Muzak

Muzak is a dumb little toy scripting language for making sounds.

Usage

git clone https://github.com/ledbettj/muzak.git
cd muzak
bundle install

You can then run Muzak either interactively, or by providing files to play:

bundle exec ./bin/muzak             # start an interactive session
bundle exec ./bin/muzak ./my.muzak  # play file and exit
bundle exec ./bin/muzak <./my.muzak # same as above

Besides file names, you can also specify the following arguments:

--bpm=<bpm>    # Set the number of beats per minute.  This affects the
               # duration of Whole notes, quarter notes, etc.
               # Default is 240 BPM.
--octave=<o>   # Set the default octave, from 0-12.  Default is 4.

Syntax

Notes

The simplest element is a Note, which is A-G and sharp (F#) or flat (Db) variants.

A

A note can also have an octave adjustment. For example, the A above would be 440Hz by default. We can play an A an octave lower (220Hz) like so:

A^-1

Or an octave higher:

A^1

Since we didn't specify, these notes are Whole notes: at 240 BPM, they would last 1 second. We can specify a quarter note like so:

A,4

or an 8th note:

A,8

You can provide any timing here, for example 1/14th of a whole note:

A,14

And of course, you can combine with the octave adjustment:

A^-1,16

There's a special note _ which indicates silence, for example resting for a quarter note:

_,4

Sequences of notes and repetition.

In order to play more than one thing, you must seperate them with either a ; or a new line. For example, "Hot Cross Buns":

B ; A; G; _
B ; A; G; _
G,4 ; G,4 ; G,4 ; G,4
A,4 ; A,4 ; A,4 ; A,4
B ; A; G; _

Obviously, this is super verbose and repetitive. We can repeat notes by specifying a repeater:

B ; A; G; _
B ; A; G; _
G,4 x4
A,4 x4
B ; A; G; _

But that only gets us part of the way there. You can group notes with square brackets, and then repeat them:

[B A G _] x2
G,4 x4
A,4 x4
[B A G _]

But we've still repeated B A G _ twice. We can use a variable to save it and use it again.

let assigns a note or sequence of notes to a variable. You can play that variable by using parenthesis around it's name.

let phrase = [B A G _]
(phrase) x2
G,4 x4
A,4 x4
(phrase)

You can also change the octave when referencing them:

let phrase = [B A G _]
(phrase)^1

If the variable is a single sound, you can also change it's timing:

let Am = <A C E>;
(Am),4

You can't change the timing of a list of notes or sounds. That doesn't make any sense.

Chords

Up until now, we've only been playing one note at a time. We can also play multiple notes at once with chords, which are specified with angular brackets. For example, to play an A minor, followed by a C, followed by a D:

<A C E> ; <C E G> ; <D F# A>;

We can adjust the timing or octave of a chord, just like a note:

<A C E>^-1,4

Or adjust the octave of the individual notes inside a chord:

<A^1 C E>

Or both:

<A^1 C E>^-1,4

We can also use chords inside lists or as variables:

let Am = <A C E>
let chorus = [(Am) E D E <C E G>]
(chorus)

For your convenience, muzak predefines the following chord variables:

let C   = <C E G>
let Cm  = <C Eb G>
let D   = <D F# A>
let Dm  = <D F A>
let E   = <E G# B>
let Em  = <E G B>
let F   = <F A C>
let Fm  = <F Ab C>
let G   = <G B D>
let Gm  = <G Bb D>
let A   = <A C# E>
let Am  = <A C E>
let A7  = <A C# E G>

Audio Filters

What if you could make this thing sound less crappy? That would be cool, right? Well you can't. But you can do basic audio filters.

Filters have a block form that looks like this:

|compress { C; A; D;}

or to pass arguments:

|compress(threshold=0.5, scale=0.25) { C; A; D;}

Right now the only filters available are:

• null - does nothing.
• clip - clips values above threshold or below -threshold.
• compress - like clip, but instead of setting automatically to +/- threshold, it instead scales the amount above the threshold by scale. For example, given a threshold of 3, a scale of 1/4, and a value of 7, we would compute the new value to be (7 - 3) * 1/4 + 3 = 4.
• distort - multiplies the values by scale and then clips them to 1.0.

Other commands

Besides playing notes or chords or assigning variables, there are a few other commands.

• Raise current octave by one: ^^
• Lower current octave by one: vv
• Set the current octave to 4: @4
• Set the BPM to 120: %120