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overtone
overtone
Clojure2011–2026
overtone / overtone

overtone

Collaborative Programmable Music

Creative & Media
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
26Distinct people
32Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
6.2KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

Collaborative Programmable Music

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these discussions

Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.

This week on Hacker News

Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:03:16 PM UTC.

No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.

Mentions over time

HN mentions by year32 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2011-10-09 01:01:31 UTC to 2026-09-02 14:26:52 UTC.

0123452011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments20112012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 1 submissions, 0 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments20182019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 1 submissions, 2 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 2 submissions, 3 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20112011-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20122012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC110
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC312
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC523

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
888 888 _ooooooooo._ 888 ,o888PP""""PP88 .d88b. 888 888 .d88b. 888d888 888888 .d88b. 88888b. .d88b. d88P'' ' d88""88b 888 888 d8P Y8b 888P" 888 d88""88b 888 "88b d8P Y8b ,88P 88 88 Y88 88P 88888888 888 888 88 88 888 888 88888888 ,88 Y88..88P Y8bd8P Y8b. 888 Y88b. Y88..88P 888 888 Y8b. ,88' "Y88P" Y88P "Y8888 888 "Y888 "Y88P" 888 888 "Y8888 d8P d8b 88[ `88 J88 Y8b ,88' Y8b. d88' `Y8b._ _o88P `Y888oo.____ooo888P' '"PP888888PP'' Collaborative Programmable Music. Overtone is an Open Source toolkit for designing synthesizers and collaborating with music. It provides: A Clojure API to the SuperCollider synthesis engine A growing library of musical functions (scales, chords, rhythms, arpeggiators, etc.) Metronome and timing system to support live-programming and sequencing Plug and play MIDI device I/O A full Open Sound Control (OSC) client and server implementation. Pre-cache - a system for locally caching external assets such as .wav files An API for querying and fetching sounds from http://freesound.org A global concurrent event stream Quick Start Installation Install Java, since this is a prerequisite for Clojure Quite often Java will already be installed, if java -version works and shows you a version of 11 or higher you should be good On Linux, you should be able to use your operating system package manager, for instance on Ubuntu the package will be called something like openjdk-17-jdk On MacOS you can use Homebrew if you have it https://adoptium.net/ has installers for most operating systems Install the Clojure CLI tools, see Install Clojure Also install rlwrap if you can, without it clojure will work, but clj will not, and you won't have history and line editing in your Clojure REPL Install SuperCollider, preferrably through your operating system's package manager (apt, yum, pacman, homebrew, chocolatey, etc.) The main package is called supercollider everywhere If there's a package names sc3-plugins, then install that as well At this point you should have clojure and scsynth available. $ clojure --version Clojure CLI version 1.11.1.1413 $ scsynth -v scsynth 3.13.0 (Built from '' [na]) On macOS, scsynth might not be available but it's sufficient to have SuperCollider installed at /Applications/SuperCollider.app. This is homebrew's behavior. Now you can add overtone/overtone as a dependency, and start a Clojure REPL. mkdir happy-vibes && cd happy-vibes echo '{:deps {overtone/overtone {:mvn/version "0.16.3331"}}}' > deps.edn clj Clojure 1.11.1 user=> Making sounds ;; boot the server user=> (use 'overtone.live) --> Loading Overtone... [overtone.live] [INFO] Found SuperCollider server: /usr/bin/scsynth (PATH) --> Booting external SuperCollider server... --> Connecting to external SuperCollider server: 127.0.0.1:26325 [scynth] SuperCollider 3 server ready. --> Connection established ;; listen to the joys of a simple sine wave user=> (demo (sin-osc)) ;; or something more interesting... user=> (demo 7 (lpf (mix (saw [50 (line 100 1600 5) 101 100.5])) (lin-lin (lf-tri (line 2 20 5)) -1 1 400 4000))) Linter (clj-kondo) Run overtone.linter/emit! to emit clj-kondo configuration. Do not commit the generated files, it's a bunch of data. Detailed Instructions For a more detailed set of setup instructions (including details specific to Windows and Linux) head over to the Overtone wiki installation page We maintain documentation for all aspects of the system in the project wiki, you'll find tutorials and examples on topics such as synthesizing new sounds from scratch, live-coding and generating musical scores on the fly. If you see anything missing, please feel free to add it yourself, or hit us up on the mailing list and we'll sort something out. Cheat Sheet For a quick glance at all the exciting functionality Overtone puts at your musical fingertips check out the cheat sheet: https://github.com/overtone/overtone/raw/master/docs/cheatsheet/overtone-cheat-sheet.pdf Overtone Powered Bands A list of bands using Overtone to generate sounds: Meta-eX Repl Electric Community Mailing List We encourage you to join the mailing list to see what other people are getting up to with Overtone. Use it to ask questions, show off what you've made and even meet fellow Overtoners in your area so you can meet up for impromptu jam sessions. All we ask is that you be considerate, courteous and respectful and that you share as much of your code as possible so we can all learn how to make crazy cool sounds together. Clojurians Slack You can find us in the #overtone channel on Clojurians Slack. Web Our main website is hosted on GitHub: http://overtone.github.io Videos Introductions Head over to Vimeo for a fast-paced 4 minute introduction to live-coding with Overtone to see what's possible http://vimeo.com/22798433 For a nice overview of the basics of creating and playing with synthesized instruments in Overtone checkout Philip Potter's 20 minute workshop: http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/scala/clojurex-unpanel-2894 Chris Ford also delivers a beautifully paced introduction to fundamental music concepts from basic sine waves to Bach's Goldberg Variations with live examples throughout: http://skillsmatter.com/podcast/home/functional-composition There are also the following tutorials: Setting up an Overtone Development Environment - Running on Edge http://vimeo.com/25102399 How to Hack Overtone with Emacs http://vimeo.com/25190186 Presentations Rich Hickey - Harmonikit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhkdyCPYgLs Sam Aaron - Programming Music With Overtone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imoWGsipe4k Chris Ford - Functional Composition: http://w
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

32 sources
chris_j·Sep 2, 2026
Overtone [0] is a precursor to Sonic Pi that uses Clojure. Sam used to work on it before he created Sonic Pi. I remember having great fun playing with it at a Clojure meetup in about 2011. Overtone appears to still be going if you want to check it out. [0] https://github.com/overtone/overtone
In Sonic Pi
chris_j·Sep 2, 2026
Sam previously worked on Overtone, which is a Clojure library for driving the Supercollider synthesiser. I understand that he decided to create Sonic Pi in Ruby in order to make it more accessible to beginners. (And Ruby was all the rage back then.) I haven't used Overtone in many years but it looks like it's still going: https://github.com/overtone/overtone
In Sonic Pi
retzkek·Sep 17, 2024
> Brackets and s-expressions can be fun, but they can get very unwieldy very quickly in LIL, especially since backslashes are required to break up commands across different lines. > The previous vibrato example sine [add [param 440] [sine 6 50]] 0.5 > can be rewritten without brackets using a special function called 'zz': sine 6 50 add zz 440 sine zz 0.5 > zz itself doesn't do anything. It is a placeholder that tells the function to use the argument that has been implicitely generated. This is an interesting approach to making stacked operations more readable, similar to the "thread-as" macro in Clojure [1], which would make the example look like: (as-> (sine 6 50) zz (add zz 440) (sine zz 0.5)) Of course, with this example in Clojure one could use "thread-first": (-> (sine 6 50) (add
Read the rest
440) (sine 0.5)) [1]: https://clojure.org/guides/threading_macros Incidentally, for making music with Clojure there's Overtone: https://github.com/overtone/overtone
In Sndkit – a toolkit for computer music composition
smrq·May 25, 2021
Sounds like you might be more interested in live coding. Overtone [1] can do what I think you are describing, and more--it's a frontend to SuperCollider, which has all the audio synthesis stuff you aren't interested in, but it can trigger samples fine. Of course, if Clojure isn't your thing, there are other live coding tools out there. I'm partial to Orca [2] myself. [1] https://github.com/overtone/overtone [2] https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca
In Ask HN: How to get started with audio programming?

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