Algorave / Livecoding

As Staxl I'm engaging myself with live coding languages and software tools for generating audio and video. My entry points for this are usually SuperCollider and TidalCycles.

I haven't done a hell lot of livecoding performances myself yet, but here's some snippets:

LOL2

LOL2 stands for League of Livecoding Leipzig and is a network of people interested in creative coding. Sol Sarratea, Fyodor Stepanov, Thomas Grund and I started LOL2 in the Summer 2023 in order to create a space for people to explore livecoding languages, algorithmic composition etc. You can think of it as an unofficial node of TOPLAP (Temporal Organisation for the Pragmatics of Live Artistic Programming) – an interntional network of coders, artists, organizers and all kinds of people that are into creative and artistic approaches to programing, hacking and coding (cf. the TOPLAP Wiki).

If you want to get involved with LOL2, you can simply join our Discord Server, where most of the communication takes place. You can send me an email, too, though (– we've got a newsletter list) or meet us at the weekly Gleeetch Space.

Practice

My musical practice is a lot about livecoding and music production with open-source software tools and a little bit of open-source hardware (#OSHW) as well. However, at the moment I'm using some proprietary tools as well: Since there's quite a bit of logic and conditional stuff you can do in Ableton and with Max4Live tools, I'm also exploring these things for algorithmic live stuff and usually use livecoding languages and DAWs together. I'm also utilizing a monome norns in live situations or for sparking some ideas sometimes. My approach is rather experimental and basically inspired by the tools themselves that I use and by the ideas that float around in the Algorave community – well, and also by sound art, breakcore and jungle music quite a bit.

One of the great things about engaging yourself with open-source tools and being part of the livecoding community is that you will quickly be introduced to a vast community of people that work on and with an ensemble of exciting applications and to people that are happy to share their knowledge as well as to expand the possibilities of the tools.

Some tools I really dig are ORCΛ, ppooll, Surge and Vital.

I use these tools in order to record and arrange musical ideas with, and to algorithmically generate MIDI notes and sequences, create and design sounds and present musical ideas on stage (or in a stream). Since I'm relying a lot on open-source tools and the communities around it, I don't try to get commercial with this by the way.

If you're wondering about the sounds I use in my music and my sound design approaches, I recommend these artists' tutorials and track breakdowns, which I found really inspiring: Alison McCullem asd / FITNESSS dnksaus woulg

Oh, and hit me up, if you like to collaborate!