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An incubator and evolutionary tool for mathematically generated 8-bit sounds. The sounds you hear are produced by a single line of code, a mathematical formula that transforms a single counter variable into complex waveforms or horrible noise. For a gallery of discovered sounds check out nqbitor.tumblr.com
Press "Randomize Formula" to generate a new formula. Since the formula is entirely random (though syntactically correct) there is a good chance that you will either not hear anything or that the resulting sound is noise or a single tone. Actually probably only 1 in 50 random formulas will sound somewhat interesting. See this more like gold digging where you have to wade through a lot of dirt to find that one nugget.
The "Complexity" slider lets you roughly control how big the formula gets, bigger formulas tend to result in more complex sounds but are also prone to noise.
Each function contains numeric values that have a big influence on the final result, sometimes a difference of 1 can make the difference between noise and a tone. You can change those values by either changing the numbers in the highlighted numeric tickers or by changing multiple of them randomly pressing the "Randomize Factors" button.
In general a good approach is to randomize the formula until a halfway decent sound comes up and then to fine-tune it by randomizing or hand-adjusting the factors. It's quite surprising how many different variations are possible within a single formula so don't discard it too quicky - you might miss on something. By adjusting the two knobs of the "Random Range" slider you can limit the numeric range of the random numbers that are used.
The "t" slider allows you to scrub around in time. Very often a sound develops over time so this slider allows you to fast forward or rewind. The "Reset Timer" button will set the time back to 0.
The "Speed" slider controls the playback speed.
If you manage to discover an interesting sound please share it on nqbitor.tumblr.com by clicking on the "Share on Tumblr" button. Since there is a daily limit of 75 uploads the submission might not be accepted, in that case you can copy the link and try again a few hours later.
The "Copy Link" button will copy a link to your current creation to the clipboard so you can share it with others.
The idea for mathematical sound generation was introduced by viznut
First port to ActionScript by Saqoosha
nQbitor uses As3Eval by Metal Hurlant and the MinimalComps by Keith Peters