Synthesizing Music with Logic Gate Networks

Ian Clester

• Format: poster
• Session: posters-3
• Paper link

Abstract:

Small digital circuits consisting of basic logic gates (AND, XOR, etc.) are capable of generating surprisingly complex musical output. In this paper, we present physical and web-based interfaces for exploring the space of audio-generating logic gate networks and 'bending' such networks via touch (or mouse) gestures to interfere with their operation and change their output while they are running. This work follows in the vein of bytebeat practices, in which music is generated by short code snippets at the level of individual audio samples, but takes things further by relying on an even lower-level form of computation. In addition to presenting our system, we offer some preliminary analysis of why these logic gate networks tend to produce musical output.