"I don't tell people I'm a programmer anymore..." 😅 @samaaron.bsky.social has a better answer: "I'm a musician. I play code." A fun take on why programming is more than just building business software. 🎥 youtube.com/shorts/v7hL8... #Programming #CreativeCoding #SonicPi

I put a *lot* of effort into improving Sonic Pi's accessibility. So it's genuinely heart-warming to get this feedback: "I’m loving the new auto complete with my screen reader! It’s like a stealthy little ninja waiting to jump into action." "[I] want it in all my code editors now, wonderful work."

A bit old video but still relevant. Sonic-Pi is one of the most inspiring Open Source projects ever and I believe it deserves more visibility. It's also a lot of fun 🎉 https://youtu.be/bBKu3qb0o_Y https://fosstodon.org/@alex/104400262485586472

It took 7 years of self-funded work, but Sonic Pi is finally at a place I'm happy with. It's even easier than beginners and even more powerful for pro users - and just way more polished in every way. It's also a (friendly) technical trojan horse for SuperSonic. www.patreon.com/samaaron/pos...

In Sonic Pi v5 the documentation for each synth is an actual playable synth. Use the qwerty keys to trigger the notes and play with the control knobs like a standard synth - it then generates the code for you. Sonic Pi v5 RC1 is now freely available to download: www.patreon.com/samaaron/pos...

Sonic Pi v5 RC1 is now public and available to download. I think it's the most significant release ever. Please give it a whirl - I would love to know your thoughts. www.patreon.com/samaaron/pos...

Sonic Pi v5 now opens up with a new Quickstart Card system. This gets people up and running much faster and more joyfully than a long wordy tutorial. You can play the cards directly or drag them into the editor to use the snippet in your own composition.

"I play code." @samaaron.bsky.social explains why programming belongs on stage, not just in the office. From @sonic-pi.net to AI & Tau5, this is a fresh look at creativity, software, and the future of coding. 🎥 Watch this @yowconf.bsky.social talk now: youtu.be/-L4OoOgQ5Wk?...

Sonic Pi v5 Release Candidate 1 is almost ready for a public release. Highlights: - New SuperSonic engine: hot-swap audio devices live - New autocompletion with built-in docs - Session recording: window + audio to video - Syphon/Spout streaming (OBS + VJ apps) - Game controller input continued...

How cool! You can use @samaaron.bsky.social Sonic Pi together with @intellijidea.com internal APIs to get adaptive music while you code. The music then reacts to how dangerous the method you're editing is. No danger? Cool, calm and collected music. A lot of danger? Pure chaos and stress!

Sonic Pi v5 Beta 4 - Release Notes Read about the new features in the latest Sonic Pi beta release: Support for gamepads (works like MIDI), tracking and sync with external MIDI clocks, bundled with lots of polish and love. www.patreon.com/samaaron/pos...

I'm so excited about my work on SuperSonic for a myriad of reasons. Yet, it's not anything technical that gets the most interest. It's when I say: "SuperSonic is the project I intend to spend the next 10 years of my life on". It's like it's an alien concept to have such a long-term perspective.

Sonic Pi v5 Beta 4 - Download Links Available. This is pretty much v5. Just performance testing and further polish left. Beta 4 brings support for tracking external MIDI clocks (up to 8 simultaneously), and many, many internal improvements and optimisations. www.patreon.com/samaaron/pos...

I'm almost ready to cut a new Beta of Sonic Pi v5. Hotswappable audio settings, debug + log panes, new autocompletion, MIDI clock tracking, Link Audio, gamepads, shortcut editor, screencast recording, Syphon/Spout streaming, ipv6 support, improved MIDI/OSC timing accuracy. patreon.com/samaaron

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

Hire this man to make your event absolutely slam. He does custom shit all the time and he delivers very consistent cool stuff. Live coding DJ, teaching your devs something to exercise their creativity, sky is the limit.

This next year is going to be extremely testing financially. Cost of living continues to grow & interest rates are crazy high. In the next 6 months I'm going to have to somehow earn a *lot* more just to continue to barely stay above the waterline. Not sure what to do. Suggestions on a postcard!

Live coding Sonic Tau on a $8 ESP32-S3 like it's completely normal. I have SuperSonic + the Tau compiler & runtime running on the board. I can send it OSC messages with code as text & it can compile & hot swap the VM byte code without skipping a beat. I haven't been this excited in a while.

Sonic Pi now supports game controllers. Connect a spare Xbox controller just like a MIDI controller and jam away. Use your finely honed Fortnite skills to express yourself through music! Available next week as an exclusive pre-release for Patreon supporters in v5 Beta 4. patreon.com/samaaron

The majority of the new features added to Sonic Pi have come directly from the adoption of SuperSonic. Improving SuperSonic now improves Sonic Pi: * Using JUCE enables live hot swapping the audio hardware. * Integrating Link v4 enables Link Audio. * Integrating MIDI enables MIDI clock support.

Sonic Pi now has the ability to sync bpm with external MIDI clocks. Up to 8 simultaneous MIDI clocks are supported - so you could drive multiple threads at different BPMs simultaneously via different clocks. Coming in v5 Beta 4 in a week or so...

Nice, SuperSonic just passed 200 stars and 1000 commits. (And I haven't even started the fun stuff...) github.com/samaaron/sup...

The reviews for Sonic Pi v5 beta 3 are starting to come in... "I love the supersonic display. Quite mesmerising to watch" "The additional features are marvellous. They make sense to me as a teacher" "First impression: Phenomenal! A real joy to play with!" www.patreon.com/posts/sonic-...

Dancing to Sonic Pi's Rerezzed example running live on an instant-booting embedded board. No "computer" involved! For my lovely hw friends, it's an ESP32-S3 dev board running SuperSonic at 16 bit 48kHz. Audio is via i2s to a pico audio board by Pimoroni.

Sonic Pi v5 is almost ready and I'm excited to get it into your hands. If you want to play with it you have two options: 1. Wait until the final free release (hopefully) in July. 2. Become a Patreon supporter and get access to high-quality pre-releases before everyone else. patreon.com/samaaron

The rainbow is here all year long, so we don't need to change the profile for June. But it is a good time to remind everyone that LGBTQIA+ rights are under attack all year long as well. And to steal @haskell.org's message: there would be no Gleam without trans people 🩵🩷🤍

Sonic Pi v5 Beta 3 is now available. * Link Audio - stream audio between multiple Sonic Pi instances over the network. Works with any Link 4 peer incl. Ableton Live * Shortcut Editor * New Autocomplete System * Debug Panel * Improved Accessibility Support www.patreon.com/posts/sonic-...

Simmering in the background - SuperSonic Embedded. I've got it running on a ESP32-S3.

Working on a new shortcut editor for Sonic Pi. Patreon supporters will get exclusive access to the pre-release beta very soon...

Good morning @jnationconf.bsky.social with @samaaron.bsky.social giving us a nice pre keynote fill with @sonic-pi.net

That is @samaaron.bsky.social opening @jnationconf.bsky.social 🤩

Just pushed new Ableton Link v4 support into SuperSonic. Link offers local-network discovery to sync timing *and* now v4 adds Link Audio which lets any peer stream low-latency audio to any other peer. This will be integrated into Sonic Pi. github.com/samaaron/sup...

I'm making good progress integrating Ableton Link Audio streams into Sonic Pi. Now you can receive link streams in addition to sending the main stereo out. I think this is a really powerful feature - especially if we see wider adoption of Link Audio in other audio software.

Notes on the Synthesis of Time: The Art of Engineering with AI - the title of a new talk I'm looking forward to giving this Friday in Munich: www.bigtechday.com/en/talks#40r...

I'm Sam Aaron & I've worked on free music coding software for ~20 years. I've had meaningful impacts in both education and research. However, I'm independent & self-funding is harder than ever. Please enable me to continue by supporting on Patreon. patreon.com/samaaron

SuperSonic's new Link Audio output stream seems too good to be true. It just works. It even gracefully handled a network card switch. With an ethernet connection you can get the latency really low. Nice work Ableton. This will feature in Sonic Pi v5 Beta 3 - available to Patreon supporters soon.

I'm working on adding full Ableton Link v4 support to SuperSonic. This includes support for Link Audio - enabling you to effortlessly stream audio between different machines on your local network. Today I successfully streamed sound from a modified Sonic Pi on my Mac to Ableton Live on my PC.

What if the first thing you built with code was music instead of a TODO app? @samaaron.bsky.social joins @boicy.bovon.org to talk about Sonic Pi and a surprisingly simple idea: People learn differently when coding feels creative. 🎧 Listen to this #GOTOpodcast episode: gotopia.tech/podcast

Sonic Pi v5 Beta 2 [VJ + Streaming Tools]. Fresh new Sonic Pi beta just dropped - ASIO support, audio + video recording, video streaming. www.patreon.com/posts/sonic-...

Today I got my first sounds from SuperSonic running on an embedded device.

Coming up in Sonic Pi v5 beta 2... * Support for ASIO on Windows * Record jams as both video and audio * Stream video via Syphon/Spout to OBS/VJ software etc. * New debug logs in the GUI

I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this year's Goatmire will be legendary. In my opinion it was by far the best conference of 2025. goatmire.com

Just completed my first live coded performance using v5 of Sonic Pi powered by SuperSonic. Definitely a MASSIVE eat your own dogfood moment. I live coded up to the opening keynote for MongoDB.local London and it went super smoothly.

For the past few years I've used a free tool called Syphoner to extract the Sonic Pi GUI as a Syphon stream to mix in my VJ software. Recently it stopped working and the project seems abandoned. So I did what any sensible individual would do and added Syphon output support to Sonic Pi directly.

Making good progress adding ASIO support to supersonic.exe

Sonic Pi v5 beta 1 'SuperSonic' is here. A new audio engine. A year in the making. Hot-swap audio devices without a restart. www.patreon.com/posts/sonic-...

Rumour has it that Patreon supporters now have access to a private beta of v5 of Sonic Pi - powered by SuperSonic. patreon.com/samaaron

The reason there will be no ‘fuel crisis’ in the Netherlands is that every town, city, & village in the land is connected by fully-segregated cycle lanes. It’s possible for the Dutch to easily stop driving while fuel is short and prices are high. That’s real energy resilience.

Sonic Pi's tectonic plates have shifted as the original SuperCollider scsynth server is now replaced with SuperSonic. This brings the ability to switch audio devices without having to restart. It's the result of almost a year of hard work. Delayed gratification FTW! github.com/sonic-pi-net...

What if learning to code felt more like making music? 🎶 @samaaron.bsky.social & @boicy.bovon.org explore teaching programming through @sonic-pi.net — creative, engaging, and surprisingly powerful 👀 🎥 youtu.be/Exh0jWu-88o?... #Coding #EdTech #LearnToCode #SonicPi