The guide

poptart

Write short patterns; poptart plays them on your own VST/VST3 instruments and effects, and turns any of their knobs while it plays.

Write short patterns; poptart plays them on synths, samplers and effects built into this page. Nothing to install.

The poptart window: code on the left with the playing notes boxed, the tracks and macro knobs on the right. — A song playing. The boxes in the code are the notes sounding right now.

A first sound

A line that starts with a name and a colon is a track. Evaluate the buffer with {mod+enter} and every track plays; {mod+.} stops. Every example in this guide is the real editor: press ▶ play, click into the code to change it, and double-click a name like pianoroll, lfo or synth to open its editor.

kick: s("pt_kit:0*4").postgain(0.3)
hats: s("pt_kit:4*8").vel("1 .5").postgain(0.3)
bass: note("c2 c2 eb2 g1").synth("Wavetable")
  .fx("Filter").param("Cutoff", sine(0.25).range(0.3, 0.7)).postgain(0.3)

kick: s("bd*4")
hats: s("hh*8").vel("1 .5")
bass: note("c2 c2 eb2 g1").synth("Serum 2")
  .param("Filter 1 Freq", sine(0.25).range(300, 3000))

Change a number and evaluate again: the new version takes over without a gap. That is the whole workflow.

Chapters

Read them in order once, then come back for what you need.

help as you type Autocomplete (it opens by itself, or Ctrl+Space) shows every name with its signature and a short description. Hold Ctrl and hover over code you've written to see the same thing.