Live music and visuals without writing the code first
Live-coding courses use text: a pattern language for sound such as Strudel or TidalCycles, and a chain of functions for visuals such as Hydra. VerkLabs reaches a similar place by a different route: wire nodes and change them while the music plays. It runs in a browser tab like Strudel and Hydra, needs no install, and can be a gentler on-ramp for students who are not yet comfortable with code. It is not a live-coding language, and this page says where that matters.
What the two share
| Live-coding idea | In VerkLabs | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Runs in the browser, nothing to install | Same | Open a link and start. Projects are shared by link. |
| Change the sound while it plays | Edit an instrument while the timeline runs | Notes already sounding finish with the old version and every new note uses the new one. |
| Loop a pattern of notes | A note clip that repeats, drawn in the piano roll | Several parts can share one clip, so changing it changes every repeat. The Sequencer node steps through a pattern of notes inside an instrument. |
| Patterns that follow tempo | An LFO in Beats mode, and a project BPM | Modulation that stays on the beat, with an adjustable phase. |
| Audio-reactive visuals | A shader that reads the sound of any track | Frequency data from a music track, a recording or the microphone drives shader values. |
| Visuals written as code | Shaders as nodes, with GLSL where you want it | A pasted Shadertoy shader runs, with the standard uniforms declared. See the Shadertoy page. |
| Generative material | Notes from AI | An AI that writes a part for an event from a prompt, to edit or replace. |
A lower first step. A student who is nervous about syntax can still build a sound, hear it respond to changes and make visuals move with it, then move on to Strudel or Hydra with the concepts already in place.
Sound and visuals in one project. The same timeline plays the music and drives the visuals, so a performance idea is one project, not two tools talking to each other.
A shared vocabulary. Oscillators, filters, envelopes, LFOs, patterns and tempo are the same ideas a pattern language uses, shown as something students can see and move.
Where a live-coding language is stronger
Strudel and TidalCycles express rhythm, transformation and probability in a few characters. VerkLabs has no mini-notation: patterns are drawn as clips or stepped by a node.
Live coding is also a performance practice, with code on screen and a community around it. Editing a node graph is a different, slower kind of liveness.
There is no live MIDI or OSC input today, so a controller cannot drive it in a performance.
A simple way to use both
Start a class in VerkLabs with a guided lesson, such as Build a living shader or Your first techno track, and keep the same ideas going into Strudel, TidalCycles or Hydra for the live-coding weeks. Or let advanced students go the other way, and use VerkLabs to add visuals to something they have already written.
Try it, or talk it through
Free, in a browser tab, nothing to install. The guided lessons run beside a student's own project, so you can try one yourself in a few minutes. If you would like a short demo, example projects or a conversation about how it could sit next to your course, get in touch.
Try the lessons Teaching with VerkLabs Email education@verklabs.ai