This software generates 8-bit sound effects by an evolutionary process. You will be the one to steer the evolution towards the sound you desire to create.
An assortment of different sound effects will be presented to you for evaluation. Select the ones you prefer by clicking on them and finally pressing the evolve button when ready (click on them again to deselect). The system will then create new candidates and evolve them towards your preferences with some variation.
To assist you in the process, there are several functions on the interface which include: save, load, play, pause, reset, retry, next, prev, mutation rate, mutation size, status, and volume.
- Save and load allows you to start from previously generated populations or sounds. You can load examples from the 'populations' or 'sound effects' folder.
- Play starts playing each of the sound effects incrementally from top left to bottom right. Clicking play when it is already playing will advance it to the next sound. Each sound effect can also be played separately.
- Reset completely restarts the process, starting from scratch. A warning will show before confirmation. Reset is also useful for getting a different starting point if the current one is poor.
- Retry will bring you back to your previous population; useful if you weren't satisfied with the results and would like to go back and try again.
- Next clears the selection and presents new candidates in the current population. Prev brings you back to the previous ones. The population is sorted from highest to lowest according to their fitness (how well they match your preferences).
- Mutation size and rate modifies the randomness of the process. Smaller values make generated sounds less varied and vice versa.
- You are also able to use the keyboard which includes the arrow keys, enter, backspace, and delete.
- As the volume can become pretty loud, I would recommend not turning it up too much.
- When you are satisfied with a sound effect, you can export it as a .wav or .txt file on the computer. Saving it as .txt allows the system to be able to load the sound effect and use it as a starting point.