Simple enough for computing and music lessons.
Powerful enough for professional musicians.
Free to download with a friendly tutorial.
Diverse community of over 1.8 million live coders.
Learn to code creatively by composing or performing music in an incredible range of styles from Classical & Jazz to Grime & EDM.
Sonic Pi is a new kind of musical instrument.
Watch how you can use it for live performances from ambient sets to dance music in nightclubs...
Join the friendly Sonic Pi community and share your ideas and thoughts with other educators, musicians and live coders...
Sonic Pi was specifically designed for and built in collaboration with teachers for use in the classroom.
Sonic Pi is a new kind of musical instrument which enables exciting new learning pathways in the classroom.
Music programming workshop by Mehackit
Sonic Pi was designed, implemented and developed with extensive classroom trials in close collaboration with teachers.
Introduction for Teachers
Sonic Pi comes with a scheme of work targetted for KS3 Computing developed in harmony with the new UK curriculum.
Scheme of Work for Computing LessonsSam Aaron, creator of Sonic Pi, has written this book to
complement the built-in tutorial.
Master live loops, code drum breaks, compose your own melodies make random riffs and loops, learn to shape and sculpt sounds and much, much more...
See how easy it is to get started coding your first sounds...
loop do
sample :perc_bell, rate: (rrand 0.125, 1.5)
sleep rrand(0, 2)
end
with_fx :reverb, mix: 0.2 do
loop do
play scale(:Eb2, :major_pentatonic, num_octaves: 3).choose, release: 0.1, amp: rand
sleep 0.1
end
end
loop do
with_synth :dsaw do
with_fx(:slicer, phase: [0.25,0.125].choose) do
with_fx(:reverb, room: 0.5, mix: 0.3) do
start_note = chord([:b1, :b2, :e1, :e2, :b3, :e3].choose, :minor).choose
final_note = chord([:b1, :b2, :e1, :e2, :b3, :e3].choose, :minor).choose
p = play start_note, release: 8, note_slide: 4, cutoff: 30, cutoff_slide: 4, detune: rrand(0, 0.2), pan: rrand(-1, 0), pan_slide: rrand(4, 8)
control p, note: final_note, cutoff: rrand(80, 120), pan: rrand(0, 1)
end
end
end
sleep 8
end
with_fx :reverb do
in_thread do
loop do
r = [0.5, 1.0/3, 3.0/5].choose
8.times do
sample :ambi_choir, rate: r, pan: rrand(-1, 1)
sleep 0.5
end
end
end
end
with_fx :wobble, phase: 2 do |w|
with_fx :echo, mix: 0.6 do
loop do
sample :drum_heavy_kick
sample :bass_hit_c, rate: 0.8, amp: 0.4
sleep 1
end
end
end
with_fx :reverb, mix: 0.5 do
loop do
s = synth [:bnoise, :cnoise, :gnoise].choose, amp: rrand(0.5, 1.5), attack: rrand(0, 4), sustain: rrand(0, 2), release: rrand(1, 3), cutoff_slide: rrand(0, 3), cutoff: rrand(60, 80), pan: rrand(-1, 1), pan_slide: 1, amp: rrand(0.5, 1)
control s, pan: rrand(-1, 1), cutoff: rrand(60, 115)
sleep rrand(2, 3)
end
end
define :play_bb do |n|
sample :drum_heavy_kick
sample :ambi_drone, rate: [0.25, 0.5, 0.125, 1].choose, amp: 0.25 if rand < 0.125
sample :ambi_lunar_land, rate: [0.5, 0.125, 1, -1, -0.5].choose, amp: 0.25 if rand < 0.125
sample :loop_amen, attack: 0, release: 0.05, start: 1 - (1.0 / n), rate: [1,1,1,1,1,1,-1].choose
sleep sample_duration(:loop_amen) / n
end
loop {play_bb([1,2,4,8,16].choose)}
in_thread do
use_synth :fm
sleep 2
loop do
28.times do
sample :drum_bass_hard, amp: 0.8
sleep 0.25
play :e2, release: 0.2
sample :elec_cymbal, rate: 12, amp: 0.6
sleep 0.25
end
sleep 4
end
end
use_synth :tb303
with_fx :reverb do |rev|
loop do
control rev, mix: rrand(0, 0.3)
with_fx :slicer, phase: 0.125 do
sample :ambi_lunar_land, sustain: 0, release: 8, amp: 2
end
control rev, mix: rrand(0, 0.6)
r = rrand(0.05, 0.3)
64.times do
play chord(:e3, :minor).choose, release: r, cutoff: rrand(50, 90), amp: 0.5
sleep 0.125
end
control rev, mix: rrand(0, 0.6)
r = rrand(0.1, 0.2)
with_synth :prophet do
32.times do
sleep 0.125
play chord(:a3, :m7).choose, release: r, cutoff: rrand(40, 130), amp: 0.7
end
end
control rev, mix: rrand(0, 0.6)
r = rrand(0.05, 0.3)
32.times do
play chord(:e3, :minor).choose, release: r, cutoff: rrand(110, 130), amp: 0.4
sleep 0.125
end
control rev, mix: rrand(0, 0.6)
with_fx :echo, phase: 0.25, decay: 8 do
16.times do
play chord([:e2, :e3, :e4].choose, :m7).choose, release: 0.05, cutoff: rrand(50, 129), amp: 0.5
sleep 0.125
end
end
end
end
Here's a taster of some of the exciting things happening in the Sonic Pi world...
Sonic Pi is represented by Sam Aaron on The Music Commission panel, a new enquiry launched by ABRSM exploring how to better sustain & support progress & progression in learning music.
The wonderful Naked Scientists covered Sonic Pi in an interview which was broadcast live on BBC radio and is available to listen and read here.
The Big Bang Fair is the UK's largest celebration of STEM for young people. In 2018 the Sonic Pi Band performed a series of shows demonstrating how to live code your own band.
The incredible Mehackit Sonic Pi creative coding resource has been certified by the Finnish Education Standard Kakoa for its educational quality.
Sonic Pi was an Education Partner for Convo, an ambitious new work at the Royal Albert Hall featuring 1,000 young instrumentalists & singers combining traditional instruments & code.
Watch the performance here
In 2017, African and Finnish tech and education innovators collaborated to use Sonic Pi to deliver creative coding workshops engaging almost 2000 children in 10 African countries.
Google have announced Sonic Pi as one of a number of projects they either use or think are important.
Sonic Pi was listed as a finalist for the Music Teacher Best Music Education Product Award alongside music instrument manufacturers Boss & Korg.
Sam Aaron performed with Sonic Pi at Moogfest 2016. Rolling Stone featured his performance in their review of the festival and said it "transcended the present".
These are the winning students that won an exciting once-in-a-lifetime competition to get their Sonic Pi music played onboard the International Space Station by UK astronaut Tim Peake.
Radio 1 DJ MistaJam and Live Coder Sam Aaron compose a piece of music using Sonic Pi, inspired by Bizet's 'Carmen'
Sébastien Rannou has published a tutorial on how he live coded his fabulous cover of Aerodynamic by Daft Punk.
Sonic Pi was featured on the UK national children's news programme CBBC Newsround - with presenter Jenny Lawrence discovering Live Coding for the first time.
The Sonic Pi: Live & Coding project has launched a series of 10 "Pop Pi" music videos created by artists using Sonic Pi.
Artists Juneau Projects write about the recent Sonic Pi Live & Coding Summer School which involved 60 children aged 10-14 learning to code and perform on stage at Cambridge Junction.
Get started on the world's most affordable computer.
Get the latest version of Sonic Pi for your Raspberry Pi to take advantage of all the new features such as MIDI, OSC networking, new translations, improved interface, headphone audio and much, much more...
Download and double-click to install
v3.3.1
Requires Raspberry Pi OS
October 30th 2021.
As an alternative to the double-click installation, you can run the following commands via the terminal (within the directory you downloaded the deb file):
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ./sonic-pi_3.3.1_2_armhf.deb
Turn any PC into a full Sonic Pi workstation.
Sonic Pi has been developed and designed to work perfectly on laptops and desktops running Windows 10.
Download and double-click to install
v3.3.1
Requires Windows 10.
Windows 10 (64 bit)
Sonic Pi is available as a signed MSI installer for you to securely install on your machine or network.
Use the full power of your Mac to take Sonic Pi to the next level.
Sonic Pi has been built as a secure self-contained macOS app ready for you to download and launch.
It is cryptographically signed, notarised by Apple and uses the secure macOS hardened runtime.
Download and open DMG to install
v3.3.1
Requires macOS 10.13 High Sierra.
Download
Compiled for 64 bit, Sonic Pi has been tested to run on macOS 10.13 High Sierra through to macOS 12 Monterey.
It also runs well on M1 Macs.