A tutorial to get you started creating electronic and experimental music on your computer.

We are also starting a weekly event to perform computer electronic music on anonradio. During this event, we came up with the idea of having a common place to share our experience with different tools to create computer music.

Here is an overview of creating electronic music on your computer or other electronic devices.

What type of hardware do you need to make music on your computer? Anything goes, really, but you will have to adapt. On older hardware, you might need to limit the number of software you run at once or use a more DIY approach where you code more as it would take fewer resources. A lot of the tools listed below will work on different platforms. You can go a long way with a laptop and headphones.

There are multiple other devices on which you can make, code or hack music. One of the most famous ones is the GameBoy using software like Little Sound DJ (lsd)

An audio interface or a sound card is not needed early on in your exploration of computer music. On older machines, you might need a PCI card as an audio interface, but most modern computers have an audio circuit on the motherboard.

When outputting your computer sound to an external sound system or when you want to input sound to your computer, an audio interface becomes quite handy. Some software will also struggle if you are not using an audio interface. It also has the advantage of providing more outputs, which becomes essential if you are mixing, for instance.

MIDI controllers come in different forms and shapes. You have keyboards, pads, sliders and knobs, and a mix of these different parts. Midi controllers will offer a more tactile experience controlling your computer. But again, they are not essential to create music on your computer. It's better to start without a controller to see where there is a need and then start experimenting with different types.

In a live performance, you might end up using multiple tools. For example, you might have a 'control' or 'sequencer' or an 'algorithm' which would trigger a sound sample or a synth tool. This would then be fed into an effect and mixer, and finally, you would send that to a tool to broadcast or to record in a DAW (digital audio interface).

Some tools like pureData can do all of this on one platform. Even using only pureData, you would end up similarly separating your workflow.

To connect all these tools, you will often need to rely on a system to help you route your midi from one too to the other and route the sound to the right destination. Patchage is one tool that can be used for this.

MIDI and OSC are the two communication languages which can be used for that connectivity. While MIDI is a more mature system which is used on hardware synth as well as software synth, OSC is a newer system which offers more possibilities and ease of programming.

Here is a short list of tools that you can use to start learning about electronic music creation on your computer. Most of these tools are open source.

Any programming language can be used to create music, but some languages are created for that goal. Here is a short list of some of the main tools to code your music:

• Overtone Collaborative Programmable Music https://overtone.github.io/
• Sonic Pi is a code-based music creation and performance tool. https://sonic-pi.net/
• pureData Visual Programing language for audio (and visuals) https://puredata.info/
• SuperColliderA platform for audio synthesis and algorithmic composition, used by musicians, artists and researchers working with sound. https://supercollider.github.io/
• Processing is a flexible software sketchbook and a language for learning how to code. https://processing.org
• Chuck Strongly-timed, Concurrent, and On-the-fly Music Programming Language https://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/
• Orca - Text-based sequencer https://hundredrabbits.itch.io/orca

• DIN (Din is Noise) - Soft synth with a different approach https://dinisnoise.org/
• vcvRack - Modular synth simulator https://vcvrack.com/

• Organelle - Programable synth in pureDatahttps://www.critterandguitari.com/organelle
• Norns - Lua scripting synth, from the makers of monomes https://monome.org/docs/norns/
• Daisy seed - Arduino based synth on a chip https://www.electro-smith.com/daisy/daisy

• Toplap Temporary Organisation for the Parsimony of Live Art Programming https://toplap.org/
• Fakedac A perpetual event dedicated to audio visuals (AV) live coding, algorave & new algorithmic artforms https://fakedac.net/