, Cherylann (2019-02-10). "Grooving to Algo'rhythms'". The Asian Age. Retrieved 2019-03-01. http://www.asianage.com/life/more-features/090219/grooving-to-algorhythms.html ↩

  15. Calore, Michael. "DJs of the Future Don't Spin Records—They Write Code". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://www.wired.com/story/algoraves-live-coding-djs/ ↩

  16. Crilly, Lyle (2020-11-10). "Richard Devine: A Systic Approach to Acid". Roland Articles. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://articles.roland.com/richard-devine-a-systic-approach-to-acid/ ↩

  17. Mullen, Mullen (26 February 2020). "Impossible Forms: Beatrice Dilon". Inverted Audio. https://inverted-audio.com/feature/impossible-forms-beatrice-dillon/ ↩

  18. Wilson, Scott (2019-02-08). "PC Music's Lil Data to release anthology of live-coded tracks". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://www.factmag.com/2019/02/08/lil-data-folder-dot-zip-announced/ ↩

  19. "New Music Show". BBC Media Centre. 2020-02-02. Retrieved 2022-01-21. https://www.bbc.com/mediacentre/proginfo/2020/08/new-music-show ↩

  20. 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. https://cdm.link/musical-powerful-live-coding-in-the-browser-is-near-with-strudel-usable-now/ ↩

  21. Roos, Felix; McLean, Alex (2023-04-18). Strudel: Live Coding Patterns on the Web. International Conference on Live Coding. https://zenodo.org/records/7842142 ↩

  22. Crilly, Lyle (2020-11-10). "Richard Devine: A Systic Approach to Acid". Roland Articles. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://articles.roland.com/richard-devine-a-systic-approach-to-acid/ ↩

  23. Mullen, Mullen (26 February 2020). "Impossible Forms: Beatrice Dilon". Inverted Audio. https://inverted-audio.com/feature/impossible-forms-beatrice-dillon/ ↩

  24. Wilson, Scott (2019-02-08). "PC Music's Lil Data to release anthology of live-coded tracks". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 2022-01-19. https://www.factmag.com/2019/02/08/lil-data-folder-dot-zip-announced/ ↩

  25. Charli XCX – Vroom Vroom (Lil Data TidalCycles live coding edit), 21 June 2019, retrieved 2022-01-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNj-I2pZwX8 ↩

  26. "Sonic Futures: How Technology is Guiding Electronic Music". FACT Magazine: Transmissions from the underground. 22 October 2019. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://www.factmag.com/2019/10/22/sonic-futures-how-technology-is-guiding-electronic-music/ ↩

  27. Fact (2020-06-09). "Artist DIY: Digital Selves". Fact Magazine. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://www.factmag.com/2020/06/09/artist-diy-digital-selves/ ↩

  28. "Meet the female coders pushing electronic music into the future". Mixmag. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://mixmag.net/feature/female-coders-algorave ↩

  29. "Meet the Artists Using Coding, AI, and Machine Language to Make Music". Bandcamp Daily. 2018-01-25. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://daily.bandcamp.com/lists/music-ai-coding-algorithms ↩

  30. "Watch the first exclusive live performance of No Man's Sky's soundtrack". PlayStation.Blog. 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://blog.playstation.com/archive/2017/03/30/watch-the-first-exclusive-live-performance-of-no-mans-skys-soundtrack ↩

  31. "Deru – Sound and Atmospheres". www.steinberg.net. Retrieved 2022-01-20. https://www.steinberg.net/stories/deru-interview/ ↩

  32. "Hsien-Yu Cheng & Tzu-Ni Hung / Abyss Zone". submarine.gallery (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2023-06-26. https://submarine.gallery/performance/abysszone20230625 ↩