Overview
What is FractMus?
FractMus is a freeware algorithmic-music generator, that is, it creates musical material using mathematical formulas.
Since the times of Ancient Greece, people have realized that music and mathematics had a very close relationship, maybe because music is the most abstract form of art. Using mathematics explicitly to create music is nevertheless something of our time. Without the help of the modern computer it would be a daunting task (if not an impossible one) to do all the necessary calculations by hand.
FractMus will create no masterpiece for you, nor it was designed for that. Think of it as a tool which gives you raw material that you can later use in your compositions. Writing a midi file and later importing it with music-editing programs such as Finale or Encore gives you the invaluable option of seeing your creation as a musical score, with all the correct pitches and durations, for later editing. FractMus uses only a few of the infinity of possible algorithms for note creation. Some of them exhibit fractal behavior, like the Morse-Thue sequence, Henon attractor, gingerbread man fractal, etc, while others use well-known formulas from chaotic dynamics, like the Logistic Map.
System Requirements
FractMus is an old Windows program. It only works up to Windows 7. It no longer works in newer versions of Windows. However, you can still use it by installing a Windows Xp or Widows 7 Virtual machine. There are instructions in the Download section on how to do this.