MTK: a Music Tool Kit for Ruby

MTK is a Ruby library and custom domain-specific language (DSL) for generating musical material.

MTK is flexible: You may use the custom music-generating language without writing any Ruby code, or you may avoid the custom language and only program in Ruby, or anywhere in between.

Features

  • A minimalist syntax (DSL) for generating musical patterns
  • Read and write MIDI files
  • Record and output realtime MIDI signals
  • Sequence MIDI-compatible event streams
  • Manipulate musical objects like pitch, duration, and intensity
  • Generate deterministic and non-deterministic music via flexible patterns such as looping sequences and random choices

Getting Started

MTK works with Ruby 1.9, Ruby 2.0, and JRuby

  1. Install

    gem install mtk

    or if using JRuby:

    jgem install mtk

  2. Learn the command-line interface:

    mtk --help

  3. Learn the MTK syntax: TODO... documentation forthcoming. In the meantime, see the unit tests @ https://github.com/adamjmurray/mtk/blob/master/spec/mtk/lang/parser_spec.rb

  4. Check out examples: https://github.com/adamjmurray/mtk/tree/master/examples

  5. Read the MTK Ruby library documentation

About this project

This project is developed by Adam Murray (github.com/adamjmurray).

It is a free and open source project licensed under a permissive BSD-style license. I simply ask for credit by including my copyright in derivative works.

You can learn more about the development of this project at the development notes page.