First Sounds

This is the first chapter of the Strudel Workshop, nice to have you on board!

Code Fields

The workshop is full of interactive code fields. Let’s learn how to use those. Here is one:

sound("casio")

Congratulations, you are now live coding!

Sounds

We have just played a sound with sound like this:

sound("casio")

insect wind jazz metal east crow casio space numbers

Change Sample Number with :

One Sound can contain multiple samples (audio files).

You can select the sample by appending : followed by a number to the name:

sound("casio:1")

Now you know how to use different sounds. For now we’ll stick to this little selection of sounds, but we’ll find out how to load your own sounds later.

Drum Sounds

By default, Strudel comes with a wide selection of drum sounds:

sound("bd hh sd oh")

These letter combinations stand for different parts of a drum set:

original image by Pbroks13

• bd = bass drum
• sd = snare drum
• rim = rimshot
• hh = hihat
• oh = open hihat
• lt = low tom
• mt = middle tom
• ht = high tom
• rd = ride cymbal
• cr = crash cymbal

Try out different drum sounds!

To change the sound character of our drums, we can use bank to change the drum machine:

sound("bd hh sd oh").bank("RolandTR909")

In this example RolandTR909 is the name of the drum machine that we’re using. It is a famous drum machine for house and techno beats.

Sequences

In the last example, we already saw that you can play multiple sounds in a sequence by separating them with a space:

sound("bd hh sd hh")

Notice how the currently playing sound is highlighted in the code and also visualized below.

The longer the sequence, the faster it runs

sound("bd bd hh bd rim bd hh bd")

The content of a sequence will be squished into what’s called a cycle. A cycle is 2s long by default.

One per cycle with < .. >

Here is the same sequence, but this time sourrounded with < .. > (angle brackets):

sound("<bd bd hh bd rim bd hh bd>")

This will play only one sound per cycle. With these brackets, the tempo doesn’t change when we add or remove elements!

Because this is now very slow, we can speed it up again like this:

sound("<bd bd hh bd rim bd hh bd>*8")

Here, the *8 means we make the whole thing 8 times faster.

changing the tempo with cpm

sound("<bd hh rim hh>*8").cpm(90/4)

Add a rests in a sequence with ’-’ or ’~’

sound("bd hh - rim - bd hh rim")

Sub-Sequences with [brackets]

sound("bd [hh hh] sd [hh bd] bd - [hh sd] cp")

Similar to the whole sequence, the content of a sub-sequence will be squished to its own length.

Multiplication: Speed things up

sound("bd hh*2 rim hh*3 bd [- hh*2] rim hh*2")

Multiplication: Speed up subsequences

sound("bd [hh rim]*2 bd [hh rim]*1.5")

Multiplication: Speeeeeeeeed things up

sound("bd hh*32 rim hh*16")

Sub-Sub-Sequences with [[brackets]]

sound("bd [[rim rim] hh] bd cp")

Play sequences in parallel with comma

sound("hh hh hh, bd casio")

You can use as many commas as you want:

sound("hh hh hh, bd bd, - casio")

Commas can also be used inside sub-sequences:

sound("hh hh hh, bd [bd,casio]")

Multiple Lines with backticks

sound(`bd*2, - cp, 
- - - oh, hh*4,
[- casio]*2`)

selecting sample numbers separately

Instead of using ”:”, we can also use the n function to select sample numbers:

n("0 1 [4 2] 3*2").sound("jazz")

This is shorter and more readable than:

sound("jazz:0 jazz:1 [jazz:4 jazz:2] jazz:3*2")

Recap

Now we’ve learned the basics of the so called Mini-Notation, the rhythm language of Tidal. This is what we’ve learned so far:

sound("bd bd sd hh")

sound("hh:0 hh:1 hh:2 hh:3")

sound("metal - jazz jazz:1")

sound("<bd hh rim oh bd rim>")

sound("bd wind [metal jazz] hh")

sound("bd [metal [jazz [sd cp]]]")

sound("bd sd*2 cp*3")

sound("bd*2, hh*2 [hh oh]")

The Mini-Notation is usually used inside some function. These are the functions we’ve seen so far:

sound("bd sd [- bd] sd")

sound("bd sd [- bd] sd").bank("RolandTR909")

sound("bd sd [- bd] sd").cpm(45)

n("0 1 4 2 0 6 3 2").sound("jazz")

Examples

Basic rock beat

sound("[bd sd]*2, hh*8").bank("RolandTR505")
.cpm(100/4)

Classic house

sound("bd*4, [- cp]*2, [- hh]*4").bank("RolandTR909")

We Will Rock you

sound("bd*2 cp").bank("RolandTR707").cpm(81/2)

Yellow Magic Orchestra - Firecracker

sound("bd sd, - - - hh - hh - -, - perc - perc:1*2")
  .bank("RolandCompurhythm1000").cpm(120/2)

Imitation of a 16 step sequencer

sound(`
[-  -  oh - ] [-  -  -  - ] [-  -  -  - ] [-  -  -  - ],
[hh hh -  - ] [hh -  hh - ] [hh -  hh - ] [hh -  hh - ],
[-  -  -  - ] [cp -  -  - ] [-  -  -  - ] [cp -  -  - ],
[bd -  -  - ] [-  -  -  bd] [-  -  bd - ] [-  -  -  bd]
`).cpm(90/4)

Another one

sound(`
[-  -  -  - ] [-  -  -  - ] [-  -  -  - ] [-  -  oh:1 - ],
[hh hh hh hh] [hh hh hh hh] [hh hh hh hh] [hh hh -  - ],
[-  -  -  - ] [cp -  -  - ] [-  -  -  - ] [~  cp -  - ],
[bd bd -  - ] [-  -  bd - ] [bd bd - bd ] [-  -  -  - ]
`).bank("RolandTR808").cpm(88/4)

Not your average drums

s(`jazz*2, 
insect [crow metal] - -, 
- space:4 - space:1,
- wind`)
.cpm(100/2)

Now that we know the basics of how to make beats, let’s look at how we can play notes