Matt twittered this thing called the ToneMatrix by André Michelle, which is a nifty Flash piece that combines a musical sequencer with visual effects. It was interesting to play with because I started by making what I thought would be interesting musical patterns, and they did in fact sound pretty and interesting, and then I realized that you can pretty much just scribble any old thing on there and it still sounds good because it’s all keyed together. It’s the harmonica of Flash music sequencers.

But! That same fact means that you can have some faith that, if you copy any arbitrary simple black-and-white pattern onto it, it won’t sound awful. I’ve been thinking about pixel art for a secret project anyway, so I started drawing some 8-bit sprites onto it. You can highlight and copy one of the strings of numbers below, then go to the ToneMatrix page, right-click on it and hit paste see it yourself.

I think the fire flower is the prettiest!

  • 0,12288,18432,85744,110476,130366,126766,63750,30982,63750,126302,130916,118092,84180,20576,12288
  • 3968,7392,30800,38984,68808,69572,81892,68852,67708,79996,67700,68840,40904,31120,4320,3968
  • 960,17456,47112,71952,77984,86160,127240,69636,69636,127240,86160,77984,71952,47112,17456,960
  • 7168,8960,82048,49216,57504,12176,76040,42504,26120,108808,20368,8352,8256,24704,123648,7168
  • 48,62408,68740,69636,40964,24584,49668,82178,81922,49154,16610,17412,8424,6148,1924,120
  • 0,3584,768,7552,10320,18528,21184,4224,4224,21184,18528,10320,7552,768,3584,0
  • 101888,97160,68254,68850,69780,74228,84466,87330,71138,81856,51072,51072,74496,79128,85862,115010
  • 60816,118200,104892,113596,113556,105428,121812,56024,40152,7752,23624,18700,10540,47400,114088,101680
  • 4672,1042,8872,1344,2720,38720,11920,24424,6096,7120,28648,1936,23360,1152,43304,144