@[random() * 8 for i in range(1000)] foo()

This generates 1000 events over the span of 8 beats, using list comprehension.

The function foo() is intentionally left blank. It may produce random single-cycle waveforms, bits of a sample, or glowing TRON-like particles for your live performance visuals. Whatever.

I experimenting combining the first Slipmat prototype (built with the Csound API) with Processing. Getting the two systems working together was fairly straight forward. Here’s the code that generated the video.

The following method from class Disc does two things when a disc collides with a border: change direction of the disc and trigger a slipmat event:

public void moveDisc() {
    x += xVelocity * SCALE_VELOCITY;
    y += yVelocity * SCALE_VELOCITY;

    if (x <= DISC_RADIUS || x >= width - 1 - DISC_RADIUS) {
        xVelocity *= -1;
        playNote();
    }

    if (y <= DISC_RADIUS || y >= height - 1 - DISC_RADIUS) {
        yVelocity *= -1;
        playNote();
    }
}

The method playNote() also belongs to class Disc, and is where the actual triggering of the Slipmat event occurs. The instances sp1 and sp2 are part of the Slipmat system. The “sp” is short for “sine percussion.”

public void playNote() {
    sp1.playNote(0.0, 0.35 * (1 - x / width), frequency);
    sp2.playNote(0.0, 0.35 * x / width, frequency);
}

This isn’t really too much of a stretch. Audio unit generators won’t be built into the core language, but instead will be stored as separate modules and imported as needed; The same would be true for visual modules. Musical GUI elements such as sliders are already visual in nature. There are existing audio/visual systems out in the wild, such as Max/MSP/Jitter and Impromptu. Various functions and objects designed for music could also be applied to visuals; The same envelope that controls frequency can be used to control the position of a circle:

t = 10                          # time = 10 beats
my_circle = Circle(0, 200, 15)  # x position, y position, radius
env = line(0, t, 1)             # start value, duration, end value
sine(1.0, 440 * env)            # amp, frequency
my_circle.xpos(env * 400)       # x position over time

The example is a bit crude and omits many practical things, but the idea of syncing visuals with audio is there.

Beyond music and visuals, anything that is time-based would theoretically work in slipmat, providing a module is written.