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William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) features a Jamaican space tug where the "righteous dub" played within is automatically generated by remixing a vast library

William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) features a Jamaican space tug where the "righteous dub" played within is automatically generated by remixing a vast library of existing music. I was fascinated by the concept when I first read about it as a budding DJ, and it's kind of exciting to see it come to fruition, even if the single tune this particular AI seems to play is pretty insipid.

IndySun 6y ago
Just started reading Neuromancer. Glad to know this.
- amatecha 6y ago
  Ah man, now you can see what the past ~37 years of sci-fi films and video games have been making little nods and allusions to all this time :)
mlang23 6y ago
This sounds like an application I want to play with. Given a playlist, generate an endless tune based on remixes of all the tracks.
- IndySun 6y ago
  That is something that would be of interest to those working with splitting audio into 'stems', drums, bass, voice, music. Algorithm DJay can do a version of that 'on the fly'. Serato Studio is a kind of remix 'on the fly', but there are many others. Both have automix settings that work very well, especially if you line up similarly grouped tracks.
  - soylentcola 6y ago
    Yeah, I've not used the "auto" features to that extent, but I've DJ'ed at a few events and festivals just for fun and it's super convenient to have software that has analyzed my music library for BPM and key. I still get to play whatever I want to play, but if I'm drawing a blank or just looking for inspiration, I can sort by all tracks within "n" BPM of the current track and in the same/compatible key. Then if I really want to play something that wouldn't normally fit with an easy transition, I can always adjust they key or tempo on the fly. There are limits before it starts to sound weird, but that can also be a neat way to mess with a song. Add a riff or a phrase from one song into the current one, but only because I'm able to halve the speed or chop up the time signature to match. And that's just me as a barely fluent hobbyist. Experienced DJs can do some great stuff. Even a non-"mixing" DJ like a radio DJ can string together songs based on thematic connections, sneaky relations between artist or lyric or even the conditions in the room. Those can be a lot of fun and would be a lot harder to automate than simple beat matching.

IndySun 6y ago

Just started reading Neuromancer. Glad to know this.

amatecha 6y ago
Ah man, now you can see what the past ~37 years of sci-fi films and video games have been making little nods and allusions to all this time :)

mlang23 6y ago

This sounds like an application I want to play with. Given a playlist, generate an endless tune based on remixes of all the tracks.

IndySun 6y ago
That is something that would be of interest to those working with splitting audio into 'stems', drums, bass, voice, music. Algorithm DJay can do a version of that 'on the fly'. Serato Studio is a kind of remix 'on the fly', but there are many others. Both have automix settings that work very well, especially if you line up similarly grouped tracks.
- soylentcola 6y ago
  Yeah, I've not used the "auto" features to that extent, but I've DJ'ed at a few events and festivals just for fun and it's super convenient to have software that has analyzed my music library for BPM and key. I still get to play whatever I want to play, but if I'm drawing a blank or just looking for inspiration, I can sort by all tracks within "n" BPM of the current track and in the same/compatible key. Then if I really want to play something that wouldn't normally fit with an easy transition, I can always adjust they key or tempo on the fly. There are limits before it starts to sound weird, but that can also be a neat way to mess with a song. Add a riff or a phrase from one song into the current one, but only because I'm able to halve the speed or chop up the time signature to match. And that's just me as a barely fluent hobbyist. Experienced DJs can do some great stuff. Even a non-"mixing" DJ like a radio DJ can string together songs based on thematic connections, sneaky relations between artist or lyric or even the conditions in the room. Those can be a lot of fun and would be a lot harder to automate than simple beat matching.