About the project

A small rhythm instrument for exploring living patterns.

Conway Cadence is an original, independent browser project. It translates the birth and survival logic associated with Conway-style cellular automata into an eight-track, sixteen-step drum sequencer. Its purpose is practical: let a musician hear a rule change, keep important cells fixed, and move backward when an experiment becomes less interesting.

Clean-room design

The interface, code, patterns, and visual identity were made specifically for this site. It does not reuse a competing product’s source code, layout, samples, name, or levels. The audio engine uses Web Audio oscillators and generated noise instead of third-party sound files.

Product principles

The next cellular state should be inspectable before it changes the beat. Controls should work with a keyboard and at a narrow mobile width. Sharing should not require an account, and recording should remain local to the browser. Those principles guide every feature on the instrument.

What it is not

This is not a scientific simulation package and does not claim to reproduce acoustic instruments. It is a creative sequencer whose deterministic grid rule can suggest rhythmic variation. For instructions, read the complete how-to page.