The free, powerful tool SuperCollider is adding support for Ableton Link for getting jam sessions, gear, and software on the same groove, alongside other fixes.
SuperCollider, if you don’t know it already, is a massive tool for making your own synths, effects, and musical tools. It’s all created using an elegant language, tons of customization options, and a massive library of building blocks for just about the entire history of sound generation and processing and musical patterns. It takes some time to learn and master, but with a huge community and tons of examples, it can teach you the basics of synthesis and effects in the process.
3.11 is currently in beta. Ableton Link support is the headline here, but 3.11 is full of fixes and additions. A lot of that is thanks to contributions from the community – showing a really active, thriving open source project.
So if you’ve been waiting to play around with SuperCollider for the first time, or revisit it, you may have picked a good time. (Just think about 3.10.3 if you’re not a beta tester sort of person; it’s been really stable for me.)
Ableton Link support means you can easily sync up time with other software (across mobile and desktop) and a handful of hardware, too. And I expect this will make waves in the live coding world, too – because even apart from people using SuperCollider directly in live coding performances, it’s also the basis of popular environments like Tidal Cycles. (See my write-up of version 1.0.)
Check out the beta notes if you’re ready to give this a try – and yeah, it’s another great choice while we’re isolated right now:
https://github.com/supercollider/supercollider/releases/tag/3.11-beta1
LinkClock is the class; I need to check it out myself. Stand by.
Your source for all SuperCollider stuff – and it’s full of great tutorials, too:
https://supercollider.github.io/
Completely free, Mac, Windows, Linux, Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, whatever.