Neat, I've been meaning to check out this language! I believe it's been in the works for a long time, but only recently published. The syntax may seem esoteric at first, but it turns out the concatenative approach is uniquely suited to creative audio DSP. It's fairly simple once you get the basic idea.
The author probably hasn't tried them (otherwise they would be in the Readme), but there are actually a couple of existing Forth-like audio languages. Quite the niche. I'm one of the most avid users of one such language called Sporth, for which I made an online live playground at https://audiomasher.org/
The Sporth author created multiple stack-based audio languages and I haven't even kept up with all of it. He has some interesting projects at https://git.sr.ht/~pbatch/
In any case, sapf looks very carefully designed, and the addition of functional elements inspired by APL seems like it complements the stack approach very well. And the examples actually sound good to my ears, which isn't a requirement but generally a good sign. I'm tempted to get cracking on a WASM build right away...
vanderZwan · 2h ago
> the addition of functional elements inspired by APL seems like it complements the stack approach very well.
Between this and Uiua I'm starting to think that the APL and Forth fans (or more generally array language and concatenative language fans) should team up more often. The paradigms seem to complement each other quite nicely.
Based on the WHY section of the readme I get the impression that the author of this language would agree with me.
vanderZwan · 2h ago
> It intends to do for lazy sequences what APL does for arrays: provide
very high level functions with pervasive automatic mapping, scanning, and
reduction operators.
Does anyone else find this extremely cool from a conceptual point of view, even without the music language context? (very tempted to make an "it's music to my ears" dad joke right now)
polotics · 2h ago
I am then quite torn: keep using SuperCollider with all the accumulated UGens and example code, or switch to this elegant language and start over with a lot of basics... Leading to the question: any bridges or ways to integrate and reuse between the two?
semi-extrinsic · 1h ago
I guess you know about them already, but TidalCycles / Strudel / Sardine / Bacalao / Overtone can be interesting to explore in this direction. Not specifically sapf-integration, but various ways of using SC with more elegant langs.
6r17 · 1h ago
I wonder if AI could help you translate those or write a translater ? Idk if the language is complex tough
chaosprint · 3h ago
If you are interested in music language, you might also want to try Glicol:
The syntax is hardware-inspired, wysiwyg-style lazy diff graph updating. you can use it directly through wasm on the web page; there is also a cross-platform cli version:
I am currently working on porting it to no std embedded systems
bjt12345 · 1h ago
How does it have such a warm analog-like sound in the demo?
spacechild1 · 2h ago
For those who don't know: lfnoise is James McCartney, the original author of Supercollider.
ofalkaed · 5h ago
What are the chances of getting this to compile on linux? I have no idea about how to deal with an Xcode project or have enough C++ knowledge to know if this can even be compiled on linux. CoreFoundation.h looks to be OSX? and on my quick glance that looks to be the main hurdle but that is as much as I can say.
Any chance of a flatpak (or some form of Linux Binary) for this? I've been wanting to play around with Music Programming for ages, but none of the options I looked at play well with Ubuntu. SonicPi in particular didn't run no matter what I did, I had to dualboot into Windows to get it working :'(
iainctduncan · 6h ago
Supercollider, faust, chuck, csound, pure data, common music, common lisp music, and nyquist all work on Linux. Most of the open source music programming languages make Linux a high priority!
Towaway69 · 1h ago
I would recommend supercollider because it’s UI components also translate well from Mac to Linux - I created a single app with a nice UI in supercollider and it worked seamlessly on both Linux and Mac.
Admittedly I haven’t used any other sound programming language, so my opinion is heavily biased ;-)
ofalkaed · 5h ago
Perhaps you should try installing kxstudio, it is a collection of packages and all the configuration stuff for tuning Ubuntu or Debian for audio work. I have never used it but many seem to swear by it and I believe it takes care of setting up and configuring any of the common synthesis DSLs like SC, pd and Csound. Perhaps someone else can fill in the massive gaps I left.
ViscountPenguin · 5h ago
I'll have a look, maybe it'll help solve my problems!
I've been able to run SuperCollider on PopOS (an Ubuntu derived distro) with no problems, FWIW. Have you tried SC at all during your explorations?
ViscountPenguin · 5h ago
I couldn't get super collider to work, but I'm getting the impression that something may just be wrong with my install based on the replies I've gotten.
heavyset_go · 6h ago
SuperCollider, Csound, ChucK and Tidal all work on Linux if you want something you can easily install.
ViscountPenguin · 5h ago
Weirdly I've not had luck with Super collider. But I might have just fucked up my audio config at some point. It seems like other people aren't having my issues.
heavyset_go · 5h ago
Give a distro with up-to-date Pipewire/Wireplumber + pipewire-jack packages a spin.
Most rolling release distros will have the latest Pipewire. Ubuntu freezes packages for months to years depending on the release you're using and you really want the latest Pipewire for a good experience.
creata · 4h ago
I can second the sibling comment - it works well for me with pipewire-jack. Might be obvious to you, but the Arch Wiki page on PipeWire is useful.
The author probably hasn't tried them (otherwise they would be in the Readme), but there are actually a couple of existing Forth-like audio languages. Quite the niche. I'm one of the most avid users of one such language called Sporth, for which I made an online live playground at https://audiomasher.org/
The Sporth author created multiple stack-based audio languages and I haven't even kept up with all of it. He has some interesting projects at https://git.sr.ht/~pbatch/
In any case, sapf looks very carefully designed, and the addition of functional elements inspired by APL seems like it complements the stack approach very well. And the examples actually sound good to my ears, which isn't a requirement but generally a good sign. I'm tempted to get cracking on a WASM build right away...
Between this and Uiua I'm starting to think that the APL and Forth fans (or more generally array language and concatenative language fans) should team up more often. The paradigms seem to complement each other quite nicely.
Based on the WHY section of the readme I get the impression that the author of this language would agree with me.
Does anyone else find this extremely cool from a conceptual point of view, even without the music language context? (very tempted to make an "it's music to my ears" dad joke right now)
https://glicol.org/
The syntax is hardware-inspired, wysiwyg-style lazy diff graph updating. you can use it directly through wasm on the web page; there is also a cross-platform cli version:
https://github.com/glicol/glicol-cli
I am currently working on porting it to no std embedded systems
Admittedly I haven’t used any other sound programming language, so my opinion is heavily biased ;-)
Most rolling release distros will have the latest Pipewire. Ubuntu freezes packages for months to years depending on the release you're using and you really want the latest Pipewire for a good experience.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/PipeWire