HTML5 Bytebeat

Bytebeat is the name of type of music made from math.

You provide a function who's only input is time t and from that write some code to generate a sound.

In this particular case t is an 8000hz timer that counts up. For example

sin(t) * 127 + 127

You can choose traditional bytebeat where the output of your function is expected to be 0 to 255 or you can choose floatbeat where the output is expected to be -1 to +1.

Functions are just plain JavaScript though sin, cos, tan, floor, ceil and int will automatically be converted to Math.sin, Math.cos, Math.tan, Math.floor, Math.ceil, and Math.floor respectively.

Click here to try your hand at Bytebeat.

Here are a few sample songs

• http://goo.gl/KABRP glitch machine
• http://goo.gl/V5Mrl
• http://goo.gl/qrAkf
• http://goo.gl/w3ugG
• http://goo.gl/NRwRT
• http://goo.gl/ObMwR
• http://goo.gl/Arptn
• http://goo.gl/pD3lx kb 2011-10-04
• http://goo.gl/MuQWe ryg 2011-10-10
• http://goo.gl/rFNPL blueberry 2011-10-05
• http://goo.gl/lQyDd mu6k
• http://goo.gl/6Uz0d mix 2 channels
• http://goo.gl/6cC5gK quiddit
• http://goo.gl/RG8IEk rythymgrind
• http://goo.gl/QRjRf8 robot toothbrush
• http://goo.gl/Vk6WPK number machine
• http://goo.gl/4dOPIJ starlost
• http://goo.gl/VHm5c7 guitarhead

Instructions

Modes

There 2 modes

• bytebeat: Your expression is expected to generate byte values from 0 to 255
• floatbeat: Your expression is expected to generate float values from -1.0 to 1.0

Expression Types

• Infix: Standard expressions eg. "(t * 2) / 4"
• Postfix(rpn): Reverse Polish Notation eg "t 2 * 4 /"
• glitch: glitch format or glitch urls.

Infix is standard JavaScript so all Math functions are available. Most math functions you can drop the "Math." part. In other words

sin(t)

is the same as

Math.sin(t)

Postfix requires that each element have at least one space between it.

t2*    // BAD!
t 2 *  // Good!

Glitch is a format used by glitch machine for sharing. Examples

• 42_forever!a13880fa400he!a5kma6kn40g!aCk28!a12k1ld!2fladm!43n
• pipe_symphony!aEk5h5f!a11k2h!a9k3hdf!aDk4hg!ad4e!p5fm!a11k2h1rg!a5kdm

These can be prefixed with "glitch://". For example

• glitch://sadglitch!4.4.9.8.9.6.4.2!aoCk8hq!ad2d!aFk3h1fe!p5d3em!a63hm!a7kFFlp80slf

There's a bunch more here. I have a feeling there's a bug or 2 left for full glitch support

Extra

Comments can be both // or /* */ style

There are several extra inputs available

The mouse position is available as mouseX and mouseY

sin(t * mouseX * 0.001) + cos(t * mouseY * 0.003)

The size of the window is available width and height

The orientation of a device may be available as tiltX and tiltY.

(sin(t * 0.1 * tiltX) + cos(t * tiltY * 0.07)) * 0.5

Also note, using the comma operator you can write fairly arbitrary code.

http://goo.gl/IZVBS

For more info

Check out http://canonical.org/~kragen/bytebeat/ and be sure follow the many links.

Special thanks to:

• Paul Pridham for his Glitch Machine iOS Bytebeat program.
• Mr.Doob for his GLSL Sandbox where much of this code was cribbed.
• Nathan Rugg for his LZMA-JS library.
• Darius Bacon for his bytebeat program and for tips and examples to test it.