Please note that the master branch has been renamed to main.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) points out that "Master-slave is an oppressive metaphor that will and should never become fully detached from history" as well as "In addition to being inappropriate and arcane, the master-slave metaphor is both technically and historically inaccurate." https://www.hanselman.com/blog/EasilyRenameYourGitDefaultBranchFromMasterToMain.aspx
Chuck is a programming language for real-time sound synthesis and music creation. It is open-source and freely available on macOS, Windows, and Linux. Chuck presents a unique time-based, concurrent programming model that's precise and expressive (we call this strongly-timed), with dynamic control rates and the ability to add and modify code on-the-fly. In addition, ChucK supports MIDI, OpenSoundControl, HID device, and multi-channel audio. It's fun and easy to learn, and offers composers, researchers, and performers a powerful programming tool for building and experimenting with complex audio synthesis/analysis programs, and real-time interactive music.
Welcome to ChucK!
To download and install ChucK, visit https://chuck.stanford.edu/release/
For more information, including documentation, examples, research publications, and community resources, please check out the ChucK website: https://chuck.stanford.edu/
To build the latest chuck from source, clone the chuck repo from github, navigate to the chuck/src directory, and run make.
git clone https://github.com/ccrma/chuck.git
cd chuck/src
make mac
To build the latest chuck from source, clone the chuck repo from github, navigate to the chuck/src directory, and run make.
git clone https://github.com/ccrma/chuck.git
cd chuck/src
make linux-alsa linux-pulse linux-jack
To build the latest chuck on Windows using Visual Studio (2019 or later recommended), clone the chuck repo from github, navigate to chuck\src\visual-studio, open chuck.sln, and build.
ChucK was created in the early 2000s at Princeton University by Ge Wang and Perry R. Cook, while Ge was a Ph.D. student advised by Perry in the Computer Science Department. The first version of ChucK was released under a GPL license in 2003. Over the years, many researchers, teachers, and artists have contributed to ChucK's evolution over the years. Spencer Salazar created miniAudicle, a GUI-based integrated development environment for ChucK in 2004 (this IDE, in addition to the command line version of ChucK, remains largely how ChucK is distributed and used today). The Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk), founded by Dan Trueman and Perry Cook in 2005, began using ChucK for teaching as well as instrument and sound design. In 2006, Rebecca Fiebrink and Ge Wang created ChucK's audio analysis framework, expressed through unit analyzers--the analysis counterpart to unit generators. Ge join the faculty at Stanford University's CCRMA in 2007, and ChucK research and development became distributed, with developers at Princeton, Stanford, and elsewhere. The Stanford Laptop Orchestra (SLOrk) was founded in 2008 at CCRMA, where ChucK continued to be a tool for instrument design and teaching. In that same year, the mobile music startup Smule was co-founded, which used ChucK on the iPhone (codenamed "ChiP") as a real-time audio engine for its early apps: Ocarina, Sonic Lighter, Zephyr, and Leaf Trombone: World Stage. Meanwhile, ChucK continued to find its way into computer music curricula, including at Stanford, Princeton, CalArts. In 2015, the book Programming for Musicians and Digital Artists: Creating music with ChucK was published, authored by Ajay Kapur, Perry Cook, Spencer Salazar, and Ge Wang. Around the same time, Kadenze introduced the online course Introduction to Real-Time Audio Programming in ChucK. Romain Michon and Ge Wang integrated FAUST and ChucK to create FaucK. In 2017, Jack Atherton created Chunity, which enables one to program ChucK inside the Unity game development framework. In 2018, Ge write about ChucK in Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime, a photocomic book about the importance of cultural awareness in the shaping of technology. ChucK now runs natively in web browsers (WebChucK) and can be programmed directly in the WebChucK IDE.
ChucK has been extensively documented in published articles and books (see list). For an overview, check out:
“ChucK: A Strongly-Timed Music Programming Language“ comic book excerpt from Artful Design: Techonlogy in Search of the Sublime
Wang, G., P. R., Cook, and S. Salazar. 2015. "ChucK: A Strongly Timed Computer Music Language" Computer Music Journal 39:4. doi:10.1162/COMJ_a_00324
Non-source code documents (papers, logos, soundbites, comics) have been migrated to the chuck-media repository.
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