Sunday Jam #30 : Conway's Life and six SID voices

Yesterday something reminded me of John Conway's Life and watching that running reminds me of the very weird and wonderful 16-step sequence of Paul McCartney's Temporary Secretary.
• 'Temporary Secretary' ...
So I ran Conway's Life - this is my own program running on my RC2014 with TMS video card and that's the video that I'll put with the music.
www.tindie.com/products/shiel...
z80kits.com/product-category/...
I felt 8-bit synth tones were called for and so I used MIDISID, with 'external MIDI' tracks in Logic.
peacockmedia.software/midisid/
0:00 teaser
0:07 waffle
1:05 the track

[@WhatHoSnorkers]

That was fun! And more interesting than the boardgame!

[@billcosgrave6232]

Fantastic! Years ago (and I mean years ago) I had a copy of Rudy Rucker's CA lab from Autodesk. I actual used to play with the various functions while listening to music. Alas, I was never cleaver enough to synchronize the two. But you did! Cheers!

[@midi_in]

Thanks Bill. You do get the feeling that it's sync'd but other than the point where the music and animation both stop, I didn't do anything to synchronise them. I don't think they are in sync but if they're close then I think a brain wants them to be.I didn't know about CA lab, I just watched a video by Rudy Rucker and there's so much more to discover than I'd imagined!

[@musicalmiscellany]

That was very clever. What a way to compose a track. It definitely had that 80s video game feel.

[@musicalmiscellany]

BTW, I had never heard that Paul McCartney track but I listened to it after you video and you're right. It's very similar.

[@midi_in]

Thank you very much Kale. I don't know if I've ever composed that way before - looking at some random data and spotting patterns that look like drum patterns or basslines. That really worked well for me. I really love the sequencer in Temporary Secretary - it's the main reason I want to build a 16-step sequencer. A random pattern repeating throughout the track isn't something you can do every time, but this definitely felt like that one time.

[@arthurcrime]

This took me a moment to get my head around, when I first saw it I thought a friend named Conway had croaked, and that computer of yours, what is that? Comes together rather well though, I was entranced if there is such a word.

[@midi_in]

Thanks for the comment. There's a lot to say about Conway's Life but I decided not to go into any of that in my intro and let people Google it if they want to. (Hint: There's an easter egg if you google 'Conway's Life'.) I think entranced is a word and I'm glad you felt that way. RC2014 is a homebrew 7Mhz Z80 modular computer, 70s style.

[@SimpleDIYElectroMusicProjects]

Great! That beepy-boop accompaniment sounds great - it could be the soundtrack for a 70s Sci-Fi film computer :)
I must admit I'm really not a fan of AI generated music, but I've a real soft spot for mathematical or algorithmically generated (or inspired) music. GOL is something I've always wondered about doing more with (I did a GOL sequencer once with an Arduino).
Did you see the game of life implemented using computing elements built up from the game of life itself? All good fun :)

[@midi_in]

Thanks for the comments Kevin. I hadn't seen the Life within Life before but I looked it up and it blew my mind! Did you blog about your GOL sequencer?
My beepy-boop wasn't generated algorithmically, I just put Logic in step input mode and hit a few bars-worth of random notes manually, listened back and picked the two bars that I liked best (32 steps).