MetaFilter posts tagged with software and music

The 'Democratization of Music.'

Lutoslawski — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 11:07:36 -0800

uPlaya uses algorithms to determine if a song will be a hit. Brought to you by Music Intelligence Solutions, the uPlaya software uses spectral deconvolution to rate a song on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being assurance that the song will be a hit. Ostensibly, the software can be used to sell new bands to record labels if a song achieves a ranking of platinum or better. According to Harvard Business School, the software is accurate 8 out of 10 times. The software is a finalist for the Creative Coast's Innovation Awards. A vodpod documentary about uPlaya. The uPlaya blog.

Vocaloid Storytime

anthy — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 13:44:59 -0800

The Vocaloids,¹ anime-like characters created for the singing synthasizer program by the Yamaha Corporation, have been capturing the imaginations of Japanese fans for more than a year. They've inspired and starred in a large body of fan-produced songs and animated videos,² ranging from macabre to sorrowful to dramatic to humorous. [Massive MLYTP] Take Alice Human Sacrifice, the story of a small dream who just wants to survive. Or an alternate version...and a few more unsubtitled but progressively creepier and bloodier adaptations. In the mood for something a bit more SF? Check out Kokoro Kiseki, the story of a scientist who creates a cute girl robot without a heart. Then follow it up with the sequel from the robot's point of view. Or watch an alternate mix of both viewpoints.³ Or watch Daughter of Evil, the saga of an irredeemably wicked princess who gets her just deserts. Or does she? Round out the trilogy with a message of regret. Or visit two alternate viewpoints to get the full story.⁴ For the tale of a psychotic lover, see Cantarella.⁵ Or visit the nightmarish Dark Woods Circus. Looking for something a bit lighter? How about the story of the most high-maintenance girlfriend ever? Then watch the reply from a male point-of-view. Or two. Finish up by witnessing a proposal. Or just watch the twins being dorks. ¹Previously on Metafilter here and here. Since the last post, a set of vocaloid twins has also been released, and a new bilingual vocaloid character is slated for release on January 30. ²Often posted to Nico Nico Video, then later ported to Youtube. I've tried to link the English subtitled version of the video where possible, but in some cases there were multiple alternate versions and it was hard to choose. A few alternates I couldn't fit in:

³Rin's version alts: 1, 2, 3D Animation. Manga version. Untranslated: Alt animation for Len's version.
⁴The Servant of Evil and Regret Message with alternate animation. Untranslated alts for Daughter of Evil and Servant of Evil: 1, 2.
⁵Alternate untranslated version.

People doing strange things with electricity

funkiwan — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:59:04 -0800

Dorkbot is a "monthly meeting of artists (sound/image/movement/whatever), designers, engineers, students, scientists, and other interested parties who are involved in the creative use of electricity." Started in NYC in 2000 by Douglas Repetto, Director of Research at the Columbia University Computer Music Center as well as one of Wired's 10 Sexiest Geeks, there are now dozens all over the world. Past presenters have been featured here on the blue. For instance Jeff Han presented his multi-touch interface at dorkbot-nyc in April of 2006. Miru Kim presented her naked city spleen at dorkbot-nyc in October of 2006. Bummed that there's not one in your own city? Start your own! The NYC meetings (first Wednesday of the month) are very casual and draw an eclectic range of presenters. A great mix of software and hardware mixed with various artistic influences. Would love to hear how they are run in other cities if anyone's been.

Animata

Blazecock Pileon — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:46:02 -0800

Animata is an open source real-time animation software, designed to create animations, interactive background projections for concerts, theatre and dance performances.

El Compa Vs The Cisco Kid

Artw — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:47:51 -0800

Would you like some Narco ballards with your network software?

Buzz reloaded

deusdiabolus — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:39:11 -0800

Oskari Tammelin picks up where he left off. Jeskola Buzz, a flexible and formidable (and free) piece of music composition software created in the late 90's by Oskari, had its growth unexpectedly stunted by a hard drive crash. Oskari indicated no immediate desire to continue the project at the time, but users of the software were so enamored with it they continued to create plug-ins, enhancements and hacks to pick up where the program left off. Oskari made the replay code available to those who wanted to develop software around the Buzz engine (for a price) and soon a number of Buzz clones followed, including variations for Mac and Linux. And so the Buzz community ran...until last week...

Nintendo DS: Is that a music production studio in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

lekvar — Thu, 22 May 2008 20:20:25 -0800

Looking for a new musical toy to supplement your current studio setup? You may already have a MIDI-via-WiFi-enabled* sequencer (1, 2)/drum-and-bass groovebox/audio sampler & scratcher/Mod Tracker in your pocket!
*a wired version is also available. Videos of the software in use: GrooveStep Korg DS-10 DScratch (warning: may be a little loud) NitroTracker: 1, 2 Compiled from Create Digital Music and other sources.

Ubuntu Studio Released!

phrontist — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:02:28 -0800

Ubuntu Studio is a Linux distribution focused on creative audiovisual pursuits.

Iannis Xenakis Lives On

hama7 — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:15:57 -0800

Iannis Xenakis Lives On

Open-source hardware projects for the electronic artist

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 12 Aug 2006 13:06:25 -0800

To work around the proprietary whims of digital audio software developers and laptop processor limitations during the mid- and late-1990s, a small band of technically-minded people, including the electronic musician Blitter, pulled together in the late 1990s to engineer the open-source OPEN DSP EZ-Kit platform, a 16-bit computer designed entirely with a focus on low cost and extensible control and DSP arithmetic capabilities. While this project and similar commercial offerings never seemed to gain the critical mass needed to sustain long-term interest, perhaps the new Arduino hardware project from MIT's Processing hardware group may gain a foothold with Processing and Pure Data audio software hobbyists and artists alike, allowing the creative community to extend, enhance and share inventive uses of new technology. Arduino's use has already begun in fascinating museum installations around the world, and has become a part of this year's SONAR and Ars Electronica festivals.

Open-source music library app

mrgrimm — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 10:37:28 -0800

Anybody tried Songbird? A preview release of the "iTunes-killer" launched today. Interview with development team leader on Boing Boing. Works great ... but I see no iPod support.

Music taste prediction down to a science?

Lush — Mon, 29 Aug 2005 23:10:25 -0800

Pandora. Bound to draw comparisons to Last.fm, LAUNCHcast, and Musicplasma, Pandora (formerly Savage Beast) is a music discovery web application that recommends music based not on popularity, usage habits of other users, or genres/categories but on the deconstructed elements of how the music itself sounds. Fruit of the Music Genome Project, music analysts have for more than five years spent 20 minutes analyzing each song in its ever-growing database for nearly 400 distinct attributes, so when you ask it, "Why is this song playing?" It answers, "Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features electronica influences, mild rhythmic syncopation, surreal lyrics, use of call-and-response vocals, and string section beds." (YES! Thank you!) Currently live on public beta. [Flash, 128kbps streams]

Collaborative real-time music (internet jamming)

Tlogmer — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 13:36:51 -0800

Ninjam lets you play music (not MIDI) collaboratively with random people in real-time offset by one measure. Samples.

The future of MS, Apple, and Google

Tlogmer — Fri, 13 May 2005 19:13:53 -0800

The future of Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

winamp 5.04

sourbrew — Tue, 10 Aug 2004 19:45:40 -0800

New Winamp So the design guys over there quitely release this update and down played its coolest feature. Perhaps the coolest feature ever for any program. A database of searchable music videos and song offering on demand and fastforwarding and rewind. Sons are censored but there are well over 2000 videos with the promise of more to come.

Winamp 5 is All The Way Live

lotsofno — Mon, 15 Dec 2003 16:28:21 -0800

Winamp 2 + Winamp 3 = Winamp 5 (download lite or standard) . After it's admittedly dissapointing and rushed effort with Version 3 of their popular media player, the Nullsoft team seeks to make amends with their newest release, combining the stability of 2.x with the extras of Winamp 3, adding several new features while they're at it. Though already long-considered the standard for Windows machines, Winamp 5 puts more pressure on other competing, low memory-footprint audio players that have cropped up like Foobar and QCD. More cheerleading/zealotry inside...

Ego sold seperately

Outlawyr — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 03:54:15 -0800

Computer generated singer, $200. Vocaloid software, which is due to be released to consumers in January, allows users to cast their own (or anyone else's) songs in a disembodied but exceedingly life-like concert-quality voice. Vocaloid will be able to "sing" whatever combination of notes and words a user feeds it. The first generation of the software will be available for $200. [NYTimes link]

Digital asse(t)s

clevershark — Mon, 10 Nov 2003 13:05:32 -0800

Think the RIAA is doing something new by threatening and suing? Think again... it's all part of a 4-step process.

A (decent) Roland 303 Emulator

nthdegx — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 04:30:00 -0800

Everybody needs a 303.

Could you hum it for me

chandy72 — Wed, 22 Jan 2003 08:08:11 -0800

Thanks Again, Frauhofer! "Software developed by Germany's Fraunhofer Institut, the creators of the MP3 ... called "Query by Humming," -- a type of melody recognition software program that identifies a song by title and composer based on a person humming a few bars into a microphone." Sure, it'll put quaint sites like this out of business, but think of the fun you'll have walking by your co-workers cubicle only to hear them furtively humming into their PC so that it can search for that pesky tune they can't get out of their head. (This technology sounds familiar, so advanced apologies for a double post. I did a search, really.)

signal — Wed, 08 May 2002 09:13:06 -0800

ixi software is a network of experimentalists in the field of computer music and computer music software. Don't miss their cool downloads.

Spoon — Tue, 16 Apr 2002 15:09:31 -0800

Ahhhhhh Synaesthesia.... Industrial Strength Colour-Note Organ - Pictures to Sound. Make yourself some sci-fi soundtracks. Worth the download, although I expect you'll be the judge of that....

theplayethic — Thu, 14 Feb 2002 03:36:18 -0800

Does anyone care that nobody needs to sing well anymore? Spot-on piece about the way that digital music tools aren't just making rotten singers sound OK (with software that shifts their pitch upwards), but good singers lazy ("hey that's fine, just copy'n'paste it into the next chorus"). And removing the excitement from studio performance. Is the only honest response to this electro-fakery to go all Daft Punk? Or am I just an old Stevie'n'Retha'n'Marvin nostalgist?

the biscuit man — Mon, 05 Nov 2001 18:33:18 -0800

iTunes 2 was released recently. Some poor OS X users lost all their data after installing this seemingly innocuous software. (about a third of the way down)
Is being on the bleeding edge worth it? What responsibility does a software manufacturer have to prevent from damaging your data? Any other horror stories from installing just released software? Not bashing Apple, as I'm using a Mac myself.

ewwgene — Sun, 15 Jul 2001 17:06:56 -0800

Aspiring DJ's - Leave your records at home , and pack your laptop, mp3s, and this program to your next jam. Tactile12000 is a free opensource interactive simulation of two turntables and a mixer. I picked up some loops, breaks, and acapellas- and i was on my way. Its mighty funky stuff.