5 ms·

Conway's Game of Life, but musical

209 points by hudsongr 1y ago

ge96 1y ago
is broken or down rather
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  The play buttons appear in the top right corner of each panel.
  - ge96 1y ago
    I was seeing a "Site can't be reached" message but now it's up again Side note, it's the Black Mirror episode Thronglets
kcaseg 1y ago
I had very high hopes, because I have initially read: "Conway's Game of Life, but A Musical". Still pretty cool!
- whycome 1y ago
  Conway Twitty biopic?
BenoitEssiambre 1y ago
I love this stuff. This 256 byte video clip is a great example using similar principles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8
vunderba 1y ago
Nice job. I thought about building something like this many years ago, but ended up experimenting with music generated from abelian sand pile algorithms instead. I've seen a number of attempts at using genetic algorithms to recombine previous musical patterns. What's obviously missing is a "fitness function" that can approximate the equivalent of human taste, so the final evolved forms just end up being widely random in terms of quality. AlgoMotion also did a video explanation for a music based version of Conway's Game of Life last year. Highly recommend their videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2SjVwYNr54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2SjVwYNr54 Incidentally if you like musical toys like this - Electroplankton [1] was a fun little game that had a series of almost organic musical instruments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplankton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplankton
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  > What's obviously missing is a "fitness function" that can approximate the equivalent of human taste, so the final evolved forms just end up being widely random in terms of quality. Honestly for me this is a feature not a bug. If I want to hear music that matches my personal taste exactly I can just go to my instrument and play it. These tools are a way to taste more exotic forms and see if there's anything worth carrying over.
  - vunderba 1y ago
    And that's perfectly fine. But when we conceptualize something like music in the form of evolutionary computation then it is important to be able to define a good metric for the fitness function otherwise you might as well just take X pieces of music, normalize them to the same key signature/tempo/etc., and then randomly mash them together. If you're just in the mood for something more exotic, I'm happy to go repeatedly sit on my piano for a few hours and send you the final samples.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      > then it is important to be able to define a good metric for the fitness function This product seems to have shipped successfully without one. > If you're just in the mood for something more exotic, I'm happy to go repeatedly sit on my piano for a few hours and send you the final samples. This feels needlessly condescending.
- chipsrafferty 1y ago
  I've been toying with ideas like this for a long time now. I think the fitness function is critical, but the problem is that taste is subjective, and you need to listen to many riffs/melodies to evolve to a "good" state. Also, you either start with specific melodies, in which case you would skew the results, or start with random noise, in which case it would take a very long time to evolve to anything good. So it seems like you must constrain i tsomehow, such as "only use 12 tones, with full/half/quarter/third notes". But anyways, my idea for a way to resolve the problem of fitness taking forever would be to livestream it on Twitch, in the same vein as the "Twitch plays Pokemon" where viewers can input commands to vote for an action, they could vote on the fitness of musical tracks.
skulk 1y ago
Wolfram Tones uses 1-d cellular automata to generate music. I had a lot of fun playing with this many years ago. https://tones.wolfram.com/ https://tones.wolfram.com/ (not sure if it's still up, doesn't load for me)
- SanjayMehta 1y ago
  It’s working for me.
kevinwang 1y ago
Darn, I can't hear the music on iphone safari :(
- hudsongr 1y ago
  If you try turning your phone off silent it should work!
abemiller 1y ago
musical space with 12 notes per octave may be better mapped onto a hexagon grid rather than a square one https://www.whatistoday.net/2019/09/jammer.html https://www.whatistoday.net/2019/09/jammer.html
gobdovan 1y ago
Pretty cool! How do you decide what tone to play on birth/death? Is it based on the position in the grid or do you just pick from a simple scale at random?
renewiltord 1y ago
There was a cellular automata music sequencer once that I enjoyed. https://earslap.com/page/otomata.html https://earslap.com/page/otomata.html Needs flash or iOS. Simple mechanics but lots of fun music. Good design.
WhitneyLand 1y ago
Very cool Hudson. “each cell birth plays a harmonic note and each death plays a complementary tone” How are you deciding which notes to play? Is it a function that somehow depends on generations or position?
- hudsongr 1y ago
  Yes it's based on the position. The column determines the note and the row determines the octave.
sodaplayer 1y ago
Oh this is cool. I did something similar with a modded Launchpad by programming GOL on it and converting the positions by column and row to octave and degree and then outputting MIDI to a synth. https://photos.app.goo.gl/os4nF1RoPJCwNiLt6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/os4nF1RoPJCwNiLt6
casty 1y ago
The demo sounds lovely. Thought I’d mention that for the Eurorack synthesizer format there is a 16 cell sequencer by NLC: https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/cellular-automata https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/cellular-automat...
jMyles 1y ago
Super interesting. Is there a dedicated place where I can just play with Melody Breeder?
kdfjgbdfkjgb 1y ago
so can we interact with it please?
nutate 1y ago
gonna have a panic attack at the twinkle twinkle "star" not being a half-note.
- recursive 1y ago
  Beethoven "5" similarly affected.
anjel 1y ago
30 years later, I still miss double muffled dolphin cellular automata ambient synth... https://www.muffled.dk/map.php https://www.muffled.dk/map.php
- rbongers 1y ago
  All of this guy's software and music seems so cool, and there's so little information on it. Can you share anything else?
  - anjel 1y ago
    Its been broken for 30 years, and yet its everlasting.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rbongers 1y ago
Sounds lovely, I'd love to hear what it's like when the number of living cells on screen controls the length of the note so it's not just a constant rhythm, even though it is hypnotizing.
import 1y ago
There is a MIDI sequencer called ZOA (for Apple devices) that does a very similar job. I had a lot of fun with it, combining it with synthesisers (I have bunch of them but my fave is Moog's) inside AUM. https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/zoa-living-midi-sequencer/id1581881354?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/zoa-living-midi-sequencer/id15...
gbertasius 1y ago
Reaktor vst has a drum synthesizer that generates midi patterns from a small grid that simulates Conway's Game of Life. It's pretty fun to play with.
mbil 1y ago
I made a musical game of life not long ago if you want something to play with https://matthewbilyeu.com/tone-of-life https://matthewbilyeu.com/tone-of-life
testaccount28 1y ago
interesting! a sort of digital windchimes. do you expect that in a blind trial it could be distinguished from playing a statistically similar number of tones chosen randomly from the available cells?
tetris11 1y ago
The soundtrack for Conway's Game of Life that I've always had in my head is John Carpenters' Wraith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NIxhWQrIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NIxhWQrIU

209 points by hudsongr 1y ago

ge96 1y ago

is broken or down rather

SanjayMehta 1y ago
The play buttons appear in the top right corner of each panel.
- ge96 1y ago
  I was seeing a "Site can't be reached" message but now it's up again Side note, it's the Black Mirror episode Thronglets

kcaseg 1y ago

I had very high hopes, because I have initially read: "Conway's Game of Life, but A Musical". Still pretty cool!

whycome 1y ago
Conway Twitty biopic?

BenoitEssiambre 1y ago

I love this stuff. This 256 byte video clip is a great example using similar principles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWblpsLZ-O8

vunderba 1y ago

Nice job. I thought about building something like this many years ago, but ended up experimenting with music generated from abelian sand pile algorithms instead. I've seen a number of attempts at using genetic algorithms to recombine previous musical patterns. What's obviously missing is a "fitness function" that can approximate the equivalent of human taste, so the final evolved forms just end up being widely random in terms of quality. AlgoMotion also did a video explanation for a music based version of Conway's Game of Life last year. Highly recommend their videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2SjVwYNr54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2SjVwYNr54 Incidentally if you like musical toys like this - Electroplankton [1] was a fun little game that had a series of almost organic musical instruments. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplankton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroplankton

AlecSchueler 1y ago
> What's obviously missing is a "fitness function" that can approximate the equivalent of human taste, so the final evolved forms just end up being widely random in terms of quality. Honestly for me this is a feature not a bug. If I want to hear music that matches my personal taste exactly I can just go to my instrument and play it. These tools are a way to taste more exotic forms and see if there's anything worth carrying over.
- vunderba 1y ago
  And that's perfectly fine. But when we conceptualize something like music in the form of evolutionary computation then it is important to be able to define a good metric for the fitness function otherwise you might as well just take X pieces of music, normalize them to the same key signature/tempo/etc., and then randomly mash them together. If you're just in the mood for something more exotic, I'm happy to go repeatedly sit on my piano for a few hours and send you the final samples.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    > then it is important to be able to define a good metric for the fitness function This product seems to have shipped successfully without one. > If you're just in the mood for something more exotic, I'm happy to go repeatedly sit on my piano for a few hours and send you the final samples. This feels needlessly condescending.
chipsrafferty 1y ago
I've been toying with ideas like this for a long time now. I think the fitness function is critical, but the problem is that taste is subjective, and you need to listen to many riffs/melodies to evolve to a "good" state. Also, you either start with specific melodies, in which case you would skew the results, or start with random noise, in which case it would take a very long time to evolve to anything good. So it seems like you must constrain i tsomehow, such as "only use 12 tones, with full/half/quarter/third notes". But anyways, my idea for a way to resolve the problem of fitness taking forever would be to livestream it on Twitch, in the same vein as the "Twitch plays Pokemon" where viewers can input commands to vote for an action, they could vote on the fitness of musical tracks.

skulk 1y ago

Wolfram Tones uses 1-d cellular automata to generate music. I had a lot of fun playing with this many years ago. https://tones.wolfram.com/ https://tones.wolfram.com/ (not sure if it's still up, doesn't load for me)

SanjayMehta 1y ago
It’s working for me.

kevinwang 1y ago

Darn, I can't hear the music on iphone safari :(

hudsongr 1y ago
If you try turning your phone off silent it should work!

abemiller 1y ago

musical space with 12 notes per octave may be better mapped onto a hexagon grid rather than a square one https://www.whatistoday.net/2019/09/jammer.html https://www.whatistoday.net/2019/09/jammer.html

gobdovan 1y ago

Pretty cool! How do you decide what tone to play on birth/death? Is it based on the position in the grid or do you just pick from a simple scale at random?

renewiltord 1y ago

There was a cellular automata music sequencer once that I enjoyed. https://earslap.com/page/otomata.html https://earslap.com/page/otomata.html Needs flash or iOS. Simple mechanics but lots of fun music. Good design.

WhitneyLand 1y ago

Very cool Hudson. “each cell birth plays a harmonic note and each death plays a complementary tone” How are you deciding which notes to play? Is it a function that somehow depends on generations or position?

hudsongr 1y ago
Yes it's based on the position. The column determines the note and the row determines the octave.

sodaplayer 1y ago

Oh this is cool. I did something similar with a modded Launchpad by programming GOL on it and converting the positions by column and row to octave and degree and then outputting MIDI to a synth. https://photos.app.goo.gl/os4nF1RoPJCwNiLt6 https://photos.app.goo.gl/os4nF1RoPJCwNiLt6

casty 1y ago

The demo sounds lovely. Thought I’d mention that for the Eurorack synthesizer format there is a 16 cell sequencer by NLC: https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/cellular-automata https://www.nonlinearcircuits.com/modules/p/cellular-automat...

jMyles 1y ago

Super interesting. Is there a dedicated place where I can just play with Melody Breeder?

kdfjgbdfkjgb 1y ago

so can we interact with it please?

nutate 1y ago

gonna have a panic attack at the twinkle twinkle "star" not being a half-note.

recursive 1y ago
Beethoven "5" similarly affected.

anjel 1y ago

30 years later, I still miss double muffled dolphin cellular automata ambient synth... https://www.muffled.dk/map.php https://www.muffled.dk/map.php

rbongers 1y ago
All of this guy's software and music seems so cool, and there's so little information on it. Can you share anything else?
- anjel 1y ago
  Its been broken for 30 years, and yet its everlasting.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

rbongers 1y ago

Sounds lovely, I'd love to hear what it's like when the number of living cells on screen controls the length of the note so it's not just a constant rhythm, even though it is hypnotizing.

import 1y ago

There is a MIDI sequencer called ZOA (for Apple devices) that does a very similar job. I had a lot of fun with it, combining it with synthesisers (I have bunch of them but my fave is Moog's) inside AUM. https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/zoa-living-midi-sequencer/id1581881354?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/zoa-living-midi-sequencer/id15...

gbertasius 1y ago

Reaktor vst has a drum synthesizer that generates midi patterns from a small grid that simulates Conway's Game of Life. It's pretty fun to play with.

mbil 1y ago

I made a musical game of life not long ago if you want something to play with https://matthewbilyeu.com/tone-of-life https://matthewbilyeu.com/tone-of-life

testaccount28 1y ago

interesting! a sort of digital windchimes. do you expect that in a blind trial it could be distinguished from playing a statistically similar number of tones chosen randomly from the available cells?

tetris11 1y ago

The soundtrack for Conway's Game of Life that I've always had in my head is John Carpenters' Wraith https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NIxhWQrIU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21NIxhWQrIU