Jordan built an AI-powered two-deck DJ mixer that runs in the browser on Strudel, a JavaScript library for making music with code. Every channel on each deck is Strudel code, and an AI button writes a new beat for that channel. He built it mostly with OpenAI Codex over Labor Day weekend and showed it in Episode 11 (September 5, 2025). It works, but Jordan called it "a little buggy."
Jordan has been DJing since he got turntables at around 10 or 12, and produces music in Ableton Live. Scrolling TikTok, he found creators making music in Strudel and took a screenshot to look into it. Two things clicked: Strudel's syntax is easy to read and edit, and LLMs are great at writing code. So an LLM should be able to make music through it.
The the coolest feature, it has AI. So, you know, all of these channels have some AI code behind them or have regular code behind them, Stradell code. And the AI button will help us, like, write new beats.
— Jordan Metzner, Episode 11
On air, it produced techno ("I didn't promise it'd be like amazing techno music"). Jordan mixed drums on channel A against a drumless channel B, added delay, and hit the AI button on the drums repeatedly. Each press gave a different version, so you can work across the whole stack and change how the song sounds. One quirk: each AI press reset the channel's sounds.
I think I used mostly Claude. Actually, I think I used mostly OpenAI Codecs to build this. I think, you know, I could have never built something so dynamic, so progressive without the use of LLMs.
— Jordan Metzner, Episode 11
He said it would otherwise have been a very heavy, expensive development cycle. Sam, who doesn't mix music, thought he could build a basic version in a couple of hours and learn mixing along the way.
Jordan didn't list fixes beyond the bugs. His bigger point was that readable, code-based libraries like Strudel let LLMs reach into creative work. We'd already made music with Suno; this is a different, more hands-on kind of music production.
That same episode, Sam and Jordan explained why Ryz Labs engineers were moving from Claude Code to Codex. See Claude Code vs OpenAI Codex, and more on AI in Music. A later music build: the AI retail DJ.
Strudel is a JavaScript library for making music with code. Jordan found it through TikTok creators; its syntax is easy to read and edit, and you can change the code while the music plays.
Jordan built a two-deck mixer in JavaScript and React, inspired by Ableton and DJ software. Each deck has several channels with an A/B sub-mixer, master effects and sync. Every channel runs Strudel code, and an AI button generates a new beat or variation for that channel.
Yes. Because Strudel is just readable code, an LLM can write and rewrite patterns. In Jordan's mixer every press of the AI button produced a different techno beat.
Mostly OpenAI Codex, with some Claude, over Labor Day weekend. He said he could never have built something this dynamic without LLMs.
