sonic-pi

v5 now has AppImage builds for Linux ARM64, x64 and x86: https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/releases/tag/v5.0.0

I nerd-sniped myself porting SuperCollider's scsynth audio DSP engine for that Tau5 project. This then turned into SuperSonic (https://sonic-pi.net/supersonic/demo.html). I then wrapped SuperSonic back into a native form and used it to replace scsynth in v5 of Sonic Pi (https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/releases/tag/v5.0.0). I'm now working on a new audio DSP engine which builds on all this learning which combines my favourite parts of scsynth and Erlang. I'll be discussing and sharing progress over on my Patreon (https://patreon.com/samaaron). As a sneak peek - here's an experimental prototype of the kind of direction I'm headed in: https://sonic-pi.net/tau

Of course - and it's what I've been working hard on in the background for the past year. I ported SuperCollider's scsynth to Web Audio workouts (https://sonic-pi.net/supersonic/demo.html) late 2025, built an experimental spike called Sonic Tau (https://sonic-pi.net/tau). Then I wrapped SuperSonic in a native audio framework and used it to replace scsynth in Sonic Pi v5 (https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/releases/tag/v5.0.0) I'm now working on a new audio DSP engine building on this learning which combines my favourite aspects of scsynth and Erlang which I'll be discussing and revealing over on my Patreon over the coming months (https://patreon.com/samaaron)

Not sure if it’s possible to explain this in one sentence - I was just explaining the goals. As a summary - friendly as in better autocomplete, better error messages. There are vast accessibility improvements for those with low vision and those that use screen readers. It’s more fun for many reasons but stand out ones are support for game controller input, interactive docs and low-friction QuickStart cards. The post linked goes into more detail and the release notes go even further: https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/releases/tag/v5.0.0

Strange dice that it seems to mostly be c++, sponsored by 3 prominent elixir shops, with an original OSC server implementation by Joe Armstrong. https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/tree/dev/app/server...

The lead developer seems to have move on to https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi

As I understand it, the server is being switched over to Erlang https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/tree/dev/app/server...

Sonic Pi is essentially a frontend to Supercollider: https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/blob/dev/SYNTH_DESI...

This insanity is far more pervasive and has infected software distribution as well. A couple of years back I installed a copy of Sonic Pi[1] on my machine and was horrified to see that the distribution basically dumped tens of thousands of extremely tiny Ruby files on the hard disk. Ever tried copying hundreds of thousands of sub 1 KB files from one disk to another and noticed the file system crying under the load? Game developers solved this problem decades ago.[2][3] I don't know why other developers continue to be so backward in their thinking when distributing their software. You don't have to do anything special. Just use SQLite as a VFS and end the insanity.[4] [1] https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi [2] https://quakewiki.org/wiki/.pak [3] https://wiki.totalwar.com/w/Community_hints,_tips_and_tutori... [4] https://sqlite.org/ap

Fun fact: Sonic pi uses supercollider! https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/blob/main/SYNTH_DES...

Do look at SonicPi [0][1]. [0] https://sonic-pi.net/ [1] https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi

Wow, that's Beam as in Erlang's BEAM: a core component has been rewritten in Erlang as Ruby didn't provide good enough latency guarantees. The author goes a bit into detail here: https://github.com/sonic-pi-net/sonic-pi/tree/main/app/serve...