Lambda + DAW = LambDAW¹

Make generative music, hack the timeline, livecode the DAW.

What is this?

LambDAW is a REAPER extension that lets you write code that generates media right in the timeline, where it happily co-exists with audio and MIDI items. This code takes the form of Python expressions, which are associated with the items they generate (expression items), and can refer to other items in the timeline to transform them.

If this seems a bit abstract, think of how spreadsheets let you mix formulas with data: a cell can contain either, and formulas can refer to other cells, allowing you to express relationships between different pieces of information. LambDAW is kind of like that, but for the digital audio workstation.

What's the project status?

⚠️ LambDAW is under heavy development. ⚠️

In the future, we may release an extension compatible with ReaPack. Until then, you can try it by cloning the repo, running session.py as a script in REAPER, and tweaking your setup (keybindings and theme) to make it convenient to use. You can also find a few basic examples of project modules in project-module-examples/ which might be helpful for getting started.

If you are interested it trying LambDAW, feel free to contact the author.

Footnotes

1. Any substrings related to lambs or other young ovines are purely coincidental, and no animals were harmed in the making of this software. ↩