Creative sounds

6 examples. Each block is the grid as the app loads it (a . is an empty cell). Open in Chipgrid opens it ready to play; or pick it from the app’s EXAMPLES menu.

Laser battle

A laser is a high note falling fast: o at the end of P is a drop of 24 semitones, here over 3 ticks. 0Rb gives each shot a different start. The second gun fires every 9 ticks against the first one’s 6, and low noise Nd80 makes the explosion. Try a longer length: 3 → 8 turns zaps into falling bombs.

# LASER BATTLE #
.
1D60Rb
..P6.03o
.F3
.
1D9
..P4E13o
.
1Dw
..Nd80..# explosion #
.F1

Open in Chipgrid ↗ · 120 BPM

Power-up

Video-game rewards go up, fast. One note per tick for eight ticks, climbing two octaves, then silence. Each note lasts only one tick, so your ear hears one rising gesture, not a tune. Reverse the notes (oljhbGEC) and it turns into “game over”.

# POWER-UP #
.
1Cg
..S********00000000
...1Cg
..J..SCEGbhjlo
...P4.21

Open in Chipgrid ↗ · 110 BPM

Ocean

The sea is noise with a slowly moving pitch. The wave gWf sweeps N’s pitch from 0 (bright hiss) to f (low rumble) over about ten seconds. N is replayed every 4 ticks for 4 ticks, so it never stops. A falling pulse now and then is the gull. On the screen, bars rise from the bottom through a ripple =.

# OCEAN #
.
..1D4
.
...JgWf...# waves #
....N.40
.
1Ds
..P5G04c..# gull #
.
H0mw2
=6c4
M21
T1

Open in Chipgrid ↗ · 90 BPM

Siren

A wave W writes directly into P’s note, and P plays on every tick. At normal speed that is a staircase of notes. This example runs at 480 BPM, where the steps are so short they blur into a glide: very high tempo isn’t only for fast music, it is also how you get smooth sounds. Lower the BPM to hear the steps come back. (In multiplayer, examples don’t change the room’s tempo: type 480 in the BPM box.) Keep W’s max at 9: from 10 up, values are read as note letters and the sweep jumps around.

# SIREN #
.
.1D1
.
..J.8W9
...P5.21

Open in Chipgrid ↗ · 480 BPM

Robot talk

G plays its chord so fast that you hear one buzzing note with a strange colour, not separate notes. 0R7 picks a new chord type on every hit, so the colour keeps changing while the pitch stays put: that sounds surprisingly like speech. High random blips P6 are the robot’s thinking. Try a clock in place of the R for a robot reciting the same phrase.

# ROBOT TALK #
.
1D3.0R7
..G3C.2
.
1D50Rb
..P6.01

Open in Chipgrid ↗ · 130 BPM

The chip listens

The bass has no melody of its own. I0 measures how loud channel 0 is right now, and that number picks a step of the bass’s S: as each melody note fades, the bass walks through the scale. The melody plays every 5 ticks and the bass every 2, which settles into a repeating five-note figure. Only the melody’s rhythm is written: change its 5s and the bass line changes by itself.

# THE CHIP LISTENS TO ITSELF #
.
..5C8
1D5.SCEGEAGED
..P4.25
.
....I0
.1D2.SCDEGAbj.# melody volume picks the note #
...B2.2

Open in Chipgrid ↗ · 116 BPM