New Binary Synth Allows You to Play Binary Code Within Any Given File

video upload by Max Alyokhin

This should go without saying, but don't drop any sensitive, private, or personal files.

"Demo: https://bs.stranno.su

Source code and application principle: https://github.com/MaxAlyokhin/binary...

A web-synthesizer that generates sound from the binary code of any files. It can synthesize sound directly in the browser, or be a generator of MIDI messages to external devices or DAWs, turning any file into a score. All the application code is written in Javascript and along with everything you need is packed into a single .html file of about 750kb. The synthesizer doesn't need internet, it can be downloaded and run locally on any device with a browser.

0:00 Speed changes
0:57 Noise/IDM (with Ableton processing)
3:16 IDM (with Ableton processing)
4:39 Drone/Ambient (without any processing, 5 instances)
15:49 Drone/Ambient (without any processing, 2 instances)
20:17 Drone (with Ableton processing)
21:10 Drone/Ambient (with Ableton processing)
24:46 Postminimalism/Aleatoric (MIDI to Ableton virtual synthesizer)
25:31 Glitch (MIDI to Ableton virtual sampler)

On 24:46 is "Composition for prepared file of the own source code", you can listen full here:"

Composition for prepared file of the own source code

video upload by Max Alyokhin

0:00 I
9:35 II
11:51 III
18:24 IV
20:13 V
23:06 VI
26:08 VII

All data on any computer or smartphone is in the form of files. The contents of these files are ultimately just zeros and ones. And these zeros and ones are basically all the same, so we need an interpreter to extract meaning from these texts. Basically, the file format (.mp3, .docx, etc.) is just a pointer to which interpreter we need to pass the text in order to extract meaning from it.

But what if the file format and the interpreter don't match? In the case of musical experimentation, there have been earlier attempts, for example, to "play" a file through an audio editor, which expectedly produced mostly glitch and noise; it might be more interesting from a conceptual than a musical point of view.

We could go further and write our own interpreter that would look at the files without regard to format, use its own "manner of reading" the original zeros and ones, and on that basis provide a complete system for controlled synthesis of sounds.

The tool, called Binary synth, is available at: https://bs.stranno.su.

The application is a web synthesizer that runs in the browser and is written in Javascript. All the application code along with everything needed is packed into a single .html file of about 750kb.

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