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When people started switching to online streaming services, like Spotify, I always hoped that something like this would replace them. This isn't quite there yet

by state 11y ago

When people started switching to online streaming services, like Spotify, I always hoped that something like this would replace them. This isn't quite there yet, and all we really have is the 'classical station', but wouldn't it be great if there were just continuously generated genre-specific streams like this? In the future we can call it 'radio'. Edit: Not sure why this seems to be attracting downvotes. Just to clarify: I'm completely serious. I wish I could just tune in to this neural net for the next few hours, and it strikes me as a perfect form of what we call radio now.

bane 11y ago
I actually think for certain genres of music this could work. Lots of pop, country, top-40 rock, certain jazz subgenres, could probably all just be generated continuously, streamed through some kind of low-bandwidth description language and a combination of local synthesis just build the song up. In certain milieus (shopping malls, background music, elevators) nobody would even notice. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/whistler/music.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/whistler/music.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRHA8hhtyHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRHA8hhtyHs
pierrec 11y ago
xoxos, who's created some of the nicest algorithmic music generators out there, asks us in a post [1] to imagine a future where creators of algorithms are considered in the same way as today's musicians, and their algorithms are considered much like today's recorded music. The audience/performers, instead of playing an audio file, could "play" an algorithm. I think we're still a few generations away from such a thing becoming mainstream, but I'd love to be proven wrong! [1]: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5210459#p5210459 http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5210459#p52104...
- sixdimensional 11y ago
  When you said "play an algorithm", it reminded me of this idea I had where I wanted to play back the execution of a running program and map the assembly or IL to notes/frequencies/instruments/sound. Literally, "playing the code as if it were music". Then I had this strange thought - what if you could monitor the cacophony of your running systems, and detect a problem, or a certain event, just by the presence of a particular audio theme or tune. I bet an infinite loop would be pretty annoying and obvious. Just as long as the server getting overloaded doesn't sound like getting rick-rolled ("Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley).
  - unimpressive 11y ago
    People did this with old computers that emitted lots of radio interference like the PDP-1. It was possible to debug in exactly the way you're describing by listening to a radio held up to the CPU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKd-TlYGuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKd-TlYGuA

by state 11y ago

bane 11y ago

I actually think for certain genres of music this could work. Lots of pop, country, top-40 rock, certain jazz subgenres, could probably all just be generated continuously, streamed through some kind of low-bandwidth description language and a combination of local synthesis just build the song up. In certain milieus (shopping malls, background music, elevators) nobody would even notice. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/whistler/music.aspx http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/whistler/music.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRHA8hhtyHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRHA8hhtyHs

pierrec 11y ago

xoxos, who's created some of the nicest algorithmic music generators out there, asks us in a post [1] to imagine a future where creators of algorithms are considered in the same way as today's musicians, and their algorithms are considered much like today's recorded music. The audience/performers, instead of playing an audio file, could "play" an algorithm. I think we're still a few generations away from such a thing becoming mainstream, but I'd love to be proven wrong! [1]: http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5210459#p5210459 http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=5210459#p52104...

sixdimensional 11y ago
When you said "play an algorithm", it reminded me of this idea I had where I wanted to play back the execution of a running program and map the assembly or IL to notes/frequencies/instruments/sound. Literally, "playing the code as if it were music". Then I had this strange thought - what if you could monitor the cacophony of your running systems, and detect a problem, or a certain event, just by the presence of a particular audio theme or tune. I bet an infinite loop would be pretty annoying and obvious. Just as long as the server getting overloaded doesn't sound like getting rick-rolled ("Never Gonna Give You Up" by Rick Astley).
- unimpressive 11y ago
  People did this with old computers that emitted lots of radio interference like the PDP-1. It was possible to debug in exactly the way you're describing by listening to a radio held up to the CPU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKd-TlYGuA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtKd-TlYGuA