kilobeat: low-level collaborative livecoding
This paper presents kilobeat, a collaborative, web-based, DSP-oriented livecoding platform. Players make music together by writing short snippets of code. Inspired by the practices of bytebeat, these snippets are low-level expressions representing digital audio signals. Unlike existing platforms, kilobeat does not adapt existing livecoding languages or introduce a new one: players write JavaScript expressions (using standard operators and math functions) to generate samples directly. This approach reduces the amount of background knowledge required to understand players' code and makes kilobeat amenable to synthesis and DSP pedagogy. To facilitate collaboration, players can hear each other's audio (distributed spatially in a virtual room), see each other's code (including edits and run actions), and depend on each other's output (by referencing other players as variables). Additionally, performances may be recorded and replayed later, including all player actions. For accessibility and ease of sharing, kilobeat is built on Web Audio and WebSockets.
@inproceedings{2021_49,
abstract = {This paper presents kilobeat, a collaborative, web-based, DSP-oriented livecoding platform. Players make music together by writing short snippets of code. Inspired by the practices of bytebeat, these snippets are low-level expressions representing digital audio signals. Unlike existing platforms, kilobeat does not adapt existing livecoding languages or introduce a new one: players write JavaScript expressions (using standard operators and math functions) to generate samples directly. This approach reduces the amount of background knowledge required to understand players' code and makes kilobeat amenable to synthesis and DSP pedagogy. To facilitate collaboration, players can hear each other's audio (distributed spatially in a virtual room), see each other's code (including edits and run actions), and depend on each other's output (by referencing other players as variables). Additionally, performances may be recorded and replayed later, including all player actions. For accessibility and ease of sharing, kilobeat is built on Web Audio and WebSockets.},
address = {Barcelona, Spain},
author = {Clester, Ian J},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Web Audio Conference},
editor = {Joglar-Ongay, Luis and Serra, Xavier and Font, Frederic and Tovstogan, Philip and Stolfi, Ariane and A. Correya, Albin and Ramires, Antonio and Bogdanov, Dmitry and Faraldo, Angel and Favory, Xavier},
month = {July},
pages = {},
publisher = {UPF},
series = {WAC '21},
title = {kilobeat: low-level collaborative livecoding},
year = {2021},
ISSN = {2663-5844}
}