7 ms·
Daft Punk Easter Egg in the BPM Tempo of Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger?
- xvxvx 10mo agoThinking back to when Aphex Twin encoded his face into a track: https://www.bastwood.com/?page_id=10 https://www.bastwood.com/?page_id=10
- josefx 10mo agoMick Gordon hid satanic symbols in the DOOM 2016 soundtrack.
- styluss 10mo agoAnd Venetian Snares encoded his cat https://eeggs.com/items/46956.html https://eeggs.com/items/46956.html
- tantalor 10mo agoAnd Benn encoded a bird into birdsong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQCP-5g5bo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCQCP-5g5bo
- gaazoh 10mo agoAnd Disasterpeace encoded a puzzle in the Fez soundtrack: https://blog.krzyhau.pl/fez-spectrograms-adventure https://blog.krzyhau.pl/fez-spectrograms-adventure (and nobody has solved it in over a decade!) Also, C418 put a creeper face in Minecraft's soundtrack.
- afandian 10mo agoThanks for the reminder of eeggs.com! It still has an Easter egg I found in my printer that I submitted 25 years ago. I wonder how many models of obsolete hardware that site documents...
- duskwuff 10mo agoInto the final track of an album titled "Songs About My Cats", titled "Look". :3 There's a better visualization of the track here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHup81lEjqo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHup81lEjqo
- gregoryl 10mo agoIt shouldn't be surprising to see people who know Venetian Snares on here! If you're up for it, trade a music rec? Try: Scorpion Mother - Thief https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3113EQvLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3113EQvLg
- wonger_ 10mo agoI found Venetian Snares last year and one of their songs made my year-in-review: https://wonger.dev/posts/2025#music https://wonger.dev/posts/2025#music Certain Indian music and metal seems to scratch a similar itch for me. And of course orchestra and drum n bass.
- egypturnash 10mo agohuh that's some pretty decent gothy noises
- jasongill 10mo agoit's worth noting that the parent commenter's link includes a good render of this easter egg in the article as well (it's the last one on the page)
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- blauditore 10mo agoI did silly things like this as teenager too. Always thought it would be a nice way to hide secret messages on an open signal.
- possibleworlds 10mo agoReminded me of this video covering his use of Metasynth and other obscure software in early tracks on yt https://youtu.be/5wIOBBodoic https://youtu.be/5wIOBBodoic
- altairprime 10mo agoThis is thematically amazing when you consider what the song is about — the roboticization of the abducted band. (Music video:) https://youtu.be/gAjR4_CbPpQ https://youtu.be/gAjR4_CbPpQ In this song, which is also chapter four of the movie Interstella 5000 movie (spoilers from here!), the knocked-out singers are scanned, parameterized, brainwashed, uploaded into The Matrix, and then used in the following songs of the movie-album to robotically mass produce music. It makes perfect sense that the BPM is 123.45 because that’s exactly the sort of thing you get when a manager (who’s shown at the end!) just enters some numbers on the keyboard into the bpm field. They don’t keysmash the numpad; they just hit 123456789 until the field is full! So not only does the song itself convey what some boss thinks is music, robotically beating at 123.45 bpm, but it is itself about being endlessly-rotating brainwashed-boring cogs in a pop music production industrial machine. I’m pretty sure the movie scene cuts and animations are timed specifically to the beats of the song, but knowing that they’re timed to a machine-specific bpm that a human would never select at random with a metronome? Absolute genius. I had no idea. Thanks for posting this. EDIT: At 123.4567bpm, I think the track has precisely 0.2345 seconds of silence before the first 'beat' of the song and actually has 456 beats total, which is either numerological nonsense or pure genius by Daft Punk. Math elsethread :)
- rightbyte 10mo agoIt surely adds a nice flavor to one of their best songs. There wont be one time when the song is played from now on where I wont proclaim the this specific trivia.
- manytimesaway 10mo ago
- brcmthrowaway 10mo agoTell me when we can get realtime stem splitting!
- shermantanktop 10mo agoYou already have a hardware-accelerated pair attached to your head!
- svantana 10mo agoNow. For example in Algoriddim DJay
- jonas21 10mo agoThere's a minor issue with the calculations. It should be: 60 * 445 / 216.276 = 123.453365145 60 * 445 / 216.282 = 123.449940356 Not the other way around. And since the timing is only given with millisecond accuracy, the bpm should be rounded to the same number of significant digits: 60 * 445 / 216.276 = 123.453 60 * 445 / 216.282 = 123.450 So, it's the YouTube version that's 123.45 bpm to within the rounding error.
- altairprime 10mo agoHuh. Get out your red string and pushpins because this inspired a theory. So if the correct pair of values there ends up being 445 / 216.27000197, then it'll be: 60 * 445 / 216.27000197 = 123.456789 Or, since one of those programs had four decimals: 60 * 445 / 216.27015788 = 123.4567 Or, if it's 444/446 rather than 445: 60 * 444 / 215.78415752 = 123.4567 60 * 446 / 216.75615823 = 123.4567 But I see that they cut the "whooshing intro" at the front, which I imagine is part of the beat — they're in the hands of the machine now, after all! — so if we retroactively construct 123.4567 bpm into the silence (which, they estimate, is 5.58s): 5.58s * (123.4567bpm / 60s) = 11.4814731 beats Assuming that the half a beat of slop silence there has to do with format / process limitations with CD track-seeking rather than specific artistic intent, we get: +11 intervals @ 123.4567 bpm = 5.346s Which, when added to the original calculation, shows: 60 * (445 + 11) / (3:41.85 - (0.5.58s - 0:5.346s)) = 123.4567 bpm And so we end up with a duration of 221.616 seconds between the calculated 'first' beat, a third of a second into the song, and the measured 'last' beat from the post: 60 * 456 / 221.616 = 123.4567 bpm Or if we use the rounded 123.45 form: 60 * 456 / 221.628 = 123.45 bpm And while that 22+1.628 is-that-a-golden-ratio duration is interesting and all, the most important part here is that, with 123.4567bpm, I think it's got precisely 0.2345 seconds of silence before the first 'beat' of the song (the math checks out^^ to three digits compared against the first 'musical beat' at 5.58s!), and so I think there's actually 456 beats in the robotic 123.45 song! :D ^^ the math, because who doesn't love a parenthetical with a footnote in a red-string diagram (cackles maniacally) 5.58s - (60 * 11/123.4567) = 0.2339961 ~= 0.234 5.58057179s = 0.23456789 + (60 * 11/123.4567)
- ggus 10mo ago
- oars 10mo agoDaft Punk continues to awe us, even after their retirement. Can't believe it's been almost 20 years since Alive 2007!
- moomin 10mo agoMy supplemental question would be: what BPM is Cola Bottle Baby?
- alexjplant 10mo agoFor those not familiar "Cola Bottle Baby" is the Edwin Birdsong tune [1] that Daft Punk sampled for "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger". I heard the sample first but think I prefer the original at this point (despite the songs being different genres). Lots of interesting stuff going on with the bass guitar and chorus that's missing in the Daft Punk cut. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiD39jo5Yo4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiD39jo5Yo4
- fenwick67 10mo agoThis is true with many of Daft Punk's tracks imo, when listening to the original and then going back to the Daft Punk version it feels like a downgrade because of missing instruments and structure
- relaxing 10mo agoI count it at 116 bpm. Nice and funky, just like mama liked it.
- chews 10mo agoDaft Punk are totally of the smart sort to do this kind of easteregg. They're just a clever band, another fun Daft Punk easter egg, they were in a band with Phoenix called Darlin'. (Daft Punk got their name from a review of the Darlin' record)
- HelloUsername 10mo agoJust tried this in Reaper. It's actually much closer to 123.47 Anyway that album, Discovery, is full of funny bits. Track #11 Veridis Quo sounds like "very disco". Turn those two words around, and you got the album's title.
- rightbyte 10mo agoDid you mark or like did a FFT of some sort?
- HelloUsername 10mo agoI imported the .wav track from the CD, manually put the BPM on 123.45, cut the first 21 seconds intro out (easier to sync on the main beat), and from there started dragging the track and adjusting the BPM, so that the first bar of the song and the last bar of the song were still on beat. My findings is that it's somewhere between .47 and .48
- kupopuffs 10mo agothat part you bit off could account for the difference?
- deleted 10mo ago[deleted]
- analog31 10mo agoThat would be about 160 ppm off, more than I'd expect if the track was recorded digitally and set to 123.45
- bargainbin 10mo agoI’ve listened to this album so many times and cannot believe I’ve never noticed Veridis Quo is literally Very Disco.
- lajarre 10mo agoin verlan, Discovery is pronounced “verydisco”
- boca_honey 10mo ago[flagged]
- khazhoux 10mo agoWhich part of that two line comment made you think it was AI generated?? Are you imagining he did something like this: prompt> You are a commenter on a popular tech-focused discussion forum. Write a comment about how Daft Punk still surprises us, despite the fact that they're retired. Include a note about how much time has passed since they last performed. Also, include the album name itself. The comment should be brief and mildly enthusiastic. Phrase it in such a way as to attract many upvotes from community members. chatgpt> Daft Punk continues to awe us, even after their retirement. Can't believe it's been almost 20 years since Alive 2007! --- I swear, the AI Policing around here is getting annoying.
- boca_honey 10mo ago[flagged]
- bar000n 10mo ago[flagged]
- boca_honey 10mo agoWell at least the last jokey comment was somewhat amusing. What does this even mean? No need to be defensive about this. I just want to know what compels some people to automate HN comments with AI. This site doesn't have the same social incentive as Reddit or some other social media hellhole. Maybe HN should hide the number of votes to get around this.
- khazhoux 10mo agoYou decided it was AI (doesn’t look it to me) and are AI-policing. If you think AI comments lower the quality of HN discussions, then I’m just letting you know that accusing people because their grammar doesn’t seem natural to you, is also bad.
- anigbrowl 10mo agoAlmost all electronic music is synced to a sequencer and so obviously is going to have a very steady tempo. Haha if only Well the tempo is steady by human standards, but latency and jitter on timing signals are recurring issues in electronic music. Some devices put out very steady timing but don't like being slaved to another device, bugs can creep in at loop points or pattern switching (even on Roland's latest flagship drum machine, which costs most of $3000), things can get messy if there is too much note/controller data and so on.
- zero_bias 10mo agoUsually top electronic studios use external clock sync device which prevents that kind of issues, I’m sure that Daft Punk uses it too
- JodieBenitez 10mo agoProbably not on this album.
- zero_bias 10mo agoWhy not? It’s a common equipment and it’s not count as "digital device forbidden in analog studio" as you connect synth directly to it, just to make sure that your front waves are in sync
- JodieBenitez 10mo agoFirst, it's not that common. These are specialized tools you won't find in every producers tool belt. Not everyone cares that much about midi clock accuracy or many people will just circumvent the problem. Also, like homework, Discovery is very much a homestudio album, recorded at Bangalter's place. That's not what "top electronic studios" are. Ultimately we don't know and this whole thread is like seeing pictures in clouds to me.
- MomsAVoxell 10mo ago
- Rebelgecko 10mo agoIs the tempo continuous? It's also possible the tempo just shifts between 123.4 and 123.5 to average out to 123.45
- default-kramer 10mo ago> But for the time being there remain a few things that humans can do very easily which computers find difficult. Along with counting traffic lights and crosswalks, one of those things is finding the exact BPM of a song. Not an estimate like most software does, but the exact value with extreme precision across the entire song. I thought BPM detection has been extremely precise for some time now (for electronic music anyway). Does this mean when software like Mixxx reports (for example) 125 BPM the raw output of the algorithm might have been 124.99, but some higher logic replaces it with an even 125?
- tibbon 10mo agoI'd have to check, but I wonder what pitch the song is in? Could have it just been sped up ever so slightly in mastering, or even just between tape playback from mixing to mastering? I have to wonder if this is like Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz - viewers can imply all sorts of intent that is very unlikely to have been there originally. A small mistake or tweak in any layer of processing could have easily done this.
- zero_bias 10mo agoIt’s important for electronic music to have consistent and predictable pitch, otherwise djs on stage will have hard time to play (they loop a start of the song and play it together with tail loop of previous song), so Daft Punk need to intentionally choose fractional BPM as mastering engineers will not change pitch even slightly
- InfiniteAscent 10mo agoDJs routinely change the playback speed to match tempos. It’s easier if a track’s tempo stays the same throughout its duration, but even if it changes, DJs will adjust the playback speed on the fly. As far as syncing is concerned, the actual value of the tempos doesn't matter at all.
- postit 10mo agoI’m not at the computer to check now, but you gotta consider that the music uses a sample from Cola Bottle Baby that was recorded in analog and most likely had transport drift when plagued in a different equipment. A lightly variation on the nominal speed can cause a fractional BPM. When that is sampled and speed/slowed in software - specially at the time the record was made, you couldn’t get exact on the beat with a digital metronome.
- Group_B 10mo agoYes, I am thinking this is mostly just a coincidence.
- matchagaucho 10mo agoSeems most likely they used an analog trick, like Varispeed, on the final mix (old Beatles trick from the 60s).
- afro88 10mo agoProbably. Their final mixing chain is quite interesting too. There's a thread on gearspace that I can't find right now, which details how they record stems into a Roland S760 sampler because it colours the sound in a pleasantly digital way.
- gfody 10mo agohaving a daft punk themed morning, was just looking at this old answer on SO https://stackoverflow.com/a/10760494 https://stackoverflow.com/a/10760494
- wiber 10mo agoYear of robot showmanship?
- manytimesaway 10mo agoVery unlikely to be an actual easter egg. This was posted on the (awful) DaftPunk subreddit a while back, and reads just like some hidden advertisement.
- kridsdale1 10mo agoAn ad for what? One of the best songs ever?
- manytimesaway 10mo agoThe tempo app that the author developed.
- enthdegree 10mo agoGood Luck Babe by Chappell Roan has a chorus that is 1 bpm slower than the verse!
- huflungdung 10mo ago[dead]
- animanoir 10mo ago[dead]
- Loughla 10mo agoOn a different but related note, the best version of this song is by Scary Pockets; https://youtu.be/RHu0ALxqUIo?si=39AqMuSrLL2zu3At https://youtu.be/RHu0ALxqUIo?si=39AqMuSrLL2zu3At
- jccx70 10mo agoPut words where they don't exist.
- internet2000 10mo agoDaft Punk was cooking up next level stuff in Discovery. Face to Face's sample breakdown still blows my mind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd7zDp35zBI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fd7zDp35zBI
- tambourine_man 10mo agoMost likely a coincidence, but the article and this thread are so cool I hope they never confirm or deny.
- dr_dshiv 10mo ago“ Computers have a rough time of this because they don’t really know how to “keep a beat”, and the algorithms that can find the beat do a lot better when they already know the estimated BPM, which is obviously a chicken/egg problem.” Incredible! Would love some science on this.
- ericzawo 10mo agoDaft Punk if you're reading this please go on tour. We only have a few years before the robots take over for real...
- JodieBenitez 10mo ago> The year is 1999 or 2000. Would the gear Daft Punk uses even support fractional BPMs? And if so out to how many decimal places? Do not assume that because a particular gear prints out a particular BPM value that the actual BPM is that. Plenty of midi gear is inaccurate.
- Pikamander2 10mo agoHere's John's Reddit post about his discovery, which he deleted for some reason: https://old.reddit.com/r/DaftPunk/comments/1phvika/did_i_just_find_a_hbfs_easter_egg_the_tempo_is/ https://old.reddit.com/r/DaftPunk/comments/1phvika/did_i_jus...
- arresin 10mo agoThis band really appealed to gen x and early millennial for some reason.
- InfiniteAscent 10mo ago"Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger" was built around a one- or two-bar loop sampled from Edwin Birdsong's "Cola Bottle Baby." Daft Punk determined that this loop had a tempo of 116.527 BPM and played it a semitone higher. 116,527 * 2 ^ (1 / 12) = 123,456 BPM
- alun 10mo agoDaft Punk are very clever in the way they make their music. Their song "One More Time" is a simple three-part sample from a 70s disco song. This video is a great visualization on how it's composed. Absolutely incredible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QwOpRh-IfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QwOpRh-IfI
- maximgeorge 10mo ago[dead]
- kachapopopow 10mo agoI listened to this song a day ago, freaky coincidence.
- Hnrobert42 10mo agoIt's funny how perspective reveals the fallacy of coincidence. To you, it seems an uncanny coincidence. To me, it seems someone heard the song and then saw this post. Given all the people who see this post, I am not surprised one of them heard that song recently.
- hnlmorg 10mo agoIt’s not a fallacy to call that a coincidence. The point of coincidences are that they’re unconnected events. So, perhaps ironically, it would be more of a fallacy to say this wasn’t a coincidence. However you are right that coincidences are easy to manufacture through volume of samples.
- jesprenj 10mo agoEven if the software didn't support it, they could just make the song at 123 BPM and speed it up a tiny bit before releasing it.
- dwringer 10mo agoIt's really a stretch for the article to suggest their gear might not have supported fractional bpm. MIDI itself has always supported it and analog sequencers before that support it even easier. Not to mention external clock sync has been a thing for decades.
- GuB-42 10mo agoI am not convinced that it is really 123.45 BPM, more like 123.48 Reasons are: - Someone here commented that Reaper gives 123.47 BPM - I implemented my own BPM finder back in the days, which is quite accurate with electronic music that doesn't change tempo, dug it out, and got a result of 123.48 BPM - I looked for files for rhythm games, and I found this https://osu.ri.mk/beatmapset/1495670 https://osu.ri.mk/beatmapset/1495670 with a listed BPM of 123.48 If you want precise BPM, I suggest looking at rhythm games (DDR/ITG stepcharts, OSU beatmaps, etc...). People playing these games really want tight timing, in the order of 10 ms or less, it means that a difference of 0.01 BPM matters. For top players, a difference of 0.03 BPM would be completely off after a couple of minutes.
- deepzn 10mo agoDaft Punk is one of my favorite artists ever but I am not familiar with all their discography(my shame and I mean to remedy that). But this was such a cool read from an obvious bigger fan than me. Half way through was only when I realized the significance of a BPM of 123.45, I didn't read it out without the decimal until then lol. And so many more fans in the comments, wow.
- mjgoeke 10mo agoWith all the talk about "does the software support fractional bpm" wouldn't you just create it at say 124bpm and then scale down to 123.45 (or whatever) by taking the total length and scaling it by that percentage (e.g. 0.99561926612903225806451612903226). You don't even need to scale it trying to keep the pitch correct. You just speed it up < half a percent, the pitch rises slightly, and you have your perfect bpm.
- bschmidt25010 10mo ago[dead]