How to programmatically synthesize music?

Question

My question is: I want to write a program that can synthesize repetitive beats (which I can control via the command line) to pipe music into my ears. I'm curious if there are existing tools to do this (and if not, what libraries to use).

Answer 1

Hi, there are several libraries and enviorments related to what you're talking about. A tool you can check out is Sonic Pi. It's used for live coding music and can be used to great effect; however, it has it's own interface. If you want to be strict about the CLI, you could try writing a wrapper around it or something similar. If you're newer to audio synthesis and audio programing, I recommend checking out Pure Data. It's a visual programing language, but it can really help in learning the subject.