bytebeats

Inspired by algorithmic symphonies from one line of code I completely overengineered a compiler that takes in a (binary) arithmetic expression and turns that into a program that generates sound.

And I mean overengineered:

flowchart TD
    A[formula expression]
    A@{ shape: text } -->B
    B[Parser] -->|transform to QBE IR| C
    C[QBE] -->|transform to asm| D
    D[assembler] --> E
    E[object file]
    E@{ shape: doc } -->|extract bytes of synth fn| F
    F[load synth fn] --> G
    G["t in 0..n: play(synth(t))"]

Features

• Configurable duration and sample rate
• REPL
• Tested on Linux and macOS
• Wav and OGG output

Runtime requirements

(can be overriden using environment variables)

• QBE (override: QBE)
• FFmpeg (override: FFMPEG)
• as, GNU or Clang works (override: AS)

Install

cargo install --git https://git.fnordig.de/jer/bytebeats

Usage

OPTIONS:
    -d, --duration <duration>
      Play duration (in seconds) for every formula. Default: 3s

    -s, --sample-rate <rate>
      Sample rate. Default: 8000

    -e, --execute <execute>
      Formula to execute

    -t, --tree
      Show parse tree

    -q, --qbe
      Show QBE code

    -b, --bin
      Show binary code

    -n, --no-sound
      No sound. Don't actually play formulas.

    -w, --wav <wav>
      Save to wav. No sound will be played.

    -g, --ogg <ogg>
      Save to ogg. No sound will be played.

    -h, --help
      Prints help information.

Examples

bytebeat -e t
bytebeat -e t*3
bytebeat -d 15 -e 't*(42&t>>10)'
bytebeat -d 30 -e 't*(0xCA98>>(t>>9&14)&15)|t>>8' -s 44100
bytebeat -d 30 -e 't*(0xCA98>>(t>>9&14)&15)|t>>8' -s 8000 -g output.ogg

Sources

• My Experience of building bytebeat player in Zig
• Some deep analysis of one-line music programs.
• Algorithmic symphonies from one line of code -- how and why?

License

Distributed under the terms of both the MIT license and the Apache License (Version 2.0).