bytebeat (format) :: Battle of the Bits Lyceum

"Bytebeat was an interesting experiment this time around. Uh, had a lot of surprises, aaaaand people, man, making...software........." - puke7 on the Spring Tracks IV resluts stream

Bytebeat was invented by Viznut of PWP fame in September of 2011. The core concept is applying an algorithm to t where t equals the number of steps in time based on the chosen sample rate. The output is 8-bit and values above 255 are wrapped. Because of the nature of this format it may be quite difficult to generate something both pleasant and unique. ;)

In 2011 Bemmu made an online version of Bytebeat that uses Javascript functions instead of C functions. and then Viznut collaborated with Bemmu to make a stereo version. Then Darius added Postfix functions on his branch of Bemmu's bytebeat editor. And finally greggman made html5bytebeat. This version adds glitch syntax, variables, functions, real-time output, floatbeat and a nicer GUI. This is probably the most used and most recommended Bytebeat editor since it provides loads of new features useful or not.

In 2021 this format's point type was changed from Mixist to the new Signalist class.

tools

html5 editor
- big visualizer (examples here
)
(a mirror of the greggman-bytebeat-tool can be found here
)
html5 editor
- stereo capable
Glitch Machine
- an iPhone app that utilizes Polish notation
Random ByteBeat Generator
- A random byteBeat generator
IBNIZ
- the original bytebeat sandbox by viznut and Bemmu. With visuals. online js version

bytebeat.js
- node.js bytebeat interpreter by funute
raw2wav
- renderer for compiled bytebeat programs by HertzDevil

further learning

great collection of demo vids

view the code from Viznut's demo videos

Kragen's brain dump

Viznut's white paper

Group Thread with tips

C A T E G O R I E S

Battle Formats