9 ms·
Google Beatbox
just listen
- MatthewRayfield 16y agoCan anybody explain why this works in German? It seems like in other languages it just reads out the letters.
- ramidarigaz 16y agoI'm guessing it's because those letter combinations are actually sounds in German, but not in any other languages (that I know of).
- eru 16y agoNot really. At least not on a naive level. None of "pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk" occurs in any German word.
- ckuehne 16y agoFatzke, Blitzkrieg, Hupverbot.
- eru 16y agoApart from Fatzke, you are cheating. And even in Fatzke, it's not in one syllable.
- ckuehne 16y agoOkay, compound nouns are probably not what you had in mind when you made your statement. But then again, your statement was pretty general. Regarding Fatzke: "zk" is not in one syllable either. At least not when I (or google) pronounce it. :)
- eru 16y ago> Regarding Fatzke: "zk" is not in one syllable either. Yes, that's what I was trying to say. But since it's not compound, it's not as bad. By the way, if you want a genuine example of strange sounds in German look at Herbst or Pfründe. Fun fact: If you can pronounce Streichholzschächtelchen, you automatically gain German citizenship.
- ramidarigaz 16y agoMy first long German word was Schwarzwälderkirschtorte. Nowhere near as difficult as yours.
- eru 16y agoThe standard example is supreme court vs Bundesverfassungsgericht. The chief difference is in spelling. I had a phase, where my German looked much more English---I put spaced inside compound words and did not capitalize all nouns. I should try capitalizing all Nouns in English one Day.
- dzohrob 16y agoIt also works in Italian and Spanish, and sorta works in French -- I'm sure it has to do with the phonemes in each language and how the languages are implemented in the text-to-speech algorithm.
- dkarl 16y agoChinese sounds like rapping. "I say H crazy": http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN|zh-CN|pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20bschk%20bschk%20pv%20kkkkkkkkkk%20bschk%0A%0A http://translate.google.com/#zh-CN|zh-CN|pv%20zk%20bschk%20p... Greek just reads the name of each letter: http://translate.google.com/#el|el|pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20bschk%20bschk%20pv%20kkkkkkkkkk%20bschk%0A%0A http://translate.google.com/#el|el|pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- arturadib 16y agoabsolutely brilliant!!
- iwr 16y agoGerman is the mother tongue of beat.
- funthree 16y agoTry translating to spanish or french, they are a little bit interesting.
- iamdave 16y agoHere's your rudiment/instrument notation zk = suspended cymbal bschk = snare pv = brush bk = bass tk = flam1 vk = roll tap kt = flam2 kttp = flam tap krp = hi hat tap pv = short roll th = better hi hat thp, ds = instant rimshot.
- eru 16y agoTry the techno-sound: Tischdecke! (Works in real life, haven't tried it on Google translate, yet. And means `table cloth'.)
- ALXfoo 16y agoLatin is very funny listen to this http://translate.google.com/#de|la|pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20bschk%20bschk%20pv%20kkkkkkkkkk%20bschk%0A%0A http://translate.google.com/#de|la|pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk...
- hboon 16y agoListen doesn't work in Safari 5.0.3?
- bbatsell 16y agoUses an invisible Flash object, so if you're using ClickToFlash or other Flash-blocking plugin you'll have to manually load the object.
- s1w 16y agoyo i gotta hear that one more time man: http://translate.google.com/#de|de|zwkkzwkkzwkkzwkk.%20pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20pv%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20zk%20pv%20bschk%20zk%20bschk%20pv%20bschk%0A%0A http://translate.google.com/#de|de|zwkkzwkkzwkkzwkk.%20pv%20...
- jjcm 16y agoAlright. I'm impressed with the rewind.
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoIt also passes first year German with flying colours: http://translate.google.com/#de|en|Der%20himmel%20ist%20blau%20und%20die%20sonne%20scheint%20und%20das%20thermometer%20zeigt%20dreizig%20Grad http://translate.google.com/#de|en|Der%20himmel%20ist%20blau....
- w1ntermute 16y agoBecause they train it with EU documents, which are required by law to be translated into all the languages of the member countries. Since the documents are made available for public use, machine translation between European languages has become significantly better in recent years because the EU documents are being used to train the software.
- reason 16y agoIf any of you want to hear some ridiculously awesome beatboxing, check out Roxorloops - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7sdo_Aj0o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7sdo_Aj0o
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- curiousepic 16y agoI prefer Beardyman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7NIxKseRus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7NIxKseRus
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- zephyrfalcon 16y agoAnd then there's this session by Beardyman and Nathan "Flutebox" Lee at Google... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kyNGVK-hI http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3kyNGVK-hI ^_^
- julian37 16y agoOn a related note, try running this on a Mac: say -v cello d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d d
- est 16y agoAlso on a related note, try Win+R this on Windows: mshta vbscript:CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice").Speak("Hello, Y Combinator")(Window.close)
- kylec 16y agoOr this: say -v cello droid
- arturadib 16y agothat's hilarious - and amazingly ironic
- kristaps 16y agoJust went through the OS X speech synth voices and I recognized some being used in quite a few electronic music productions, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK2NG28vKNw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK2NG28vKNw
- ssharp 16y agoRadiohead used the Mac voice a bit on their 'OK Computer' album. Obviously on 'Fitter Happier' and in the background on 'Paranoid Android'.
- keyle 16y agoI made my own ... http://translate.google.com/#cs|cs|babab%20tzik%20babab%20babab%20tzik%20%20ik%3B%20babab%20tzik%20babab%20babab%20tzik%20%20ik%3B%20babab%20tzik%20babab%20babab%20tzik%20ik%20tu%20ha http://translate.google.com/#cs|cs|babab%20tzik%20babab%20ba...
- jazzgroove 16y agoOk... that is awesome!... sounds like a techno/house mix
- alanh 16y agoI don’t get it, I don’t hear anything. Am I supposed to hear something? Edit Okay, there are Flash “Listen” buttons you can’t see if you don’t have Flash installed. And yet, even in a browser with Flash, I hear nothing. All I see is a button that turns light blue and dark blue. Which is “play”? This is why I always rant about piss-poor UX from Google. I still don’t hear anything. Anyone have an MP3?
- ggchappell 16y agoIt isn't just you. I don't hear anything, either. [EDIT: Fixed; see below.] Also, I agree on the poor UI design. But in any case, assuming this works, which it apparently does, for some, it's a cute idea. EDIT: Got it working. Are you running Flashblock? I am, and after I put translate.google.com into FB's whitelist, I get audio. When the button is light blue, press it. The button turns dark blue, and the sound plays. When the sound is finished, the button goes back to light blue.
- darshan 16y agoThanks for explaining this. I don't have Flash and was very confused why nonsense words being translated to the same nonsense words was of interest to anyone...
- Andrenid 16y agoSomeone build a little web app that lets you press symbols that represent each instrument, and build beats that you can loop.The google site stops letting you use the "Listen" button after a certain number of characters.
- currant 16y agoI think that this submission does not belong to the HN. It carries little educational value and I wouldn't call it deeply interesting (as described in ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html ). There isn't any effort to explain the beatbox effect. Also there are many voice synthesizers, google's is just the easiest accessible one. This is why the link seems to me just like a funny picture of a cat and I am deeply alarmed. (sorry for bad english, non-native here)
- martinkallstrom 16y agoThe defining characteristic of hacker culture is the awe of beautiful code. When the unforeseen side effects from feeding a program with edge case input are as deeply gratifying as these, it instills a sense of beauty and awe of the underlying code. As is shown by the number of upvotes, people don't come to HN to educate themselves. They come here to be awed. Education is a side effect.
- jamesbritt 16y ago"The defining characteristic of hacker culture is the awe of beautiful code." Not for me. I find the defining characteristic of hacker culture to be the inventive re-purposing of things. Google Beatbox is exemplary of this.
- csomar 16y agoI find it funny and amazing, though. I like HN for its diversity. Every time, I find something new, but I also want it to be different. I'm just starting my day (morning here) and this post made laugh and in good humor.
- currant 16y agoThere are other sites more suited for this task: reddit.com , reddit.com/r/programming , digg.com and others. As stated in http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html , "The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but shallowly interesting"
- 16y ago
- pygy_ 16y agoDrum and Bass anyone? http://translate.google.com/#de|de|bvf%20tkçshsht%20bvf%20tktkçshtktkçsh%20bvf%20tkçshsht%20bvf%20tktkçshtktkçsh%20bvf%20tkçshsht%20bvf%20tktkçshtktkçsh%20pv http://translate.google.com/#de|de|bvf%20tkçshsht%20bvf%20tk... edit: correction fr|fr => de|de
- kjf 16y ago...and so continues the long slow decline of hacker news...
- lacerus 16y agoUsing a text-to-speech engine as a musical instrument is so on-topic in my book! "On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."
- roel_v 16y agoBeatboxing seems to be a very geeky scene. Not that I know much about it, but look at the biggest names in beatboxing - most of them would blend in no problem in any CS department. Looks don't mean much, but still, on interviews these guys give off the same vibe.
- InfinityX0 16y agoOK, on the serious side, is the most upvoted story ever? If not, what is the most upvoted story ever? How about a list of the Top 25 All Time? Can I pay to see it?
- metabrew 16y agohttp://news.ycombinator.net/lists http://news.ycombinator.net/lists
- InfinityX0 16y agoThat's recent, that's not ever. I'm talking all-time Hacker News stories.
- shrikant 16y agohttp://top.searchyc.com/ http://top.searchyc.com/
- tav 16y agoYou can see the top 100 here: http://top.searchyc.com/submissions_by_points http://top.searchyc.com/submissions_by_points Google's New approach to China article is #1 atm — http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048800 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1048800
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- Kurtz79 16y agoNow waiting for Radiohead to pull out something based on this.
- nervechannel 16y agoIn case anyone from Google Translate reads this: your URLs are highly resistant to shortening services. Both is.gd and safe.mn mangled it, I think it's the pipe characters. Thankfully bit.ly works...
- cturner 16y agoWould it be practical to make remote calls to the listen function? Usage: if I want to have a webpage read speech automatically to the user after a javascript event, without showing the google page. I expect the first step would be loading the page in a hidden iframe.
- tjarratt 16y agoThat actually is fairly similar to a webapp I built in 30 minutes a few months ago. I had the idea to build a webform that lets you type in some text, and the computer reads it back. If you are using OS X, you should be able to use the `say` command to create a recording of a voice speaking a sentence. You could likely take that, pipe it into a file and serve it up in an <audio> tag and play it from javascript that way. I might try hacking my project to do exactly that. However, I think a sane solution for you would be to make use of system accessibility options or screen readers. The downside there is that you can't call into those from a user's browser.
- blr_hack 16y agoHere's one in Hindi :) http://translate.google.com/#hi|hi|%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95.%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95.%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95.%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95.%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95.%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%A4%9A%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95.%20%0A http://translate.google.com/#hi|hi|%E0%A4%AC%E0%A4%AE%20%E0%...
- phoenix24 16y agowonderful!
- anonymous 16y agoUsing cyrillic alphabet: http://translate.google.com/#ru|ru|%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%81%20%D1%8B%D1%86%20%D1%8B%D1%86%20%D1%91%D1%86%D1%89%D1%89%20%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%81%20%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%81%20%D1%8B%D1%86%20%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%86%20%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%81%20%D1%86%D1%8B%20%D1%86%D1%8B%20%D0%BA%D1%8E%20%D1%91%D1%86%D1%89%D1%89%20%D0%B1%D1%83%D0%BC%20%D0%B1%D0%B0%D1%86%20%D1%85%D1%85%D1%85%D1%85%D1%8A%0A http://translate.google.com/#ru|ru|%D1%83%D0%BA%D1%81%20%D1%...
- nagnatron 16y agoHere's a basic hiphop beat. You can use punctuation for timing: German: bk, th, bsch, th, pv, th, bschk, ds, bk, th, bsch, th, pv, th, bschk, ds Thanks to iamdave for the instrument list x)
- micalith 16y agozk zk zk vk flam2 flam2
- thorkill 16y agoth