Bytebeat Machine

Bytebeat Machine is an experimental software synthesizer. Instead of structured composition or instruments it uses functions to generate audio in real-time.

Sometimes simple input functions contain a large amount of musical structure. Sometimes the result is unexpected.. and interesting. Or you can ignore all that and just use this app to generate bleep and glitch noises. Bytebeat Machine has several preset examples to get you started.

Features

• Free. No ads or other tracking garbage.

• Two modes: bytebeat (8-bit) and floatbeat (32-bit).

• Selectable sample rates from 8kHz to 44kHz.

• A number of preset input functions. Save your own input functions for later use.

• Custom text input mode with copy, paste, undo, mystery button (?) and more.

• Export output as .wav file.

• Various output visualizations. Yay.

• Speed slider (kind of hidden under the presets).

What is bytebeat?

Bytebeat output is fully defined by the input function. There are no pre-set instruments, samples or structures. Even slight changes in the input function produce significantly different output (as a hint, prime numbers generally result in less repetition).

Input function has a time index (t) and usually various bitwise and arithmetic operations. Input function is evaluated constantly and time index is incremented by one in each iteration.

The simplest input function is "t", which produces numbers 1, 2, 3, ... and outputs a sawtooth wave audio. Sawtooth wave is generated because the result is wrapped to 8 bits (bytebeat): 0-255 remain unchanged, but 256 becomes 1, 356 becomes 101 and so on.

Input function "t * 2" decreases the wavelength and produces a result one octave higher. Input function "t & 128" produces a square wave. Bitwise operators << and >> can be used for more interesting results. Input functions can be combined with bitwise operator "|" or even "&" and "^", for example "(t>>9) | (t>>13)".

Bytebeat Machine uses 'C -type syntax' and basic arithmetic operations, bitwise operations as well as comparisons are supported:

- arithmetic operations: +, -, *, /, %

- bitwise operations: <<, >>, &, |, ^

- comparison operations: <=, >=, ==, !=

Bytebeat was first introduced late 2011 in a blog post http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/10/algorithmic-symphonies-from-one-line-of.html by 'viznut'. Online tools such as http://wurstcaptures.untergrund.net/music/ surfaced soon after, followed by a theoretical introduction http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/10/some-deep-analysis-of-one-line-music.html and a paper http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.1368. Active community discussion and development in IRC and various forums (pouet.net) lasted a couple of months.

This app might be developed further based on interest and feedback. #bytebeat