rand00 / fry

Functional reactive rhythm library

Fry - a functional reactive rhythm library

This library is in an experimental state.

fry delivers a set of operators for defining rhythms using functional reactive programming (FRP). FRP is really good for expressing time-semantics in a declarative way, so using it to build rhythmic machines is pretty obvious, though I havn't yet seen examples of this. The rhythms can control anything you like - for example SuperCollider via OSC.

fry lets you define rhythms statically, but also enables creation of complex and dynamic rhythmic machinery; which includes making drum-machines or generative rhythms. You add your own inputs and forms of interaction.

A goal of fry is to both cater towards experimental artists - but also let FRP shine via creating operators that exploit the existing declarative FRP semantics in interesting ways. This is based on the belief that systems for construction should influence the output, by being used to create the most elegant things possible with the available interface - which contrasts with a method of product-design, where programming is just 'a means to an end'.

In the examples directory you can see how fry can be used.

Using fry in your own project

Currently fry is not released to opam yet, but you can git clone this repository into a subdir of your own project that also uses dune (or make a fry symlink pointing at the git clone somewhere else) - then dune will find the fry library when you depend on it in your dune file. See examples/beat/dune for an example.

Compiling

Clone repo:

git clone https://github.com/rand00/fry.git
cd fry

Install dependencies for fry and for running the examples:

opam install lwt lwt_react containers gg notty

..note that the fry library by itself only depends on lwt, lwt_react and containers, so it's compatible with e.g. MirageOS.

Compile examples and the library:

dune build

Running examples:

You pass the path of the examples main.ml, with ml replaced by exe, to dune exec:

dune exec examples/ratchet_002/main.exe

.. note that the example is recompiled before execution this way, so you can play around with the examples and see the results with this single command.