8 ms·

Hey folks, I'm the creator of the site and the music on it. I'm happy people are enjoying the music. I see some people are having a rough time on mobile device

Hey folks, I'm the creator of the site and the music on it. I'm happy people are enjoying the music. I see some people are having a rough time on mobile devices so I wanted to help with that. I have found that iOS Safari will mute the site if you have your iPhone in silent mode (there might be a way for me to fix this but I haven't explored it much yet). However, you'll probably find that many of the pieces snap crackle and pop a bit on mobile devices. I'm looking into ways to improve that but for now unfortunately the best advice I have is to try it on your desktop or laptop or to try some of the less complex pieces towards the end of the list. I really appreciate the feedback; I've only done so much testing with the devices I have available so hearing from more people with a larger range of devices is super helpful. Feel free to open issues on Github as well: https://github.com/generative-music/generative.fm/issues https://github.com/generative-music/generative.fm/issues

yuchi 8y ago
This is a fantastic piece of software. I’ll use it a lot while programming. The generated performances are great.
XnoiVeX 8y ago
You may find this useful. http://euterpea.com/haskell-school-of-music/ http://euterpea.com/haskell-school-of-music/
_Codemonkeyism 8y ago
Really nice design, was there any inspiration? I would like to use something like those squares to illustrate an ebook.
- alexbainter 8y ago
  Thanks, I have to admit I really just ripped off Google Play Music's interface. The square icons were inspired by the album art for Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto's "Virus" series of albums. I made a program which generates them for me. The way it works is to split the square into squares, rectangles, and triangles, and then randomly choose which to stroke and fill.
  - _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
    Thanks! Your reply is much appreciated.
  - richardhod 8y ago
    This sounds really interesting. However if you do want to distribute this widely, I would check if they have any patents on their devices because stupid American IP laws.
savrajsingh 8y ago
Does everyone hear the same unique piece or is the generator client side and random per device?
- alexbainter 8y ago
  It is generated client side, so each time you click play the music will be unique to that performance.
  - lost_my_pwd 8y ago
    Any thoughts about making the client-side "seed" saveable? Would love to be able to save/replay/share sections that I really enjoyed (e.g. bookmark the seed(s) + offset/range).
boomskats 8y ago
Great job. I'd pay $5 a month for this.
smoussa 8y ago
Great stuff. Look into Fourier transformation / inverse Fourier transformations and clipping to remove the crackling sound.
- Pyxl101 8y ago
  Can you elaborate? Why would a transform be needed only on mobile devices? Why wouldn't the OS handle whatever's needed to produce audio in a platform-agnostic way, especially on the web? Very interested to know more.
  - amelius 8y ago
    I suspect the commenter meant that when the buffer runs empty because the device can't compute new samples quickly enough, the last seen power spectrum (power versus frequency) is briefly maintained in the output. This filler is computed by a cheaper process.
- boomlinde 8y ago
  The crackling is probably due to missed buffers. Additional processing of the sound would likely only serve to exacerbate the problem.
emayljames 8y ago
A heads up. Your site seems to be fingerprinting my device through audio (firefox addin for audio fingerprint blocking).
- yorwba 8y ago
  Have you confirmed that the add-on doesn't simply trigger if a website uses the WebAudio API? All fingerprinting techniques also have legitimate applications. If they could be reliably distinguished from non-malicious uses, browsers would have blocked them long ago.
- dave84 8y ago
  So a website designed to play sound is accessing your sound information?
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    ...yes, otherwise, how would it play sound?
tym0 8y ago
This is fantastic. I love that it is a progressive web app. It would be nice to have a feature to populate the cache in one tap, so I can take it with me in the underground without having to play each song first.
retsibsi 8y ago
I just left a top-level comment, but this is an old topic now so I don't know if you'll see it -- I wanted to thank you for making this and releasing it for free; it really helped me to find the kind of calm concentration that usually eludes me.
- alexbainter 8y ago
  You're very welcome, I'm glad you're enjoying the music and thank you for commenting. I'm excited some people are offering to pay for the site but I intend to keep all of the music free so as many people can enjoy it as possible. I also like to listen when I need to concentrate. That's really the reason I made the site, so I have something to listen to while I work.
  - gregknicholson 8y ago
    You could keep the site free while still allowing people to pay for it if they want to. (A service like Liberapay might make this easy for you to do.)
leokennis 8y ago
Really loving it. I think on iOS it’s possible to have a Safari tab keep playing audio in the background. listentothe.cloud at least does this. With your site, audio stops as soon as I close Safari. As stated in other comments, if this was an app (in my Mac menu bar and/or on my iPhone) this would be the quickest $3-5/month I’d spend.
zoeysaurusrex 8y ago
This is wonderful! Thank you
sh87 8y ago
Came here just to say how clear your website is. The music itself is great - been listening for quite a while. Thanks for this.
m-p-3 8y ago
Do you have any plan to make this works as a progressive web app? Would really enjoy having this on my phone, and optionally have it works while offline (with cached files, etc). Thanks for this, I've been using it since yesterday :)
- alexbainter 8y ago
  Thanks, glad you like it! Have you tried using it offline? It should already work as you described, though I have to admit I've only tested in Chrome. The caveat is that you can only play songs offline if they were played online once before. I realize none of this information is communicated in the app, I need to do a better job of that.
miguelmota 8y ago
Thanks for explaining how to make it work on iPhone. Adding a notice message for iPhone users to disable silent mode on their phone would be good since I would have never guessed.
- alexbainter 8y ago
  Agreed, I'll either be fixing it or including some explanation in the next release. Thanks!
  - miguelmota 8y ago
    Cool! Love the music btw, awesome work!
Imagenuity 8y ago
Is there a meaning to the colors and shapes in each the rectangles? Interesting project, enjoying it a lot!

yuchi 8y ago

This is a fantastic piece of software. I’ll use it a lot while programming. The generated performances are great.

XnoiVeX 8y ago

You may find this useful. http://euterpea.com/haskell-school-of-music/ http://euterpea.com/haskell-school-of-music/

_Codemonkeyism 8y ago

Really nice design, was there any inspiration? I would like to use something like those squares to illustrate an ebook.

alexbainter 8y ago
Thanks, I have to admit I really just ripped off Google Play Music's interface. The square icons were inspired by the album art for Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto's "Virus" series of albums. I made a program which generates them for me. The way it works is to split the square into squares, rectangles, and triangles, and then randomly choose which to stroke and fill.
- _Codemonkeyism 8y ago
  Thanks! Your reply is much appreciated.
- richardhod 8y ago
  This sounds really interesting. However if you do want to distribute this widely, I would check if they have any patents on their devices because stupid American IP laws.

savrajsingh 8y ago

Does everyone hear the same unique piece or is the generator client side and random per device?

alexbainter 8y ago
It is generated client side, so each time you click play the music will be unique to that performance.
- lost_my_pwd 8y ago
  Any thoughts about making the client-side "seed" saveable? Would love to be able to save/replay/share sections that I really enjoyed (e.g. bookmark the seed(s) + offset/range).

boomskats 8y ago

Great job. I'd pay $5 a month for this.

smoussa 8y ago

Great stuff. Look into Fourier transformation / inverse Fourier transformations and clipping to remove the crackling sound.

Pyxl101 8y ago
Can you elaborate? Why would a transform be needed only on mobile devices? Why wouldn't the OS handle whatever's needed to produce audio in a platform-agnostic way, especially on the web? Very interested to know more.
- amelius 8y ago
  I suspect the commenter meant that when the buffer runs empty because the device can't compute new samples quickly enough, the last seen power spectrum (power versus frequency) is briefly maintained in the output. This filler is computed by a cheaper process.
boomlinde 8y ago
The crackling is probably due to missed buffers. Additional processing of the sound would likely only serve to exacerbate the problem.

emayljames 8y ago

A heads up. Your site seems to be fingerprinting my device through audio (firefox addin for audio fingerprint blocking).

yorwba 8y ago
Have you confirmed that the add-on doesn't simply trigger if a website uses the WebAudio API? All fingerprinting techniques also have legitimate applications. If they could be reliably distinguished from non-malicious uses, browsers would have blocked them long ago.
dave84 8y ago
So a website designed to play sound is accessing your sound information?
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  ...yes, otherwise, how would it play sound?

tym0 8y ago

This is fantastic. I love that it is a progressive web app. It would be nice to have a feature to populate the cache in one tap, so I can take it with me in the underground without having to play each song first.

retsibsi 8y ago

I just left a top-level comment, but this is an old topic now so I don't know if you'll see it -- I wanted to thank you for making this and releasing it for free; it really helped me to find the kind of calm concentration that usually eludes me.

alexbainter 8y ago
You're very welcome, I'm glad you're enjoying the music and thank you for commenting. I'm excited some people are offering to pay for the site but I intend to keep all of the music free so as many people can enjoy it as possible. I also like to listen when I need to concentrate. That's really the reason I made the site, so I have something to listen to while I work.
- gregknicholson 8y ago
  You could keep the site free while still allowing people to pay for it if they want to. (A service like Liberapay might make this easy for you to do.)

leokennis 8y ago

Really loving it. I think on iOS it’s possible to have a Safari tab keep playing audio in the background. listentothe.cloud at least does this. With your site, audio stops as soon as I close Safari. As stated in other comments, if this was an app (in my Mac menu bar and/or on my iPhone) this would be the quickest $3-5/month I’d spend.

zoeysaurusrex 8y ago

This is wonderful! Thank you

sh87 8y ago

Came here just to say how clear your website is. The music itself is great - been listening for quite a while. Thanks for this.

m-p-3 8y ago

Do you have any plan to make this works as a progressive web app? Would really enjoy having this on my phone, and optionally have it works while offline (with cached files, etc). Thanks for this, I've been using it since yesterday :)

alexbainter 8y ago
Thanks, glad you like it! Have you tried using it offline? It should already work as you described, though I have to admit I've only tested in Chrome. The caveat is that you can only play songs offline if they were played online once before. I realize none of this information is communicated in the app, I need to do a better job of that.

miguelmota 8y ago

Thanks for explaining how to make it work on iPhone. Adding a notice message for iPhone users to disable silent mode on their phone would be good since I would have never guessed.

alexbainter 8y ago
Agreed, I'll either be fixing it or including some explanation in the next release. Thanks!
- miguelmota 8y ago
  Cool! Love the music btw, awesome work!

Imagenuity 8y ago

Is there a meaning to the colors and shapes in each the rectangles? Interesting project, enjoying it a lot!