Orca VS textbeat

Lastly, something I want to start exploring more, is funky ways to sequence stuff. There's a program called ORCA which is more programming than performing (unless you're into live coding!) but it can make some really neat stuff. That YT channel has a video going over the basics, too. Something like that might be more of a learning curve than you want, but I love the idea of obtuse ways to make melodies.

I love using ORCA for generative experimentation https://github.com/hundredrabbits/Orca

In particular - theres a music environment called Orca that is such a great fit for a Roguelike, and porting it to Rust might be a fun medium-size project.

I've downloaded the Linux zip file from the link above and even after unzipping it and going through those files I can't find anything I'm supposed to be able to open. I've tried checking the MANUAL and the README file on the program's Github but I can't seem to get it going there either.

I tried it on textbeat which is in python and it wasn't understanding too much, with the exception of how the callstack worked in the parser. My questions may have been too usage-specific and not enough about the internals but I used up all my free usage credits so I couldn't continue.

My text-based music sequencer has some music theory support and it also has a REPL:

https://github.com/flipcoder/textbeat

I haven't worked on it in a while, but you might like textbeat (https://github.com/flipcoder/textbeat). It's a midi tracker and REPL that lets you type in music theory-like terminology and plays it. It's nowhere near a modern DAW but it's cool for tinkering and learning.

I've used Bitwig as a plugin host for textbeat before and it was quite fun. Textbeat is a project of mine that lets you write music in "plain text" with notation for chords, scales, and articulations. I haven't worked on it in a while though.

I love these text-based languages for music composition. Its something that is approaching a gap in music composition in real-life vs via computer. In real-life you can tell your bandmates to "just play a I V IV in C" and they get it. But we are still not quite at a place where we can tell a computer that exact phrase and get something useful. I love how close these text-based languages are getting though!

I've actually made my own musical language too - called miti [1], which is just one of many others including textbeat [2], foxdot [3], sonic-pi [4], chuck [5], and melrose [6]. Each has their own goals and capabilities.

- [1] https://github.com/schollz/miti

- [2] https://github.com/flipcoder/textbeat

- [3] https://foxdot.org/

- [4] https://sonic-pi.net/

- [5] https://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/

- [6] https://github.com/emicklei/melrose