Sonic Pi

Long-term owners

the level of dignity required to keep putting energy for 10+ years on a software you believe in, makes it an example to me

Aug 2026 · comment

What hackers pick instead

• LoopmasterA free livecoding music IDE people find approachable, with a good UI and inline controls; the most common caveat is limited sequencing.15recommend
• TidalCyclesLets musicians compose and perform live by writing algorithmic patterns, with a strong community and Haskell-based power. Critics say installation is difficult and complex pieces can struggle.9recommend
• CagirePeople recommend Cagire, a free live coding tool written in Forth and JavaScript, as a sequencer that allows arbitrary execution on each step.6recommend
• DogalogFree realtime music livecoding environment that beginners find easy to follow and that works live. One reviewer said the live demo went silent after two hits.5recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 52 comments. Each links to the original.

1. There are vast accessibility improvements for those with low vision and those that use screen readers.

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

2. I remember using Sonic Pi to come up with what I think was an excessive 30 or so different sounds

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

3. Really appreciate the focus on education and a11y with sonic pi - a genuine differentiator

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Dogalog: A realtime Prolog-based livecoding music environment”

4. Sonic Pi's draw was always the live-coding loop with a beginner-friendly editor bundled in

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

5. I've been playing with it the last few weeks, great software and really fun to use.

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

6. Sonic Pi is now more friendly, more accessible, more powerful and more fun.

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

7. Sonic Pi is by far the most accessible way to play with these tools.

   Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Programming languages used for music”

8. I've always been blown away by sonic pi's capacity and it's price

   Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

9. SonicPi is fundamental for teaching kids music and programming

   Recommends · Dec 2025

10. really intuitive and fun to noodle with

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

11. Such a rich sound out of three notes.

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)”

12. it's so much fun to play around with

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

13. why is the Amen Brother breakbeat included in this software as if it's open source and GPL / MIT license?

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

14. the license needs to be GPL since the audio engine is clearly a derivative of SuperCollider/scsynth

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

15. I clicked "your first note" and got a runtime error "Promise timed out after 3 seconds"

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

16. there is a huge lag between pressing a button and the sound

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

17. the Flatpak seems to be missing some of the documentation

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

18. it's really hard to get it run under Linux

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

19. The appimage also produces no sound

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

20. the Flatpack produces no sound

    Criticizes · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

21. restrictively licensed files

    Criticizes · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

22. the level of dignity required to keep putting energy for 10+ years on a software you believe in, makes it an example to me

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

23. I have lots of fond memories and don't remember there being many strongly popular alternatives some years ago

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Dogalog: A realtime Prolog-based livecoding music environment”

24. Sonic Pi looks nice. But as with Elixir, which I for most parts love, I really hate the `do end` syntax

    Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

25. I'm not sure there's a good sonic-pi-mode for things like indentation and autocomplete yet.

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

26. v5 helps again as you can now save and load all the buffers to and from a single save-file

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

27. I love the new Link Audio which lets you stream and receive audio on the local network

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

28. Love Sonic Pi. I can't make music but watching someone who can is fantastic.

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

29. The rest of the tutorial that I read below that doesn't disappoint

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

30. a mature, extensively documented system with a large community

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Show HN: ÆTHRA – Writing Music as Code”

31. the name makes me think it's a raspberry pi related thing

    Mixed · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

32. it's really hard for me to transport this concept to code

    Mixed · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”

33. I never feel like Sonic-PI puts me into a creative mode.

    Mixed · Dec 2025 · in “How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)”

34. Shoutout to Sonic Pi for still being the best at this.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “loopmaster – Livecoding Music IDE”

35. Music creation tool that uses ruby for instruction

    Recommends · Dec 2025 · in “Response to "Ruby Is Not a Serious Programming Language"”

36. Sonic Pi helps you connect together with music

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

37. This is one of my favorite software projects.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

38. but this is nice, I have been using daws

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

39. Congratulations on your release, Sam!

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Sonic Pi v5 Released”

40. This is a great performance

    Recommends · Sep 2026 · in “Sonic Pi”