{"slug": "supercollider", "name": "SuperCollider", "category": "media", "category_name": "Media and creative", "description": "", "recommenders": 6, "commenters": 13, "warners": 0, "score": 6.44, "rising": -0.96, "first": "2025-12-02", "latest": "2026-10-23", "why": "check out SuperCollider[2]. You can use that to create your own ambient sounds.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 9, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 3, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "check out SuperCollider[2]. You can use that to create your own ambient sounds.", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/cannc4/dx7-supercollider", "official_url": "https://supercollider.github.io", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["SuperCollider"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 788133521, "item_id": 49258345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258345", "by": "spacechild1", "date": "2026-08-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you respect the SuperCollider project, you should also respect its license.", "excerpt": "> In postMessage mode the client and the engine run in separate execution contexts with no shared memory, exchanging serialised OSC - the browser enforces that boundary the same way the kernel does between processes on a socket. You won't convince anyone that a WASM module running in an AudioWorklet should be considered a separate application. If you respect the SuperCollider project, you should also respect its lice", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 774360354, "item_id": 48397522, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397522", "by": "windowliker", "date": "2026-06-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there's always SuperCollider[2] and its many derivatives", "excerpt": "The visual patching part of Max makes sense when you know the history of the program. It was built for musicians working at the forefront of interfacing MIDI with the power of the more compact mainframe computers of the day (PDP-11 IIRC). The 'programming' was done through a GUI running on the first Macintosh. At first there was no audio processing in Max itself, it was purely for generating and manipulating MIDI dat", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ableton Extensions SDK"}, {"id": 769451729, "item_id": 48090733, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48090733", "by": "osetinsky", "date": "2026-05-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a SuperCollider-based system that runs in the browser", "excerpt": "I\u2019m working on Underscore: a web SDK and browser sandbox for making procedural music systems with LLMs. The basic idea is \"music with source code.\" Instead of prompting for finished audio files, you use an LLM to help write and revise a SuperCollider-based system that runs in the browser via WebAssembly [1]. The result is executable music: inspectable, editable, versionable, and controllable at runtime. I\u2019m especiall", "context": "", "use_case": "Audio synthesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)"}, {"id": 744969792, "item_id": 46560612, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46560612", "by": "spacechild1", "date": "2026-01-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Fortunately, SuperCollider still has a quite active forum", "excerpt": "The fact that we can still access and search these archives 20-30 years later is really amazing. It gives you a glimpse into a different time period. That's why mailing lists and forums are so important! Fortunately, SuperCollider still has a quite active forum (https://scsynth.org/). It makes me sad that so much communication has moved to proprietory platforms like FB groups or Discord servers, most of which will be", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Richard D. James interviews ex Korg engineer Tatsuya Takahashi (2017)"}, {"id": 738347312, "item_id": 46146707, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146707", "by": "OisinMoran", "date": "2025-12-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The whole album was sequenced and synthesized entirely in SuperCollider with no samples, external hardware, or third-party plugins.", "excerpt": "For a great example of some (non-live) coded music, I would recommend The Haywire Frontier by Nathan Ho [0]. The whole album was sequenced and synthesized entirely in SuperCollider with no samples, external hardware, or third-party plugins. It's really interesting and a crazy achievement, definitely worth a listen. For live coding, Switch Angel is definitely someone I would actually go to see live, check out this vid", "context": "", "use_case": "coded music synthesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Synthesize a House Loop"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "Towaway69", "context": "programmer", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46119846", "date": "2025-12-02"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["audio synthesis", "live coding sound", "synth code for music", "coded music synthesis", "live coding music", "ambient sound creation"], "compared": [{"slug": "strudel", "name": "Strudel", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "pure-data", "name": "Pure Data", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46546614", "title": "Richard D. James interviews ex Korg engineer Tatsuya Takahashi (2017)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46072280", "title": "How to Synthesize a House Loop", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46118722", "title": "How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205569", "title": "LiveCoding in CommonLisp [video]", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49482099", "title": "Sonic Pi", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49208296", "title": "Sonic Pi v5 Released", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 1}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-05": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-09": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-10": {"neutral": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 803289120, "item_id": 50205570, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50205570", "by": "so-cal-schemer", "date": "2026-10-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used SuperCollider and Logic(piano) for sound", "excerpt": "I used SuperCollider and Logic(piano) for sound, Cocoa, OpenGL for graphics. Sungmin Park https://www.youtube.com/@SungminPark", "context": "", "use_case": "live coding sound", "switched_from": "", "story": "LiveCoding in CommonLisp [video]"}, {"id": 792534130, "item_id": 49533383, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49533383", "by": "donaldihunter", "date": "2026-09-02", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "There are alternative frameworks that also drive supercollider", "excerpt": "There are alternative frameworks that also drive supercollider: https://tidalcycles.org is built in Haskell https://strudel.cc is a Javascript REPL", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi"}, {"id": 788133521, "item_id": 49258345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49258345", "by": "spacechild1", "date": "2026-08-11", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you respect the SuperCollider project, you should also respect its license.", "excerpt": "> In postMessage mode the client and the engine run in separate execution contexts with no shared memory, exchanging serialised OSC - the browser enforces that boundary the same way the kernel does between processes on a socket. You won't convince anyone that a WASM module running in an AudioWorklet should be considered a separate application. If you respect the SuperCollider project, you should also respect its lice", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Sonic Pi v5 Released"}, {"id": 776687330, "item_id": 48542958, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48542958", "by": "osetinsky", "date": "2026-06-15", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "write actual source code (supercollider synths)", "excerpt": "1. Underscore - https://underscore.audio i've spent the last couple years experimenting with LLMs that write procedural, ambient music: instead of generating an audio file, we're using systems that write actual source code (supercollider synths) so the music runs live and can be embedded in and controlled in real time by software like games. a surprising amount of the work is taste -- prompt engineering and curating ", "context": "", "use_case": "synth code for music", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)"}, {"id": 774360354, "item_id": 48397522, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397522", "by": "windowliker", "date": "2026-06-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "there's always SuperCollider[2] and its many derivatives", "excerpt": "The visual patching part of Max makes sense when you know the history of the program. It was built for musicians working at the forefront of interfacing MIDI with the power of the more compact mainframe computers of the day (PDP-11 IIRC). The 'programming' was done through a GUI running on the first Macintosh. At first there was no audio processing in Max itself, it was purely for generating and manipulating MIDI dat", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ableton Extensions SDK"}, {"id": 769451729, "item_id": 48090733, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48090733", "by": "osetinsky", "date": "2026-05-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "a SuperCollider-based system that runs in the browser", "excerpt": "I\u2019m working on Underscore: a web SDK and browser sandbox for making procedural music systems with LLMs. The basic idea is \"music with source code.\" Instead of prompting for finished audio files, you use an LLM to help write and revise a SuperCollider-based system that runs in the browser via WebAssembly [1]. The result is executable music: inspectable, editable, versionable, and controllable at runtime. I\u2019m especiall", "context": "", "use_case": "Audio synthesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (May 2026)"}, {"id": 768139744, "item_id": 48008734, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48008734", "by": "1313ed01", "date": "2026-05-04", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I have not used SuperCollider in a long time", "excerpt": "I have not used SuperCollider in a long time, but there used to be a nice Clojure front-end (with some Emacs integration) and it looks like that still exists even if most recent commit was 8 months ago: https://github.com/overtone/overtone", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Supercollider"}, {"id": 763929440, "item_id": 47745590, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47745590", "by": "skor", "date": "2026-04-12", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "supercollider is tightly integrated but not required", "excerpt": "A programming language to hack music with https://github.com/audion-lang/audion The idea came after I finished a permanent piece for a museum using MaxMsp and python. I always had this thought in the back of my mind that \"I could express this so much easier in a few lines of code..\" Check the docs folder for the full language spec. I really liked how objects came out, I don't think it needs any more since I can do ob", "context": "", "use_case": "audio synthesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"}, {"id": 763217521, "item_id": 47701095, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47701095", "by": "skor", "date": "2026-04-09", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "supercollider is tightly integrated but not required", "excerpt": "A programming language to hack music, and anything else really https://github.com/audion-lang/audion The idea came after I finished a permanent piece for a museum using MaxMsp and python. I always had this thought in the back of my mind that \"I could express this so much easier in a few lines of code..\" here's the language spec: https://github.com/audion-lang/audion/blob/main/docs/LANGUAGE.md I really liked how objec", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What are you building that's not AI related?"}, {"id": 754942641, "item_id": 47183915, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47183915", "by": "bandrami", "date": "2026-02-27", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Supercollider", "excerpt": "Let me amend that: one of my vendors has a new diffusion-based noise-reduction plugin that's pretty good though the resource usage is still too high. I imagine that will come down as they improve it. And that's pretty cool. But it didn't come out any faster it's just that it uses diffusion in the plugin itself. But docker was a much bigger impact on the software we use at work than AI has been so far. I was even tryi", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Time Is Different"}, {"id": 752571504, "item_id": 47035719, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47035719", "by": "vouhardy", "date": "2026-02-16", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "helped a friend a little on this one", "excerpt": "very nice, helped a friend a little on this one a few years back, if it sparks any https://github.com/cannc4/DX7-Supercollider", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "VX7 \u2013 Open-source Yamaha DX7 emulator written in Python"}, {"id": 744969792, "item_id": 46560612, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46560612", "by": "spacechild1", "date": "2026-01-09", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Fortunately, SuperCollider still has a quite active forum", "excerpt": "The fact that we can still access and search these archives 20-30 years later is really amazing. It gives you a glimpse into a different time period. That's why mailing lists and forums are so important! Fortunately, SuperCollider still has a quite active forum (https://scsynth.org/). It makes me sad that so much communication has moved to proprietory platforms like FB groups or Discord servers, most of which will be", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Richard D. James interviews ex Korg engineer Tatsuya Takahashi (2017)"}, {"id": 744876992, "item_id": 46554812, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46554812", "by": "spacechild1", "date": "2026-01-09", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "I should clarify that it hasn't been 100% confirmed that \"eric_hard_jams\" was really him, but many people on the list thought so, including James McCartney himself: Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2001 22:20:06 -0600 From: James McCartney <---@---.---> Subject: Re: [ OT ]very low signal to noise ratio . on 1/17/01 9:18 PM, eric_hard_jams at eric_hard_jams@btinternet.com wrote: > >> ok boss. i'm really sorry. back to normal now. mu", "context": "", "use_case": "audio synthesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "Richard D. James interviews ex Korg engineer Tatsuya Takahashi (2017)"}, {"id": 738347312, "item_id": 46146707, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46146707", "by": "OisinMoran", "date": "2025-12-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The whole album was sequenced and synthesized entirely in SuperCollider with no samples, external hardware, or third-party plugins.", "excerpt": "For a great example of some (non-live) coded music, I would recommend The Haywire Frontier by Nathan Ho [0]. The whole album was sequenced and synthesized entirely in SuperCollider with no samples, external hardware, or third-party plugins. It's really interesting and a crazy achievement, definitely worth a listen. For live coding, Switch Angel is definitely someone I would actually go to see live, check out this vid", "context": "", "use_case": "coded music synthesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Synthesize a House Loop"}, {"id": 738276960, "item_id": 46142310, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46142310", "by": "quaverquaver", "date": "2025-12-03", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "here's a whole opera from a Star Trek episode I coded in Supercollider", "excerpt": "here's a whole opera from a Star Trek episode I coded in Supercollider - can indeed code things other than EDM... (its a screen grab - being synthesized in real time) https://vimeo.com/944533415?fl=ip&fe=ec", "context": "", "use_case": "live coding music", "switched_from": "", "story": "How to Synthesize a House Loop"}, {"id": 737922400, "item_id": 46120150, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46120150", "by": "ElectroSlayer", "date": "2025-12-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "There's also Strudel as a programmatic music composing app: https://strudel.cc/", "context": "", "use_case": "ambient sound creation", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)"}, {"id": 737917536, "item_id": 46119846, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46119846", "by": "Towaway69", "date": "2025-12-02", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "check out SuperCollider[2]. You can use that to create your own ambient sounds.", "excerpt": "A good place for experimental music is ubu web, in fact Brian Eno is also over there[1]. Edit: Also if you're a programmer and what to learn a new programming language, then check out SuperCollider[2]. You can use that to create your own ambient sounds. SC has a great library for creating user interfaces along with creating sound. [1]: https://ubu.com/film/eno_77_interview.html [2]: https://supercollider.github.io/", "context": "programmer", "use_case": "creating ambient sounds", "switched_from": "", "story": "How Brian Eno Created Ambient 1: Music for Airports (2019)"}]}