Strudel
Strudel is a browser-based live-coding environment for music that brings Tidal-style pattern workflows to JavaScript and the web. It is built for both beginners and experienced coders, combining immediate interactive feedback with deep pattern control, and can be used either as a library inside any JavaScript codebase or through its browser-based REPL editor, which includes built-in visualisations of the patterns as they play. Because it runs in the browser, it lowers setup friction for workshops and collaborative coding sessions while staying connected to the broader live-coding ecosystem, supporting a wide range of sound outputs including WebAudio, MIDI, OSC for SuperDirt, WebSerial and CSound. Strudel belongs to a wider family of TidalCycles-derived languages, sometimes called "uzu languages," which also includes Vortex, Estuary, Weft and several others.
tech specs
history
+–
Strudel began in January 2022, when Alex McLean, the original creator of TidalCycles, tried porting Tidal's core pattern representation from Haskell to JavaScript and quietly shared the result as free, open-source software on GitHub. Within a week or two, developer Felix Roos discovered the code and turned it into a fully working live-coding system in its own right. The two continued developing it intensively together over the following year, and documented the project's progress and design choices in a paper presented at the International Conference on Live Coding (ICLC) in 2023. Strudel has since grown into a widely used entry point for browser-based live coding, valued in particular for removing the installation barriers, needing neither Tidal nor SuperCollider set up locally, that had made TidalCycles harder for newcomers to pick up.
back to tools
