Dancing around the rhythm space with Euclid

by dracyr • 7 months ago

54 5 7 months ago

twister727• 7 months ago

Dude! As an experienced drummer, I love this! I just want to ask - what stack did you use to build the webpage? I looked at the source and it looks like handwritten HTML / CSS / JS. Is that true or did you use some framework? I'm new to web dev. I'm asking because I have some ideas like this too that I wanna build.

dracyr2• 7 months ago

Hey! Haha, that's great to hear!

Stack is super simple, for the blog in general I'm using caddy to serve my markdown files, using the built in templating functionality to turn them into html.

For the sequencer page, it's basically a self-contained html page. The js/css is written in separate files to make it a bit easier to edit, but they are then just included in the main file without any kind of minification or obfuscation so it should be quite easy to look at the source. Feel free to read and remix it for your own purposes!

There will be some limit to this approach, but for this use case I really like the idea of dependency less HTML files. As long as the main browser APIs I'm using remain, it should keep on working.

I put together the core, but also often pasted the whole thing into Claude web, asking it to make an artifact and then playing with it on my phone while commuting, if it was good I'd use it as inspiration later.

chris_st• 7 months ago

Nice! I've done similar things with iPad AUv3 plugins (of which there are way too many!).

Notable ones are:

* Patterning 3 - which, while "just" a drum sequencer, has the ability to automate rotations, etc. in really interesting ways, as well as separate sequences for each part of the kit.

* 4Pockets Euclidean - gives you four different sequences, with adjustable steps, events, rotations, notes to play, velocity, ... for building interesting rhythms.

* Riffer - MIDI random sequence generator

* OODA and ZOA - sequencers with clever morphing and looping abilities

* Battlestation - drum sequencer with random generation, lots of manual adjustments, and then three different synth blocks with random generation.

If you have an iPad already, most AUv3s are generally from free to $30, so somewhat cheaper than going Eurorack :-)

Also, there are things like Drambo that pretty much are Euroracks, and things like Loopy Pro that are not really like anything else (well, LP is kind of like a Boss 505, if the Boss had an arbitrary number of loops, incredible automation, several built-in plugins plus the ability to use pretty much any AUv3 plugin, and the ability to control those plugins...).

It's all kind of an incredible rabbit hole to go down. TONS of fun.

dracyr2• 7 months ago

Ooh! I've been semi-aware that there's been things going on in the iPad space, but didn't know that there was so much. ZOA seems like an interesting take on a sequencer so will try to dig a bit deeper into how it works.

Don't have an iPad though, part of wanting to play with hardware is getting away from all the daily screens (not that I'm always managing to do that), but I'm imagining there's some ideas you can get from videos about them too. But looking up some of the things above they do look quite cool... And would definitely be cheaper than Eurorack.

Haha, now I feel like I need to contain myself to current rabbit holes before it goes to far, but thanks a lot for sharing! :D

_spduchamp• 7 months ago

I've been experimenting with rhythms like Euclideans but using oscillators in Pure Data. One main oscillator for BPM, and then up to 5 oscillators with frequencies set ratios of the main oscillator. Adjust the amplitudes and phases of the oscillators, add them all together and stike a beat at the zero crossings. This makes for a very interesting way to play stuff morphing between rhythms.

Recently, I've has some success at working out ways to derive some of the Euclidean rhythms by solving for the zero crossings, so now I'm pretty sure that this continuous rhythm synthesis is also capable of all the Euclidean variations.

Experiments: https://youtu.be/zeHJXyyhJ70 https://youtu.be/zILWhOu--Go

A little performance using a Gametrak controller. https://youtu.be/SlSujIOGamk

Dancing around the rhythm space with Euclid

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