Installing

llamatron runs in a terminal on a Mac, and on Linux for everything but FluidSynth's installer. This page covers installing llamatron, and two optional components: FluidSynth, which plays every demo with no synthesizer, and a faster YAML parser. When it's installed, Getting Started is the next page.

Requirements

• Python 3.15
• git
• A terminal at least 80 columns wide and 24 rows tall. llamatron draws with bold, dim, reverse video and box characters, so it suits any colour scheme.

Installation

Clone the repository and run the setup script from the project folder:

git clone https://github.com/mpdehaan/llamatron.git
cd llamatron
sh user_scripts/setup.sh

The script makes a Python virtual environment in the folder .venv and installs llamatron into it, together with its dependencies, mido, python-rtmidi, PyYAML and Textual, and the Live set that exports are built from. llamatron is installed in editable form, so the command always runs the code in the folder you cloned, and a git pull updates it without installing again.

The llamatron command lives in the virtual environment, so typing llamatron works once the environment is activated with source .venv/bin/activate, which each new terminal needs once. From the project folder, ./llamatron.sh runs llamatron without activating anything, and every other script in user_scripts/ and internal_tools/ finds the environment by itself.

FluidSynth (Optional)

FluidSynth is a free software synthesizer, and it is the quickest way to hear llamatron: with it, every demo plays as it comes, with no synthesizer, no DAW and no MIDI setup, and a song can be exported as a WAV file. Install it now if you want to hear the demos right away, or if you have no synthesizer or DAW set up; skip it if you will play everything through your own instruments. On a Mac, from the project folder:

sh user_scripts/install_fluidsynth.sh

FluidSynth describes what the script installs, how the tracker uses FluidSynth, and when to use your own instruments instead. To check that it works, open a demo and play it:

./llamatron.sh examples/learning/13_classic_strum.yml

Press A for Arrange, move to the top left corner with the arrows, where ▶ song shows, and press Space.

Faster YAML Parser (Optional)

Set files are YAML, and PyYAML reads them about ten times faster when it's built with libyaml, which makes a large set open almost at once. Everything works without it. To see which parser you have:

.venv/bin/python -c "import yaml; print(yaml.__with_libyaml__)"

True means libyaml is in use. The PyYAML wheels on PyPI include it, so a Python version that has a wheel gets it with the install above. For a Python version with no wheel yet, pip builds PyYAML from source, and includes libyaml only if it finds the library and a working C compiler at that moment, so install those first and then rebuild:

brew install libyaml                                   # macOS; on Debian or Ubuntu: sudo apt install libyaml-dev
.venv/bin/python -m pip install --force-reinstall --no-binary pyyaml --no-cache-dir "pyyaml==6.0.3"

On a Mac the compiler is Xcode's, whose license has to have been accepted once (sudo xcodebuild -license accept), and the library has to match the Python: an Apple Silicon Python needs the Apple Silicon Homebrew in /opt/homebrew, not the Intel one in /usr/local. If the C parser can't be built, pip quietly builds PyYAML without it, and llamatron falls back to the pure-Python parser.