Algorithmic symphonies from one line of code

http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2011/10/algorithmic-symphonies-from-one-line-of.html

by a1k0n • 15 years ago

204 36 15 years ago

countercomplex.blogspot.com

eternalmatt• 15 years ago

Long live the demoscene.

geogra4• 15 years ago

Yeah this is awesome. Party like it's 1985

thmzlt• 15 years ago

Where is /dev/audio on OS X?

a1k0n4• 15 years ago

I think you'd have to write some kind of CoreAudio stub.

But if you just want to play with this stuff, see the Javascript version here:

http://wurstcaptures.untergrund.net/music/

Ogre2• 15 years ago

I don't know if there's a way to play it real-time. I was trying to install sox from homebrew, but it can't grab its libogg dependency, downloads.xiph.org isn't working right now, seemingly.

However, you can do this:

  $ ./soundprog > temp.au

hit CTRL-C (Hit it fast! You don't need it to run very long, and it will write to the resulting file very very quickly! Consider modifying the code to have a limit on the for loop.)

Then open the resulting .au file in Audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/). It'll play fine.

Not as simple just writing to a sound device, but it works.

Ogre2• 15 years ago

Ok, looks like xiph.org was just having a hiccup. You can do it real time with sox.

First, Get sox. I prefer homebrew for Unix type stuff (http://mxcl.github.com/homebrew/), but it's likely MacPorts, Fink, and other sources have sox available too. If using Homebrew, just:

  $ brew install sox

Compile your program. Run it like this:

  $ ./soundprog | sox -r 8000 -t u8 - -d

Voila, just like having a sound device. You can play with the 8000 to make it faster or slower (modifying the pitch as well).

spiralganglion2• 15 years ago

Firstly, this sounds quite a bit like the Symphony For Dot Matrix Printers. If you haven't heard it, I urge you to find a copy. I've linked to some video below, but it is significantly better as an album. It has all the compositional richness of a classical symphony, performed in realtime by an orchestra of printers. I dare say, it is my single favourite musical work.

Secondly, I'm reminded of the cassette tapes that computer programs used to come on (Commodore 64, etc). My friend had a box full of these cassettes, but I can't remember what machine they were for. We used to listen to the tapes and jam along with our laptops. It was a bit like having a garage band, I guess, but for tech-heads.

Symphony #1 For Dot Matrix Printers (video excerpt): http://vimeo.com/6868193

Symphony #2 For Dot Matrix Printers (full concert video): http://vimeo.com/16207657

#1 is my favourite, but #2 is also fascinating. #1 has more immediate textural/tonal exploration, while #2 is a more gradual evolution. Feel free to skip around the videos to get a sense of the breadth of sounds in these symphonies.

delinka• 15 years ago

Those are indeed fascinating.

I do find this a bit of a stretch: "Leaving the constituent elements untouched, the process imposes a new order upon them, reorganizing the sounds along a musical structure." There are parts in there that are almost certainly slowed after recording. The deep thud of the carriage changing direction (starting at 1:47 in video #1) is one such sound that I believe has been slowed.

I could certainly be mistaken.

spiralganglion2• 15 years ago

What you're hearing is almost certainly the Proximity Effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_effect_(audio)

I used to record music for a living. I was really big on using natural sounds in unexpected ways. There are a lot of things you can do with creative use of microphones.

dnielF• 15 years ago

awesome, could i do this on ubuntu ?

dharmatech• 15 years ago

On Ubuntu 10.10:

sound.c:

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <math.h>

    int main()
    {
        int t;

        for ( t=0; ; t++ ) putchar( t*((t>>9|t>>13)&25&t>>6) );
    }

Then to compile and run:

    $ gcc sound.c && ./a.out | aplay -

a3_nm• 15 years ago

If you're using Pulseaudio, replace

  $ ./a.out > /dev/dsp

with

  $ ./a.out | pacat --rate=8192

stygianguest• 15 years ago

That doesn't work for their example:

main(t){for(t=0;;t++)putchar(t*(((t>>12)|(t>>8))&(63&(t>>4))));}

use this in stead:

./a.out | pacat --rate=8000 --channels=1 --format=u8

Note that the rate only changes the speed, just like the RPM of a record would.

Cieplak2• 15 years ago

Thanks!

gtklocker• 15 years ago

    t * ((t>>sin(7)|t>>cos(10))&tan(3221)&t>>44)

Alarm clock?

simcop2387• 15 years ago

I think t * ((t>>0|t>>1)&tan(3221)&t>>46) Works a little better, or it's more like a phone ringer.

Cieplak2• 15 years ago

If you're using ALSA, ./a.out | aplay

oleg_kikin• 15 years ago

I made an HTML5 generator. Check it out:

http://www.olegkikin.com/audio/audio.html

You can pass custom formulas in a hash tag:

http://www.olegkikin.com/audio/audio.html#(t%3E%3E12|t%3E%3E...

a1k0n4• 15 years ago

Cool. But yours outputs 16-bit signed audio whereas by default /dev/dsp outputs 8kHz 8-bit unsigned audio, so it sounds a little bit different. Also, http://www.bemmu.com/music/index.html beat you to it and http://wurstcaptures.untergrund.net/music/ also does URL-formulas :).

(As an aside, bemmu's is creating a 16-bit signed .WAV data from 8-bit signed functions, so it isn't doing it quite right either. Why not just create an 8-bit WAV data block? I've done so here: http://a1k0n.net/code/audiogen.html)

phaedrus• 15 years ago

This simple formula produces an interesting sound in your a1k0n.net player: (t % 1000) & t

Multiplying the whole thing by t adds to it.

Edit: t >> (t % 8) also produces an interesting sound; changing the number 8 changes the pitch.

Edit 2: On the theory that primes might create an interesting beat frequency, I tried this which almost sounds like a 3 part harmony: (t >> (t % 7)) & (t >> (t % 5)) & (t >> (t % 3))

bane• 15 years ago

must've been lost in the rush http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3061884

RodgerTheGreat• 15 years ago

Here's a basic Java skeleton for experimenting with these code snippets: http://pastebin.com/C0pKEjyN

spyder• 15 years ago

some dubstep thing: http://wurstcaptures.untergrund.net/music/?oneliner=t%7C((t%...

mkramlich• 15 years ago

Reminds me of the audio equivalent of the argument put forth in Wolfram's NKS.

a1k0n4• 15 years ago

Someone over on reddit.com/r/coding put together a version that graphs the output:

http://langtons.atspace.com/audio/waveform.html

Enter something like t^(t%127) and the similarities are even more striking. :)

stephth• 15 years ago

made a 2-line remix of miiro's 1-line symphony [1]:

Side A: http://tinyurl.com/3uejhum

Side B: http://tinyurl.com/3mfaogd

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlrs2Vorw2Y&feature=playe...

JonnieCache• 15 years ago

For anyone doubting that this would ever be recognised as "music," think again - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8QLkThdzmA

extension• 15 years ago

My attempt at a complex melody:

http://tinyurl.com/453z7w2

xor seems to be really good for that

trebor• 15 years ago

Except for the high pitch squeals that nearly gave me a headache.

cplhenshaw• 15 years ago

This one is really good. I think it's much more interesting when something resembling a melody emerges from the code.

kragen• 15 years ago

This one, from HAKMEM's circle-drawing hack, generates a simple pure sine wave:

    main(t,u){for(t=u=85;;t+=u>>2,u-=t>>2)putchar(t+128);}

BTW, I think the comments saying that aplay or pacat are equivalent to /dev/audio are slightly mistaken. /dev/audio is μ-law, like aplay -f MU_LAW. aplay defaults to linear unsigned 8-bit. With the sine wave above, the difference is very noticeable. With the various distorted sawtooths and white-noises in the original videos, it's harder to tell, but I'm reasonably sure that they're using μ-law, not linear.

BTW, aplay refuses to play 8-bit audio on my Logitech USB speakers. So I ended up using sox to convert:

    ./viznut1 | sox -r 8000 -U -t u8 - -t s16 - | aplay -f S16_LE -D hw:1,0

The -U specifies μ-law conversion.

I created a Git repository for these programs at https://github.com/kragen/viznut-music.

charltones• 15 years ago

I'm hooked

(t>>2|t>>6)*(t>>5|t>>7)

Algorithmic symphonies from one line of code

Related Stories