Melina Nguyen
Melina Nguyen
Introducing Lucid Monday's first digital cover, featuring LA-based live coder and producer DJ_Dave
All over social media feeds around the globe, one particular platinum-blonde coder, sharing her dance music production workflow against a Windows blue screen of death-colored backdrop, is steadily carving out her place in the live music space.
A pioneer in live coding music, DJ_Dave has been bringing her software programming skills to the world of electro pop, shaping the terrain of performance and what it can encompass.
The LA-based musician, born Sarah Davis, is trailblazing electronic and pop music with “algoraves,” combining her innovative, ethereal production with equally electric visuals.
In 2019, DJ_Dave began her programming journey when she took her first live coding class in college, helping her pivot away from her previous fashion major. “I was just obsessed with it after that, and then just kind of was self-taught ever since then,” she said.
DJ_Dave uses Logic, a traditional DAW, for arranging alongside Strudel, a live coding software, to create one-shots, loops, tracks, and performances.
“Live coding gives me the opportunity to make those sounds in the first place,” she said. “Interacting with live coding environments feels like I’m playing an instrument, almost, versus just arranging sounds… [it] feels the most like organic music creation for me.”
She asserted that sound design is natural in live coding compared to traditional DAWs, highlighting the former’s dominance with vocal chops. “I can get a certain type of vocal chop pattern that I can’t get anywhere else,” made by methodically slicing a sample into a set number of pieces, randomly selecting those fractions, and playing them sequentially. This effect is something DJ_Dave never does outside of live coding, which is more efficient for her drums, sidechaining, and more.
Though she began live coding music using an audio software called Sonic Pi, DJ_Dave later discovered Strudel, a free and open-source, browser-based platform. One of the key figures behind Strudel was Switch Angel, DJ_Dave’s friend and a developer of the platform.
DJ_Dave called the fellow music coder the perfect example of someone who approaches the art as both an engineering and composing endeavor.
“To me, it seems like, on one side, people are making the tools or editing the tools to better fit their process or their performance setup,” she explained, “and then there’s people like me who are just using it to make music and perform.”
The community of live coders is expansive and growing, and it isn’t limited to just producers: think musicians, visual artists, choreographers, poets, knitters. “I tapped into the community when I lived in New York. There’s a really good live [community] called Livecode.NYC and a couple other big communities in San Francisco, Berlin… There’s a good amount of live coders around the world, and it just keeps growing.”
For her—a musician with a creative side but also organized and logic-seeking—live coding checks off all the boxes for her musicality needs. While music and art are often subjective, coding ultimately runs on precise logic. If you have errors in your code, you won’t get the desired output.
“It’s not the computer’s fault. Obviously, there’s bugs and glitches, but there’s something about it that feels like a puzzle, almost,” she said, explaining how she’s always had an affinity for problem-solving through music and playing instruments. “I was like, this is a puzzle for making music. It was just really intriguing to me.”
The prerequisites for live coding are arguably light, DJ_Dave outlined. Having prior experience with music, technology, or both can be an aid in the learning process, but many people in the live coding community have neither. Oftentimes, live coders came into the scene with a computer science background but no music production knowledge, or vice versa.
On the stage, DJ_Dave’s ever-shifting setup always includes her laptop. For shows that enlist her live vocals, she also wields a mic. And for what she calls her “hybrid performances,” the audience can expect the typical CDJs.
With roots in hacking, software cracking, and the European demoscene that started in the ‘70s, live coding has evolved from the real-time creation of graphics and music in public installations to full-scale sets in clubs, raves, or even online.
The genre has long past the fledgling stage, with DJ_Dave amassing more than 180,000 TikTok followers and over 330,000 Spotify listeners at the time of publication. DJ_Dave, who presented a TEDx talk in 2024 on the intersection of music and coding, was also mentioned in a 2023 academic journal article that highlighted her as an example in combining live coding into music production, which lauded her process:
“By advocating for this approach, foundation-level production students gain experience throughout the production process, from working in the digital audio workstation (DAW) to performing their work. This provides them with early explorative opportunities and laying the groundwork for a variety of public facing (enterprise) opportunities.”
In fact, live coding is the future of electronic performance, DJ_Dave argues. Despite her name, she doesn’t consider DJing a true live performance.
“For people who make their own music, I feel like it’s not the number one way that they might want to present their music to people,” she explained. “They might want to actually feel like they’re performing it or creating the sounds in real time, and live coding is one of the most authentic ways to do that or direct ways to have that electronic sound come to life before an audience,” though she adds not everyone needs to switch to live coding; it’s just an “awesome and rare way to perform” for those who have interest in it.
DJ_Dave, who first delved into live coding because it was cool, wishes the community continues to grow and develop. “I just really love what I do and really love the trajectory that the community is on, and that’s just what I just want to do forever,” she shared matter-of-factly with a smile.
When looking ahead to the rest of the year, DJ_Dave shared, “There’s a lot on the horizon that I’m really excited about,” pointing to her remaining tour dates and the continued development of her live shows, as well as a forthcoming album.