This is a tutorial on how to use the 1D Cellular Automata Midi Sequencer

this app is available to use in your web browser at the above link

and will allow you to create rhythms derived from a horizontal cross section

of any of Stephen Wolfram's 1D Cellular Automata

to illustrate how the patterns are created

the app has an option to visualize the rule when I select auto run

the specified rule is repeatedly run and displayed in the bottom portion of the app

the set of operations are displayed right here

and represent how a cell will evolve on each iteration based on the 3 cells above it

for instance, for rule 30 if the cell to the top left is black,

the cell directly above is white, and the cell to the top right is white, then the cell below will be white

and all of the other possible possibilities are outlined depending on which rule is specified

you can specify any one of 0-255 rules in this field

and the Step Reset and Auto-run controls are all for the visualization of the rule

here are the controls to use for creating midi sequences

Row specifies which of the horizontal rows of the cellular automaton to use for the rhythm

for instance if I specify row 16, the rhythm is specified as 1s for notes and 0s for rests

following the pattern of black and white squares in that row

you can group together the rhythm in whatever note grouping to help visualize the pattern

you have the option to adjust the start point of the rhythm with the start index

you can see how the rhythm is getting cyclically shifted to start on the start index that I specified

there is the option to remove notes from the left or the right of the row rhythm

for instance there are 33 notes in row 16 in this example

and I would like to create a rhythm that fits into a 2 bar space

so I will remove the last note from the rhythm sequence from the right

the # of row cells are displayed as a guide to how many 16th notes are in the rhythm

you then have the selection of the notes that you want to play on the rhythm section

there are an assortment of scales that you can select from the drop down menu

or you can manually enter midi note values (middle C is 60 for example)

directly into the input box

these notes will be cycled through and played in order

for every black cell or 1 in the row rhythm

there is the option to transpose all of the notes

up or down 1 pitch value at a time

and an option to randomize the sequence of the notes

in the scale that is cycled through

here is where you can set the tempo in beats per minute

to your desired speed

the # of hits, # notes in seq, repeats after displayed values

are for reference to be able to have an idea on how the # of notes

in the note sequence interacts with the # of notes in the rhythm sequence

as in how many hits are in the rhythm sequence

and how many notes are in the MIDI note sequence

and how many times it will take to go through the row

before the 1st note is also the 1st hit of the sequence

in the below example the # of hits in the rhythm sequence is 14 (# of notes and not rests)

and the # of notes in the MIDI notes sequence is 6

repeats after is calculated to be 3

(after 3 cycles through the rhythm sequence

the 1st note in MIDI notes will be the 1st hit in the rhythm sequence again

and the pattern repeats)

the equivalence rules

as in mirror symmetric and swapping the black cells with the white cells

are displayed here for the user's reference

actual midi note sending

if you already have midi routing configured on your computer

then the available midi output device will show up to select

when you press SEND MIDI

I'm using loop be 30 to create the virtual midi ports on my windows laptop

to send the midi information to ableton but however you have your setup set up

your available midi ports should be detected

so can run this outside of your daw from the web browser

at least a piece of the application needs to remain in focus

for the midi notes to be sent accurately

to demo on mobile devices you could download FluidSynth MIDI Synthesizer

for free and it will show up as an available output to send midi from the app to

or on ios devices I find that you could download NS Midi Player

and Web MIDI Browser to load this app on

there is a lot to play around with here and I have had a lot of fun

exploring patterns to create musical ideas with

give it a go and see if you find any patterns that strike your interest