{"slug": "sonic-pi", "name": "Sonic Pi", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 3, "warners": 0, "score": 2.85, "rising": 2.67, "first": "2025-12-02", "latest": "2026-08-11", "why": "", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 3, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://sonic-pi.net", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Sonic Pi"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 788148512, "item_id": 49259282, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259282", "by": "xrd", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is a fantastic tool!", "excerpt": "I think I was not using sonipic buffers correctly (I guess they are called \"tabs\" in the UI). I've been using them without saving the files. I have struggled to think of it as an \"editor\" only because of things I'm used to with emacs: git+magit, elisp, customizable hotkeys, etc. My problems are not unique to Sonic Pi: as I use AI more for experimentation, I'm struggling with how I pipe AI output to an editor, whether", "context": "Emacs user, \"dinosaur\"", "use_case": "music experiments", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 788071216, "item_id": 49254451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49254451", "by": "aimxhaisse", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use to donate to this project when I can.", "excerpt": "Disclaimer: I use to donate to this project when I can. This project has been around for 10+ years and the author dedicated a big part of his life for it, and could not have done so without Patreon support, and to my understanding went through rough times while could easily have gone through a more classic career and make money. I don't see a lot of projects around that are as interesting as it (I recommend watching ", "context": "donor", "use_case": "live-coding music", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 787966288, "item_id": 49247893, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49247893", "by": "xrd", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Sonic Pi.", "excerpt": "I love Sonic Pi. I am a terrible musician but I really enjoy finding chords for a song and then putting them into a sonic pi buffer and messing around. U2 started as a cover band, right, so maybe this is a path to becoming musical someday. The one thing that confuses me about Sonic Pi is the buffers/editor. I always wish I could replace the UI with my own embedded editor (emacs in my case). I would then be able to ma", "context": "self-described terrible musician", "use_case": "live-coding music from chords", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 787951761, "item_id": 49246985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49246985", "by": "minraws", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "but this is nice too.", "excerpt": "I blame Mario for ruining me until a year ago Pi was RPi or 3.142... but yeah this is nice, I have been using daws and have written my own small piano roll app because bosca ceoil vanished a couple years ago, but this is nice too. I think that app(bosca ceoil) is now back around among us, though I don't recall what had happened back in the day.", "context": "", "use_case": "music making", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 737949106, "item_id": 46121819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46121819", "by": "xrd", "date": "2025-12-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sonic-PI is incredible.", "excerpt": "Reading this article makes me want to point out the difference between commercial music software and open source software. What stands out here was that Eno used very simple sounds and looped them. This was not a complicated rube-goldberg machine he built to finally get to these masterpieces. It was simple recordings of voices, looped. Reggie Watts makes incredible, and non-traditional, electronic house music, basica", "context": "command line guy, Linux user", "use_case": "live-coded music", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "xrd", "context": "Emacs user, \"dinosaur\"", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259282", "date": "2026-08-11"}, {"by": "aimxhaisse", "context": "donor", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49254451", "date": "2026-08-11"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["music experiments", "live-coding music", "live-coding music from chords", "music making", "live-coded music"], "compared": [{"slug": "emacs", "name": "Emacs", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [{"id": 787959824, "item_id": 49247489, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49247489", "by": "samaaron", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love the new Link Audio which lets you stream and receive audio on the local network", "excerpt": "I love the new Link Audio which lets you stream and receive audio on the local network with any other Link Audio capable software such as Ableton Live. I also like the new QuickStart Cards as a way to get started that doesn\u2019t require reading the built-in tutorial.", "context": "", "use_case": "live-coding music", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49208296", "title": "Sonic Pi v5 Released", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118722", "title": "How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 3}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 788148512, "item_id": 49259282, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49259282", "by": "xrd", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It is a fantastic tool!", "excerpt": "I think I was not using sonipic buffers correctly (I guess they are called \"tabs\" in the UI). I've been using them without saving the files. I have struggled to think of it as an \"editor\" only because of things I'm used to with emacs: git+magit, elisp, customizable hotkeys, etc. My problems are not unique to Sonic Pi: as I use AI more for experimentation, I'm struggling with how I pipe AI output to an editor, whether", "context": "Emacs user, \"dinosaur\"", "use_case": "music experiments", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 788071216, "item_id": 49254451, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49254451", "by": "aimxhaisse", "date": "2026-08-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use to donate to this project when I can.", "excerpt": "Disclaimer: I use to donate to this project when I can. This project has been around for 10+ years and the author dedicated a big part of his life for it, and could not have done so without Patreon support, and to my understanding went through rough times while could easily have gone through a more classic career and make money. I don't see a lot of projects around that are as interesting as it (I recommend watching ", "context": "donor", "use_case": "live-coding music", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 787966288, "item_id": 49247893, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49247893", "by": "xrd", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Sonic Pi.", "excerpt": "I love Sonic Pi. I am a terrible musician but I really enjoy finding chords for a song and then putting them into a sonic pi buffer and messing around. U2 started as a cover band, right, so maybe this is a path to becoming musical someday. The one thing that confuses me about Sonic Pi is the buffers/editor. I always wish I could replace the UI with my own embedded editor (emacs in my case). I would then be able to ma", "context": "self-described terrible musician", "use_case": "live-coding music from chords", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 787951761, "item_id": 49246985, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49246985", "by": "minraws", "date": "2026-08-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "but this is nice too.", "excerpt": "I blame Mario for ruining me until a year ago Pi was RPi or 3.142... but yeah this is nice, I have been using daws and have written my own small piano roll app because bosca ceoil vanished a couple years ago, but this is nice too. I think that app(bosca ceoil) is now back around among us, though I don't recall what had happened back in the day.", "context": "", "use_case": "music making", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 737949106, "item_id": 46121819, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46121819", "by": "xrd", "date": "2025-12-02", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Sonic-PI is incredible.", "excerpt": "Reading this article makes me want to point out the difference between commercial music software and open source software. What stands out here was that Eno used very simple sounds and looped them. This was not a complicated rube-goldberg machine he built to finally get to these masterpieces. It was simple recordings of voices, looped. Reggie Watts makes incredible, and non-traditional, electronic house music, basica", "context": "command line guy, Linux user", "use_case": "live-coded music", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)"}]}