My "SAU language" and saugns program (wiki page here) is becoming more interesting for making soundscapes lately, with v0.4.0, though I think it's still too unexpressive for music in general.
It's far, far more minimalist than all the popular languages for writing sounds or music in (which may in part change later). Currently, it's not for live coding, but only for writing audio scripts that then play (or can be converted to normal audio files). Abstractions are still lacking in the language, yet some interesting things can be made in short scripts.
Here's a soundscape in < 80 characters, which uses the newly added 2nd audio generator type "R" (Random segments generator). (Changing a phase offset, from "p0/4" to "p2/4", would also make for a fairly different sound.)
Code: Select all
'f=10/3
Rcos mg f$f t60 p[Wsin r10 a4 p[Wsin r-2.r+2[Rlin mt p0/4 f20*$f]]]
(Rendering. I've not previously put up rendered audio, but recently did so in posting a bit on Fosstodon here.)
Above, both wave oscillators ("W") and random segments generators are used. "R" supports several types of randomness connected by the chosen line type, and this script uses both "g" (the "mg" part -- my fast soft-saturated Gaussian approximation -- and "t" (the "mt" part), a constrained random value distribution which always cycles to and from zero, but randomly flips polarity, which when connected by smooth lines seems good for nested modulators.
I made "R" more featureful than I thought I'd do beforehand, but in testing I found that various more sounds could be made with short scripts with more types added. E.g. using the Gaussian mode "g" for a low-frequency carrier is like a shortcut for getting more dynamic range to the sound, beyond sounding "right" in some more specific cases.
I mentioned my program a few years ago in my introduction, though little discussion came of it (neither here nor elsewhere) back then. Now it felt like time to see if there's any more interest, given the program is getting more capable now.