Manhattan
Manhattan is a hybrid music sequencer and programming language that couples traditional MIDI editing with powerful procedural generation capabilities. Designed for both newcomers and experts, Manhattan is new way of thinking about music – as patterns and processes – that makes composing and coding faster and easier, whether you want to write pop ballads, symphonies, or dive into the world of live coding, algorithm music, and procedural generation.
Offering extensive built-in interactive tutorials and examples, Manhattan is the perfect introduction to coding for musicians and non-coders, enabling you to explore key programming concepts as music – from basic principles like simple expressions, variables, loops, if-then-else, to fundamental coding techniques like iteration, functions, pointers, and user input, as well as advanced and emerging concepts like parallel threads, lambda functions, and code that can write itself!
This free version runs as a standalone app or as a VST/AU plugin and includes everything you need to start writing music with (or without) code:
- Advanced MIDI-compatible, pattern-based sequencer, supporting tracker and score notation views, with mixing and effects processing.
- A built-in instrument library of over 100 multi-sampled presets, plus analogue and physical modelling synths and external MIDI input/output.
- A powerful formula system to embed live code anywhere in your music – for manipulating or generating music on-the-fly.
- A complete series of interactive tutorials with video demonstrations, covering music and coding concepts, explored through familiar pieces of music by artists such as New Order, John Williams, Max Richter, and OutKast!
- An extensive collection of demos and examples, including numerous “études” – famous pieces of music from almost every era and genre reworked as code, from Pachelbel’s Canon and Mozart to Jimi Hendrix and Fatboy Slim, plus generative examples from ambient jazz to Debussy.
Manhattan is the work of developer and researcher, Dr Chris Nash, under the banner of nash.audio, a UK-registered not-for-profit organisation devoted to the advancement of learning and creativity in digital music, supported by the students on UWE Bristol’s music technology degree programmes, where the program is used to teaching computational thinking. Manhattan has also powered several public artworks, such as BBC Music Day 2018 and BBC Digital Cities 2020, pioneering new forms of musical expression, such as crowd-driven music (using Manhattan and machine vision to live compose music for a public space). Contact the project if you are interested in using Manhattan in your art, software, or teaching.
Game Discussion
Steam User 3
Double Feature Review (foreverloops BEATS & Manhattan)
For a workshop on music production and video game soundtracks, I was asked to pick 2 more free programs with which you can make music and since I hadn't tried the ones mentioned myself, I chose these two. There is an incredible amount of music software out there, many with individual concepts and other focuses, foreverloops BEATS & Manhattan are exactly those kind of things but they are no substitute for a pro standard DAW like Ableton Live, Logic or Cubase.
Recently the foreverloops team announced that they would no longer be working on the project, whatever the reasons were, the LONGPLAY and STUDIO versions have been scrapped, but the free version BEATS will remain available on Steam, and I hope they keep their word. The GUI of foreverloops BEATS is something quite unique, instead of arrangement layers or classic MIDI events, you work with cogwheels or gears. Everything always starts with a drive gear, which is only responsible for turning and driving other gears, for example the sequencer, which you can then equip with sounds.
It's more of a tool for creative experimentation, resulting in completely different sounds and structures other than if an experienced producer were to sit in front of a piano roll to follow a certain vision. So foreverloops BEATS is very suitable for playing around and experimenting, and for a workshop like the one I'm giving here it's just perfect, all the participants
(and there were also 4 completely new ones) had a lot of fun and got the hang of it very quickly. We then created a little bit of music together, recorded it directly in foreverloops and then exported it over to Crypt of the NecroDancer, we all failed miserably in there, but we were quite happy with the music.
Before we moved on to the other program, which is a programmable sequencer with procedural synthesis, we kind of took a little break and played some Disaster Band and BPM Bullets Per Minute. And that was a very interesting phase for me, because I knew what was coming and I was afraid that most of them would be overwhelmed straight away.
(The initial launch)
After 10 minutes it was clear to me what was going on in Manhattan and even if I have to say that this is simply not my favorite way to make music, it was still quite interesting. So I didn't need to look for any tutorials, which the thing kept trying to remind me to do. Changing instruments was also immediately clear, but then I thought it might be worth thinking about improving or redesigning the user interface. I would say for those who are a bit more familiar with producing and a digital audio workstation software, it is quite intuitive, for others maybe not, but I would definitely recommend it for those who are interested in music, just try Manhatten at least once. And then I saw the Ars Arcus - Procedural Game Music Demo on their shope page and thought I'd give it a try as well, but unfortunately I just couldn't find it, I looked everywhere for it but yea I don't know, do I need Unity for that? Well, it might have been useful for the workshop.
(Back at the Workshop)
As I had expected, most of them were a little overwhelmed with Manhattan and some of them asked about the purpose of the program. I demonstrated some what and how you can work with it and tried to explain, as far as I understood, that it is about the programming language and that this can be useful when developing a game. In the end it was also exciting for them, but it was clearly mixed with confusion.
foreverloops BEATS & Manhattan are available here free of charge, both run smoothly and error-free, and alongside: Midinous, Mixcraft, Rytmik, ODDADA, Mazetools, picoSynth and The Signal State worth trying when it comes to music production on a gaming plattfrom.
Steam User 1
its fun its free and its easy you will get the hang of it! just stop overthinking it and download this software!!!!!!
Steam User 1
i want to make bad music for my own pleasure and then I found this app. it's cool, difficult to learn, but cool nonetheless.
Steam User 0
freaking epic!
Steam User 0
y