Computer DJ Uses Biofeedback to Mix

srand writes "So some scientists at HP developed this AI to mix new music tracks for dancers based on biofeedback from the clubbers. The clubbers are each given a heart monitor, which sends information to the DJ through a wireless link. The DJ itself mixes music using genetic algorithms to find the tracks the audience likes best. The tracks are the "genes", and feedback from the audience determines the fitness levels of the genes." I still think generative music has a lot of potential, although I'd love an intermediate step where some sort of biofeedback picked MP3s based on your mood.

Comments

Sorta like......

[ElDuque]

...a USB mood ring?

Sounds like a good idea...

[Flakeloaf]

...but if some of the dancers are on ecstasy you might want to take steps to protect your subwoofer :)

Re:Sounds like a good idea...

[onion2k]

Still, if someone died it'd probably go respectfully quiet..

Re:Sounds like a good idea...

[jacoplane]

Actually the heart monitor sounds like a good idea for this very recent. I live in Amsterdam and recently there have been a number of cases of people taking too much e and dying. Having a heart-monitor would have probably prevented these deaths.

However, such a system should be anonymous, and should not be used by the club to track who takes drugs and who doesn't.

Re:Sounds like a good idea...

[ayjay29]

...until the team of medics breaks down the rest room door to find you in an embarising situation with some chick...

Re:Sounds like a good idea...

[arkanes]

If it's anonymous, how you going to get the medics to the right person? Get on the PA and announce "Someone here has a dangerously high heartrate. If you feel like you're about to die, please see a medic immediatly"?

Re:Sounds like a good idea...

[perky]

Having a heart-monitor would have probably prevented these deaths.

Actually it probably wouldn't. Over a million people take ecstacy each weekend in the UK, and the number of deaths related to the drug is approximately 50 in total. These deaths are mostly due to overheating. A few were due to excessive consumptioon of water which is exacerbated by inhibited kidney function, so water doesn't leave the body making it difficult to maintain homeostasis. A few were caused by an allergic reaction to the drug, but as a proportion of users ecstacy is "safer" in this regard than most over the counter pharmceuticals. Death due to heart failure is very rarely if ever recorded.

There is plenty of information about the risks associated with MDMA usage on the web, as well as steps that can be taken to reduce the physical risk. A far greater worry is the psychological damage caused by repeated usage. Minds are fragile things and the effect of these drugs on them is mostly unknown. Have a look at Alexander Shulgin's book on the subject, or kick off at google.

Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Hektor_Troy]

Since many airplay charts are based on what DJ's play, and the DJ's finally figures out, that we don't like plagerized cloned music, maybe the record companies will stop producing it ...

wait ... it's comming to me ... no they won't - they'll just increase advertising for it, and blame fileswapping for falling sales.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[brunes69]

Man, record companies aren't stupid. They're out to make as much money as possible. To do this, they need ot sell the greatest numbr of records as possible. To do this, they have to cater to the majority. Which is what they do. When are you people going to realize that statements like "we don't like plagerized cloned music" are blatently false, at leat when tlaking about the majority of the population. This type music IS what the majority like, thats why they make so much of it. If people didn't like this stuff, it wouldn't sell, and they'd stop making it. It's that simple.

And no, its not because "Well thats the only stuff they put out nowadays, so poeple have to like it". THats also totaly false. There is tons of music out here. Most people choose Pop music. It's that simple.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[passion]

Most people choose Pop music. It's that simple.

Most people choose that moronic music because they're brainwashed to buy it. The airwaves are saturated with idiotic catchy tunes like Hanson, the Spice Girls, N'Sync, etc... That gets into people's subconcious and sticks there telling them that they need to listen to it all the time, and not just when the radio plays it.

Do you think any of these records will have anything more than a historic value 10, 30 years from now? I'm still rocking out to Led Zep, CCR, and Jimi - because they made music, not something that will sell more McDonald's happy meals.

If you want a choice, then support the alternatives, listen to college radio, or live365, or better yet - get the permission for some local artists' recordings, and host your own radio show, then tell people about it.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Da Masta]

Whether they choose it because they're brainwashed, or whether their 13-year old minds aren't capable of understanding other types of music is not the point. The fact still remains that pop music is what most people listen to. There is plenty of choice out there and whether you listen to Led Zeppelin or The Beatles, who mind you, were a pop group still with plenty of fans, is a choice.

All of your arguments can be used agains both. Marylin Manson and Rob Zombie sure aren't pop but I'd say their beats are pretty hypnotizing. And about selling Happy Meals? Sure pop is out there to sell, but anti-pop is just as big a market and they are simply cashing in on all the teenaged boys trying to be cool (if not, gimme another logical reason why people listen to Limp Bizkit).

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[liquidsin]

You seem to be missing something though. It says that it'll pick the tracks that the audience seems to want, but it's got to have limits to it's database. So if the monitors are reporting back that the audience wants to hear fast tempo, upbeat, lots of drums sort of thing, you may STILL get britney spears if that's all that's in it's catalogue. Now what *I'd* like to see is something like this that makes it's OWN music based on what feedback it gets. Faster heart rates means faster drum beats, crazier bass, or what have you. Now that would be fun...

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Stelmsind]

Well it depends on what you want your music to be! I think the majority of people just use music as a bit of a mild distraction - something to listen to when driving to work, something to dance to while getting drunk with friends,or some noise to go with their drugs :)

And then you have people who are seriously into their music. And those who live and breathe music.

I'll try a rubbishy comparsion to food and use the good, old standby MacDonald's :) How many of you eat MacDonald's? How many of you think it's gorment food? McDonald's sell millions of burgers, but do you think someone who lived and breathed food - a world class chef - would praise McDonalds?

When a good chef creates a dish he'd pay attention now to every last detail, because food probably matters a lot more to him than it does to us. But most people don't care that much about food. McDonalds is readily available and most people don't mind eating it.

People who begin to get heavily into music seek out the styles that interest them - and that isn't the mass marketed stuff. For everyone else, pop is good enough.

Do you really think there's people out there who listen to Britany Spear's wondering what exciting keychain or rhymic device she's going to be using in her new song. I very much doubt it. The true reason pop is popular is most people really don't care that much about music! The lowest common demonintor is good enough for them.

(and you could replace McDonald's with Baked Beans, or cheese on toast if you like :p )

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Limp Bizkit are musicians. It takes talent to turn a gay song like Faith by George Michaels into something that rocks.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[FreeForm Response]

Most people choose Pop music. It's that simple.
<RANT>
No, it's not that simple. The problem is that most people do _not_ listen to this kind of music, nor do most people buy this kind of music. Instead, most people (read: anyone over 25) just don't bother buying much new music, because there's nothing out there that appeals to them. Although our culture calls it "popular" music, it's only popular among its target audience, which is pubescent children. Because these children are an incredibly massive, easily manipulated source of disposable income, the record companies go for the jugular, saturate youth culture with marketing for pop music, and watch the money roll in. As a side effect, they get to claim that this kind of music is the most popular in our society.
Another interesting point: as I mentioned earlier, people out of the Backstreet Boys' target audience don't buy as much music. They don't have as much disposable income. But another important factor to consider is that these people also have much wider and diverse tastes in music, owing to many of them having developed their own tastes and preferences before the pop marketing machine came along and said that Britney was the Best. Because there is no unifying genre that encompasses all of these different kinds of music, it winds up being pop against the world. Is it any surprise that no other genre sells more than pop?
</RANT>
Sorry to get all bothered, but this topic really bugs me. I had a huge argument with a professor (of Ethnomusicology at University of California, Irvine) who believed that pop music defined American culture solely because it sold the best. :P

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Xenophon Fenderson,]

How amusing. Let me put my music snob hat on and suggest that only when Led Zeppelin has been around for several hundred years and still makes people go YOW! can you say they have "historic value". The Beatles maybe, certain big-band era performers probably, Wagner, Beethoven and Mozart, Bach, Purcell, Palestrina, Hildegard von Bingen --- that is history, that is music that changed everything, that's the stuff that in some cases has been around for nearly a thousand years (and that's just western music).

But let me take my music snob hat off, and just say that I do like Led Zeppelin, and rap, and (God, forgive me) even country music.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people choose that moronic music because they're brainwashed to buy it.

I don't think so. Imagine you're a bussiness that makes money from music (radio station, record company, etc.). Do you care whether you make that money by selling "good" or "bad" music? No, you just want to make as much money as possible, and that means selling the most product with the least amount of overhead. Clearly it is cheaper to sell people what they already want to hear than to first "brainwash" them into liking something and then selling it to them. Since it doesn't cost any more money to produce "good" music over "bad", it seems apparent that most people that buy music must want to hear this "bad" music. People listen to pop because it's easy to understand. It takes effort to appreciate quality music.

As far as Led Zep, CCR, and Jimi not selling products, I seem to remeber a car commercial a few years ago featuring Hendrix's "Fire". Musically, there is very little difference between CCR and Hanson. Perhaps the image and stigma differ, but they're both basically I-IV-V rock. I Seriously doubt that many people, including educated /.readers) would like what most educated musicians would call "good" music (Schoenberg, Rorem, Berlioz, Coltrane, etc). Before you judge what's "good" and "bad" art, you might want to consider the larger picture and not just your own personal opions.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Bob Uhl]

Another interesting point: as I mentioned earlier, people out of the Backstreet Boys' target audience don't buy as much music. They don't have as much disposable income.

Hah! My fifteen year old brother cannot get together 20 bucks for dinner; I, a 23 year old Unix sysadmin, just bought myself a set of fencing equipment. A few days ago I bought three Pulp CDs. A few weeks ago I bought 2 HP calculators. A few weeks before that I bought tyres. A few weeks before that a car radio/CD player. A few weeks before that an utterly beautiful Beretta .40 handgun. Who d'you think has more disposable income?

As a young, single adult I have more disposable income than I could ever have dreamed of. I live frugally, save a lot and still have some very nice posessions. What child could possibly hope to compare? I know that I certainly could not, back in the day.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[perky]

In fact it seems to me that the current spate of chart rubbish is mainly due to the fact that there is now _more_ music than ever being publsihed. allow me to explain.

Nowadays the variety of music that is available on CD is greater than it ever has been before. This means that I can go into a record store and buy exactly what I want to hear. The problem is that what I like is quite specialised and other people prefer other stuff that is similar, but not the same. In the past the quantity of records produced was smaller, so if it was in the ballpark of your taste then you bought it. Now you only buy a record if it is exactly what you want.

The upshot of this is that there are fewer large homogenous markets where everyone buys the same thing. But there is one massive market with growing disposable income and fairly predictable uniform tastes... Girls aged between 8 and 16. Consequently most of the stuff in the charts is produced specifically with this demographic in mind, and consequently is crap.

fortunately the charts mean little these days and I can still get hold of top notch tuneage.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please reread (or read) the initial post namely,

"Instead, most people (read: anyone over 25) just don't bother buying much new music"

By being 23, you are not in the target audience of the conclusion. You are in the target audience that props up most alternative genre's of music. Typically music taste and expression expands toward the late teens and early twenties. Kids will experiment more with styles and ranges of musical expression, and new modes sustain viability. Unfortunately, that experimentation is rarely uniform. When it happens, you usually get a new genre of music

(RE: Holly/Presley/Little Richard et. al for Rock and Roll; Clash/Pistols et. al. for punk, Bee Gees/Summer for Disco; Police et. al for New Wave; Nirvana et. al for "Alternative" (capital A))

Occasionally, some bands even change the purchase medium (re: Beatles with Albums over singles).

This is largely true for even what music snobs (I may be one) see in their subgenres (Miller for Swing, Parker for Bop, Coleman for Free; Davis/Zawinal/McGlocklin for Electric).

Nevertheless, pop is and always will be a viable market force because it will be bought for and by kids. The melodies have not changed that much over the course of time (re: You are my Sunshine), but occasionally the Pop of the day will reflect elements of the latest new genre. If it works, then the tune may remain in its specialized sub-genre (re: Disco, 70s, et. al.). Sometimes the influence will split pop into two factions. For instance, modern country music is more similar to the modern R&B rock rhythms than its namesakes roots.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[brunes69]

Well then, its the chicken and the egg problem. If most people over 25 don't buy music becuase they don't like the stuff out there (which I believe is hogwash personally.. Theres MORE than enough music available in every genre you can imagine. If you wanted music, there is somehthing available you will like. The reasons people 25 and over don't buy more music are differen than "lack of choice"... but I digress), then sale sof that genre won't b steep enough to justify increased expendatures. If there aren't increased expendatures, the amount of music choice in tha category goes down. So people have less choice, so they buy less, etc etc. The only way to stop this is for people 25+ to start buying the music they like. But as I said, there are other factors disuading older people from buying music.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Jus'n]

Now what *I'd* like to see is something like this that makes it's OWN music based on what feedback it gets. Faster heart rates means faster drum beats, crazier bass, or what have you. Now that would be fun..

first off, we need to move beyond this heartrate measurement. I mean, come on... when someone cranks up 'N-Sync, my heartrate goes up, not because I like it, but because I'm in aural pain and the fight-or-flight mode kicks in. Lets hook up EEGs to everyone and measure their brain activity, and THEN we'll be able to really involve the audience. Now THAT would be fun.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Jus'n]

But there is one massive market with growing disposable income and fairly predictable uniform tastes... Girls aged between 8 and 16.

Come on... there aren't THAT many pedophiles out there. And from what I've seen in the news, I think they tend to like boys more than girls.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[SimCash]

passion is exactly right - music died when non-musicians realized they could make more money selling music than the musicians could. Very few have the talent to do both -- and a marketeer can bring lots of skills to the equation that give you not art, but rather sales.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

but I tend to listen to non-pop music so I am probably not the norm (since "pop" by definition is in the center +/- 2 sigma.

Re:Finally we can get rid of lousy music.

[Anonymous Coward]

They're out to make as much money as possible.

Not all of them, some will still put musical sensibilities above profit.

This is interesting

[MisterQueue]

But it sounds as though it would be pandering to one's audience rather than creating something new. I mean isn't most music about creating something meaningful to you in the hopes that it connects with someone else? If you tailor the music over a period of time to what your audience responds best to then isn't this just pablum. It's like what most record companies do when they create new mainstream music, pick the most watered down flavours to get the biggest appeal.

I don't know, maybe I just need to get more sleep

-Q

Re:This is interesting

[ebh]

That works on two levels. Yes, you can pander, and a lot of top-40 clubs do that. But there is a sort of feedback loop between a DJ and the dance floor, and the DJ is constantly reading this to decide what track will work best next. Very few DJs can get away with "I'm going to play this and you're going to like it," but a DJ doesn't have to be a human jukebox either.

Re:This is interesting

[male]

You are confusing the DJ with the artist (although the line between the two is faint)

The job of the DJ is, however, to tailor the music to what sounds best.

*thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump* *thump*

Re:This is interesting

[MisterQueue]

Actually, maybe we're talking about two different kinds of DJ's. DJ's such as DJ Shadow, Kid Koala, Automator, and Aphex Twin ARE the artists, and considered DJ's just the same. I suppose I was thinking of them using this as an instant creative sort of engine, which I should've clarified.

-Q

Re:This is interesting

[Fluid Truth]

I think it would depend on the amount of randomness (if any; I admit it, I didn't read the story :-) ) that is introduced. If they want to make this act like a living being/community and determine fit-ness, then an element of randomness would introduce "something new."

And, as someone else mentioned in reply to you, the DJs don't need to be "new" as much as the artists' music that they spin.

Re:This is interesting

[pdoelle]

I think you have to make a distinction between authoring/recording music and DJ'ing it. A DJ will often preselect a set of tunes based on his own tastes and depending on the situation, the anticipated tastes of the crowd. Well-known DJ's are often associated with a particular style or genre of music.

The article implies that the HPDJ "composes new tracks" but only in the sense that a DJ does. The music already exists, and it is up to the DJ to present it in a way that feels good to the audience; that's why the DJ is there, not to amuse himself (usually) but to entertain the crowd that has come there to dance.

Most DJ's that I've met will constantly read the audience and adjust the mix accordingly. They not only react to the audience's vibe in a room, but try to steer it in a positive way. HPDJ strikes me as a good application of these concepts.
---

Re:This is interesting

[AbsoluteRelativity]

It sounds like something out of an anime like "Macross Plus" to me, where they use bio feedback to control an partially artificial intellegence singer, so the audience become controled by the music.

Re:This is interesting

[Jus'n]

I mean isn't most music about creating something meaningful to you in the hopes that it connects with someone else?

When I play drums, it's about getting into a groove (and the therapeutic benefits thereof), working up a sweat (and the therapeutic benefits thereof), and putting a big ol' smile on my face (and the therapeutic benefits thereof). If someone else likes it, that's their business, not mine. Same with my forays into painting, drawing, and photography. Most artists I know do it for themselves.

this + csound = fun

[cheesyfru]

I'd love to see what some of the CSound hackers to do with this. CSound is basically a programming language for sound and music, where you define the sound of the instruments as well as what they play programmatically. Take a lisp program to analyze these results and write csound scripts in real time, and you've got a recipe for fun!

VJ

[godless]

BTW

Anyone has recommendations on good VJ software?

I've seen good stuff around there, mainly from Japan.

Love/Hate?

[ebh]

I wonder how it'll distinguish positive from negative reactions. Think of blown mixes, a jungle track sneaking into a trance set, etc., versus something really good brilliantly mixed, or (in a more mainstream club setting) a really popular track being played.

Re:Love/Hate?

[iso]

I don't know why, but I just had this horrible vision of the riff from "1998" being played over and over and over and over ...

- j

Would result in constantly changing music at least

[Jerdie]

Since a "clubber" would eventually tire of that music, and their excitement would wain, this would result in a pretty spiffy ever changing music. Because they would show excitement in ever changing tastes. That does sound coooo

Seems like this would be unfair...

[Tsar]

Wouldn't it favor people with high blood pressure? Seems like the songs that young, fit people like would drop to the bottom of the playlist, and the three geriatrics in the establishment would hear all their big-band faves bubbling to the top.

Re:Seems like this would be unfair...

[Anonymous Coward]

On the related note- ranking based on heart rate may lead to some interesting safety issues, and a potentially _annoying_ set. Heart rate will rise with exertion (dancing), but also with stress. With some modification, you might optimize the algorithm to at least create a 'workout' from the environment- stabilizing the crowd's heart rate, with periods of rest and exertion... However, simply working to raise the BPMs ;) ever higher will turn the atmosphere of the club a bit off, and have the E and ephedrine kiddies dropping like flies.

Heart Attack

[SolidCore]

I bet that sounds like crap when you have a heart attack. Need to make a device that hooks up to my testicles, that would probably sound good.

I know a way...

[ChannelX]

of using biofeedback to choose an mp3 based on your mood: select the appropriate song from a list with your mouse. Sometimes geeks are just *too* geeky.

Re:I know a way...

[sketerpot]

Yes, I do this a lot, and it works just fine. But this is for places with a lot of people, where it would take a long time to, say, vote on everyone's favorite song. Or what if the person with the mouse likes really old country music where people regularly exclame "Yipee!"? You might have some problems. The downside is that you might have to strap a biometric thingy to yourself before listening to music.

You're right; it is really geeky.

Awesome!

[NTSwerver]

This could be awesome for clubbers! There is a lot more to DJing than just keeping beats in-time when mixing. It is a lot harder to 'read' the croud and put on the right tune at the right time, to either build 'em up or chill 'em out.

IMHO, there are only a handful of DJ's who can do this - people like the late Ron Hardy who used to play at The Music Box in Chicago, for example. I might even start going back to clubs if this technology works!

disintermediation

[counsell]

As a singer and militant geek anything which takes the ultimate in undertalented, overrated, overpaid middlemen (and they are usually "men") out of the loop (excuse pun) is fine by me.

Re:disintermediation

[elmegil]

You've obviously never tried to mix dance music for a crowd before. I once stood in for a DJ friend of mine for the first couple hours of a wedding reception. I had been doing some basic stuff on a radio dance music show and thought I could handle it.

It was the most miserable time of my life; I didn't know his selection of music, and worse, I had a group of people evenly split between "we just want you to slap on some country records" and "make it groove, man". If I had any TALENT at what I was doing, I might have found a way to split the difference, and apparently my friend was able to do just fine after he arrived (they accused him of doing a Bad DJ/Good DJ switcheroo on them :-).

The point? Mixing music and working a crowd successfully so that everyone (or the majority) is having a good time takes a lot of talent, and I wouldn't slam it until you've been in those moccasins.

I want more details.

[Xzzy]

Exactly how advanced is this AI? I read the article a day or two ago and the thing failed to really go into many details, nor provide samples of what this AI can produce. Does the AI fall into "traps" where music becomes too repetitive? Or is it unable to progress from one sound to the next, creating unsettling shifts in music that a human will find distasteful?

Because it seems to me that making music is just a wee bit more involved than having a massive library of sound bites, picking one of them with a rand() function, tossing it into the loop, and waiting for people to react. I could see the AI painting itself into a corner if it only lets itself pick tunes that don't generate a negative value.

In other words, this AI is going to have to be able to compose interesting tunes or else all the flash and glory of reacting to humans is gonna be a flop.

If the AI has implemented some form of SOUNDEX for music files, then I could see it working. Like if the audience was really grooving to artist X, it could pick a similar song from artist Y, rather than just plugging in another song that artist X created and hoping people like it.

Not slamming the project too much though. It is quite cool and spawns all kinds of neat questions that would be a heap of fun to answer.

"The Diamond Age"

[hex23]

Wasn't there something like this in Stephenson's "The Diamond Age"? There was a band whose music was changed by the way the audience felt at the time.

Re:"The Diamond Age"

[Anonymous Coward]

He also invented the concept of city-states in "Snow Crash." If you don't believe me, go look at the insightful posts on Katz's last rant about Globalism (sic).

Re:"The Diamond Age"

[Anonymous Coward]

It also sounds kinda like _Virtual Girl_. There was a dancer in NOLA that was wired and music came from his dancing.

Ways to influence this

[sketerpot]

I really like this song! I'm going to run around in circles!

This is my favorite song! Time to hyperventilate1

Serioiusly, though, this would be cool if it was easier to biometrically track things like heartbeat. If I went to a party, I wouldn't want to have some odd biometric device that could alert someone if I was having a "moment" with a pretty girl.

Got to find out where to get this

[twilight30]

Often wondered if such a thing could be done -- now that it can, it will be interesting to see where it goes...

Re:Got to find out where to get this

[freq]

the only result of this new technology i can see will be more bad trance music :)

Any technology that uses this kind of input as averages from a group output average or mediocre music. there is already plenty of mediocre dance music out there.

i like the idea, but i only see more stupid drumroll buildups and more stupid ethereal breakowns as a result.

Thats kind of cool but

[rbreve]

what really makes a DJ a really good DJ is his hability to mix and choose good music, I dont think a good DJ will use this technology it doesnt make sense, thats whats DJing is all about choosing and listening, not having a machine telling him what music to play.

thats my opinion,

http://www.mp3.com/bios

Re:Thats kind of cool but

[freq]

It would be neat to see it used as a sort of barometer for the dj to measure the reactions of the audience to the mix.

Reminds me of a technology used in the book Interface by stephen bury (aka neil stephenson) - where a politician was using these sort of mood measuring wristwatches to gauge different population segments' reaction to his speeches AND feed the input back into the politician in realtime.

(brilliant premise, though the book was only so-so.)

Not for Raves at least

[Quizme2000]

The reason a lot of people cram into warehouses thousands at a time is dance, listen, but also because the DJ too. Hmmm DJ "heartbeat" or Paul Okenfold. Also what the DJ mixes charges is damn near an art form, the really good ones can deliever quite an experience. We have seen purly computer generated/AI "art" before, imagine having to listen to it at 300Db. Plus I don't think a wireless HB moniter is going to match my leopard pattern leather pants and sparkly vest.

(no, I don't use drugs at raves)

Re:Not for Raves at least

[Anonymous Coward]

(no, I don't use drugs at raves)

Why the fuck not? A little acid or some E or even both make for an interesting experience. A little cocaine helps keep you going if you're not on any of the above. If you're feeling kind of shit, just have some K and enjoy your hole, it's fun. And weed, sweet weed, always makes the music sound that much better.

What's wrong with drugs?

Re:Not for Raves at least

[Anonymous Coward]

drugs are bad. don't you watch tv?

Re:Not for Raves at least

[OuiPapa]

(no, I don't use drugs at raves)

I do!

But what a good DJ does _is_ an art form. S/he _creates_ the mood as well as responds to it. A good DJ can lift an audience, make them rise and fall as s/he pleases. And then there is the issue of individual taste. The music selection of each DJ is driven by personal taste, experience, imagination and style; not merely a function of the audience.

More interestingly. the drug selection(s) of the crowd can affect (their hearbeat and so) this product's algorithm in interesting ways. And since different people 'peak' at different times, there'll be no convergence by the algorithm. It'll be akin to disk thrashing! :-)

Re:Not for Raves at least

[Anonymous Coward]

What's wrong with drugs?

Ask Syd Barrett.

Re:Not for Raves at least

[ewwhite]

Yeah. Kids are too drugged-out these days. I'm a club/rave DJ in the Chicago area, and know that much of the excitement over an event comes from the headliner's name/reputation -- regardless of the quality of their mixing/track selection. anyway, free plug - Check out my house mixes at: http://homepage.mac.com/ewwhite

Re:Not for Raves at least

[Anonymous Coward]

Save your fingers. If there is someone more stupid than a drug user, it's... wait, there's no one more stupid than a drug user.

Re:Not for Raves at least

[rkent]

No kidding! And at its best, a DJ set isn't just some positive feedback loop anyway. Part of the experience is that the DJ can make emotionally intuitive yet logically jarring changes in musical direction that have nothing to do with "wow, if they like A, they'll really like B!"

Then again, it would be interesting to set this up against richie hawtin and see who could tell the difference :)

Re:Not for Raves at least

[dragonfrog]

Hmmm DJ "heartbeat" or Paul Okenfold

Hrm. I might suggest that Oakenfold is currently playing more or less what DJ 'heartbeat' would anyway - tracks already proven commercial successes, chosen without feeling, mixed with skill but not passion

Re:Not for Raves at least

[funky49]

The threashhold for your hearing is around 120dB. Around there you start feeling pain.

www.funky49.com

Re:Not for Raves at least

[Vess V.]

Around 150 you suffer heart arrhythmia and die.

Re:Not for Raves at least

[perky]

300dB? you'd be dead.

no, really. You _would_ die.

Re:Not for Raves at least

[Jus'n]

We have seen purly computer generated/AI "art" before, imagine having to listen to it at 300Db
If it were at 300dB, you wouldn't be *listening* to it for very long.

Too much extasy and cocaine in clubs for this to

[Anonymous Coward]

work.... duh...

Oh no!

[shaka]

I am a DJ and run a few clubs of my own.
Lately, people request more and more songs each day, and sometimes I want to ask them if they would like it better to have a jukebox standing in a corner so they canjust choose their favorites all night long.

I'm not particularly fond of the idea of a DJ as a "teacher" or style nazi either, but some guests are so stupid and persistent so you just want to punch them in the face.

After some thought though, if you pick a good playlist maybe this would work, but I have serious problems with the idea of replacing club/radio DJs with computers and playlists.

Now I don't remember what it was that I wanted to say with this rant... =)

Wait a minute...

[PhReaKyDMoNKeY]

This might not be so great. What if you're trying to woo somebody and Marvin Gaye starts singing "Let's Get It On?"

Reminds me of the part in the Diamond Age where they discuss the philosophy of makeup, and how mood-responsive cosmetics are a bad idea.

Copyrights?

[O2n]

Every dance song comprises a number of different tracks, such as drum patterns, bass lines, keyboard hooks and vocals. To create a song, the HPDJ chooses tracks from a large library and then modifies and overlays them, based on the vibe coming from the dance floor

Are those traks randomly generated? Probably not - it would result in too much trash, which gets us to the next question: if they get those tracks from copyrighted sources, who owns the resuling music? Are they even allow to extract things from other songs?

Re:Copyrights?

[Ancient Eye]

It's not really THAT important, since live DJ performances are royalty-less works. Not that I remember why... but they are.

In other news, if you were to record the mix, it would be partially owned by the audience whose mental, and physical responses are interpretted in the machine responses, partly owned by whoever owned the AI box, and partly owned by the people who owned the tracks that were mixed in. That would be a legal nightmare without getting authorization to use your audience without them gaining ownership... and then making your AI box only use tracks from artists you already have deals with and stuff like that.

Anyway, the issue is less thorny than you are making it out to be.

SLR

Re:Copyrights?

[O2n]

Anyway, the issue is less thorny than you are making it out to be.

Seems obvious now. :)
But it wasn't pointless - at least some info made it's way thru the noise barrage on /.

Stuffing the ballot box circa 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't 'Ecstasy' increase your heart rate and perspiration? Seems like any song played after the guy with the drugs arrives will have an unfair advantage. Now if I was an unscrupulous music producer who wanted to get my song rated highly ...

Re:Stuffing the ballot box circa 2001

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, don't worry about that. Around here, at least, most club owners/show promoters that cater to the rave scene bring in "preferred" dealers for the whole night. For a cut of the profits, they get to peddle their wares without harassment from security, who will gladly remove any competition.

Yeah

[nanojath]

Mistake number one is calling this "AI." I think the bar for that title is a tad higher, no? Mistake number two is calling this news. People have been diddling with useless biofeedback toys for decades; big deal. You can also buy goggles that give you a reveletory visual experience while you listen to Led Zeppelin. Self-assembling nanoelectronic components are being synthesized, the fundamental thermodynamic nature of DNA is being parsed, and we get this. Does Slashdot need a science editor? Now, maybe they could hook the thing up to 911 so paramedics would be rushed to the scene when another stupid raver took 5X the sensible dosage of yohimbe and collapsed. THAT would be news

Re:Yeah

[Hast]

AI is a very wide field. Generally genetic algorithms and neural networks are but into it. As well as game playing, searching and logic. (And basically each book / course on the topic is different.)

Actually very few people which work with AI actually work with making computers "think". Most people work with trying to replace a specific subset of human intelligence. (Naturally you can do AI things without imitating human intelligence, just generally flashy stuff is good too. ;-)

In this case a DJ is imitated. (Most likely not as well as a good DJ. But the mere geek factor is enough to do it if you ask me. ;-)

Re:Yeah

[Erasmus Darwin]

"Mistake number one is calling this "AI." I think the bar for that title is a tad higher, no?"

No. Just as the term "virtual reality" is applied to a lot more than just perfectly immersive, Matrix-like systems, "aritificial intelligence" has a much wider scope than just HAL-like systems capable of understanding human speech and providing coherent, intelligent replies.

One example of part of the AI field that isn't close to the movie-like image of AI is the expert system. At its simplest, it's a bunch of yes/no questions about a given topic. An answer to each question leads to either a new question or a conclusion. A classic application of this system is a guessing game that operates somewhat similar to 20 questions -- the user picks something and the expert system asks questions in an effort to guess what it is. If the system fails, it prompts the user for a new question to add to the tree that incorporates the new data item. All of this is trivial for anyone with even rudimentry programming experience to implement, it's not especially profound, and it'll never pass the Turing test, but it is a legitimate part of the AI field.

This dance system, as near as I can tell, seems to be way ahead of such a cut and dried expert system. It's using genetic algorithms to assemble music based on feedback from users. That sounds like AI any way you slice it. Sure the system isn't a conscious, self-aware entity, but that's just a small bit of the AI field (and most likely won't be realized for a long, long time).

Re:Yeah

[doubtme]

Re: Expert Systems

All of this is trivial for anyone with even rudimentry programming experience to implement, it's not especially profound, and it'll never pass the Turing test, but it is a legitimate part of the AI field.

Err-hmm... ummm no. It's not trivial. Writing the code is trivial. Implementing an expert system is a pain in the arse. Why? Because you have to get the expert knowledge out of the experts. This can be hard when the experts don't know what they know - to them it feels like they are going on hunches and "feelings" and not using rules, which they most often are. So you have a long, drawn out interview process which goes something like this:
"Well, if X, Y, Z, A, B, C, D, E, and F are present, well it's gotta be Q."
"I see... do you think you could break that down into steps for me. For example, if you consider just X, Y, and Z, does that mean anything?"
And you get to do this for hours on a topic that your often struggling to understand yourself. It might be easy for the genuine polymaths out there... but I think you'll find they are pretty damn rare!

Finally, to call the Turing Test a test of AI is, well, it's stupid. It may be the best test we have (I don't know), but frankly, the ability of an AI to imitate a human is not a good indication of sentience. After all, you would have to assume that the vast majority of alien lifeforms would fail the Turing test, given their psychology would be dramatically different to humans' - yet we're going to assume that a silicon sentience would be identical to a humans'?

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

"Err-hmm... ummm no. It's not trivial. Writing the code is trivial. Implementing an expert system is a pain in the arse. Why? Because you have to get the expert knowledge out of the experts. "

Err-hmm...umm uber-no. It is trivial to get the information out of the experts, if you are trained in getting information out of people. Most code-monkeys are not trained to do this properly Moving someone down a decision tree is not hard. It can be time consuming if the process is complex. It its complexity quotient is too high, then you make a design decision not to use expert systems. (Most code-monkeys aren't trained in making decision decisions either.)

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

You can also buy goggles that give you a reveletory visual experience while you listen to Led Zeppelin.

You can buy pills that do that too.

Re:Yeah

[Erasmus Darwin]

"It's not trivial. Writing the code is trivial. Implementing an expert system is a pain in the arse."

Oops. Yup. I screwed up and was too busy thinking in terms of code and toy examples.

"After all, you would have to assume that the vast majority of alien lifeforms would fail the Turing test, given their psychology would be dramatically different to humans' - yet we're going to assume that a silicon sentience would be identical to a humans'?"

That's an interesting point. However, I think a silicon sentience built by humans is going to be very biased toward human psychology, given its "parentage". Futhermore, when I refer to the Turing test, I'm perhaps abusing the term a bit to refer to a vague, hand-wavy notion of "Does this program appear to be sentient to the end-user?" rather than the gimmicky implementation of the Loebner test. I know it's poor science, but when it comes to a sentient program, my criteria would be "I'll know it when I see it."

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. Although I don't think that the feedback of heart-rate would be sufficient to generate an entire track or tracks. Tempo, maybe, but it does not take into account mood, mental-state, energy level, etc.
A friend of mine, who I used to go to school with and who was experimenting heavily with computer music, ended up working with a company (NeuroSonics Inc.) which uses brainwaves in order to generate music. That music is then fed back to the person, thereby inspiring/generating more brainwaves, with the hope that the person will be able to "close the loop" with their awareness and be able to feed back to him/herself his/her own thought- music (of sorts).
Quote: "NeuroSonics, Inc. has developed two patented technologies, both based on capturing and analyzing brain waves through an EEG attachment to a user.

The NeuroSonics' Brain Generated Music(TM) (BGM(TM)) technology is a brain wave biofeedback system..."

Here's the link:

http://www.neurosonics.com/

Re:Yeah

[doubtme]

That's an interesting point. However, I think a silicon sentience built by humans is going to be very biased toward human psychology, given its "parentage".

I think in large it depends on how we create the silicon-based intelligence. If we program it directly and then just "tweak" it, then yes, I suspect you might be right. If on the other hand we evolve an intelligence on silicon, then I guess the result would be an intellectual architecture that is much more alien, and much more suited to the environment in a computer. But this is all very hand-wavy hypothesising :)

Futhermore, when I refer to the Turing test, I'm perhaps abusing the term a bit to refer to a vague, hand-wavy notion of "Does this program appear to be sentient to the end-user?" rather than the gimmicky implementation of the Loebner test. I know it's poor science, but when it comes to a sentient program, my criteria would be "I'll know it when I see it."

Indeed, defining sentience is not easy! I think a part of the problem arises intelligence and sentience are confused - I don't think they are the same thing. Solving calculus problems requires, in some shape or form, intelligence. However it doesn't require sentience. Perhaps you could define sentience along the lines of an ability to introspect (cf one definition of consciousness: "mental states that monitor mental states") and self-modify. From this it would seem that sentience requires intelligence, but not vice versa? Or have I simply argued circularly around the topic? I think my brain just blew a tube.

Re:Yeah

[doubtme]

Err-hmm...umm uber-no. It is trivial to get the information out of the experts, if you are trained in getting information out of people. Most code-monkeys are not trained to do this properly Moving someone down a decision tree is not hard. It can be time consuming if the process is complex. It its complexity quotient is too high, then you make a design decision not to use expert systems. (Most code-monkeys aren't trained in making decision decisions either.)

I agree with all of what you say. Talking someone through a decision tree is not at all complex, and sometimes expert systems are not the right solution.

The problem comes in constructing the decision tree itself - this is the type of expert knowledge which someone can know, but not enunciate. The situation is also made more complex when you have decision trees with feedback loops, more than one parallel tree, etc. I probably should have been more careful in my previous post, and done a better job of defining this kind of implicit knowledge.

Counter productive

[Anonymous Coward]

If the track sounds so awful that people cannot get into it, they may wander off to the bar or dance less enthusiastically, says Cliff. So HPDJ will then try to improve the music, experimenting with different beats and bass lines, or speeding up the tempo in a bid to coax more people back onto the dance floor.

For this reason, this will never catch on as intended. You DO NOT want people dancing.. You DO want them at the bar, spending money.

This will get warped by the business side of clubbing, and statistical analysis/data mining will be done to 'tide' people to the bar at regular intervals.. Beats will be ramped up to create and maintain thirst, so that profit can be optimized.

When in doubt, follow the money.

Re:Counter productive

[Anonymous Coward]

Some truth. (RE: Supermarket playlists are heavily psychoacoustically tuned and analyzed.)

Nevertheless, the biggest problem the nightclub/resterant has is getting people through the door. Social establishment trends change faster than Jon Katz's hate list.

Initially, the bioDJ's will probably draw just b/c their novel. Later, they will have to compete with human DJ's on who creates the most enjoyable atmosphere. A certain target audience will stay just b/c they fill a kinship with the crowd (e.g. Look at the Linux zealots on slashdot).

I would guess if a club can get people in the door, they will probably get them to buy the drinks. If its a rave, the sales are going be mostly bottled water anyway.

Real DJ's still have the Edge - For how Long?

[szyzyg]

One thing I'm guessing this won't do is select new tracks and classify them - A large part of being a DJ is shoppping for new records and only picking the ones which will work. I'm guessing that without the audience research this system needs to be primed in advance.

Then there's teh showmanship part of DJ'ing, cutting up tracks live, giving the audience the rewind, scratching..... There will always be art in DJ'ing.

DJ S&M

Hype or not?

[atlep]

The idea is cool, but I don't think it will work very well. Other more ad-hoc methods would probably be better.

Evlutionary Algorithms in general need a lot of iterations with large populations to work. I will believe that the feedback in the situation described will have some time delay of several seconds at least. And the pattern of music presented will have to last for much longer if it is intended to build up the mood of people, since this is something that depends on more than just the music of the last seconds.

But maybe the laws of statistic will help in the way that the amont of people visiting a club will be large enough to make the group of peoples reaction to music similar from one night till the next. Then this project could be ran for many nights and over time create good patterns.

I do not believe Evolutionary Algorithms is a good way of DJ'ing though.

If at first the idea is not absourd, then there is no hope for it.

Genetic Algorithms

[WilsonSD]

GAs are really cool. They can solve really hard problems with complex non-linear relationships that are hard to express for other techniques. For anyone who's interested I'd suggest the following books:

David Goldberg's "Genetic Algorithms" is a classic.
John Koza's Genetic Programming represents the next step in adaptive computing.

Yep, Neal's prediction.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now I'm just waiting for meteorologists to start forecasting his so-called "toner wars".

Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[chrysalis]

When you go to a club, you don't want to just listen to music. You want to see the DJ. You want to hear HIS playlist. You want to discover his personal scratch combos. We all need some human presence, especially when it comes to party.

Would you enjoy to watch a soccer match, with only robots, executing programmed tasks? "I bet on this team, they probably used 23248234 as a salt for their number generator, it's better than 232488, that has a bug line 8723" . Would it be great?

You go to a party to be surprised, to discover something. The DJ changes the music according to dancers feeling, that's right. But dancers feeling also depends on the DJ's work.

Why is Carl Cox a great DJ? Because he does basic beat-matching? No. Carl Cox is fantastic because he plays with the dancers. He smiles, he jokes, he has a wonderful human communication, even without speaking. Why is Qbert a great DJ? Because when you see him, it's just as if he had 10 hands, or as if your eyes were too slow to follow the movements. Can you feel this with a stupid computer playing MP3s?

I work as a house and hip-hop DJ in Paris, France. People have fun listening to my music because I'm playing with kiddy songs, sometimes to "comment" what's happening on the dancefloor with funny sentences. I'm sometimes scratching on Dragonball Z over kicking funk house, just for fun. People don't expect that (so the HP computer won't do that), but they like it a lot. Once again, a stupid computer won't do this.

Computers are handy for a lot of stuff. But please, don't bring us a robot society. Keep some human feeling, or you will kill the fun.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[mangu]

We all need some human presence, especially when it comes to party

Perhaps that's why no one likes to play computer games. Games like Doom or Quake, for instance. Ever heard of them?

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[cliffjumper222]

I dunno... BATTLEBOTS is dead cool to watch, though it's too much RC and not enough AI for my liking.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[jjshoe]

umm, there are competitions for computers that play soccer, i dont know if to you thats football or american football, but im talking about american soccer, its very very intresting and is done world wide.

likewise, a computer only does what you tell it to. tell it what you want. dont sit there and complain

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[NerdSlayer]

When you go to a club, you don't want to just listen to music. You want to see the DJ. You want to hear HIS playlist. You want to discover his personal scratch combos. We all need some human presence, especially when it comes to party

I agree with what you're saying in a club setting, but there are many places I could see this being used.

I'm a recovering fraternity DJ. I love the latest House records, I love vinyl, I love spending Saturday afternoons sifting through record crates. I love David Morales, Armand Van Helden, Judge Jules, Pete Tong and Hybrid (okay, hybrid is prog nu-skool breaks, but bear with me)

However, as a veteran of 4 years as a fraternity DJ, I hate "Put it in your mouth", Backstreet Boys, and "Come On Eileen". Unfortunately, sorrority chicks don't.

If this device was available to free me from playing garbage like the latter, freeing me up to drink copious amounts of cheap beer, it definitely would have been something worth checking out.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

How very french.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

When you go to a club, you don't want to just listen to music. You want to see the DJ. You want to hear HIS playlist. You want to discover his personal scratch combos.

Interesting perspective. I've just been going to clubs to get drunk and score.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Old ravers never die, they just start listening to house.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[Aerog]

Now this is one of those points that should have a +6, if there were such a beast.

The whole point of a DJ is do do new things. Sure, you could program a few random tricks into the machine, but if the people are unanimously "in favour "of something, then it's more likely to happen. I'm a really big fan of going out to the clubs (when the opportunity arises) just to hear what the DJ has to play. If I want to hear what the crowd (note: small, western-Canadian city) wants I'll just turn on the top 40 or go to Ryly's and hear the same old mainstream crap.

I'm one of the opinion that a DJ should entertain and make you think at the same time. The best (and I'm adding Timo Maas to the list) can take something you'd never thought of or play something new and end up with something so amazing that it sticks in your head and you wonder how you ever lived without it. You just can't get that sophisticated with a computer. If I ever have some spare time to get back at it, it'll be with good, old-fashioned vinyl and a couple decks, not my computer.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Judge Jules, Pete Tong

Ugh.

Re:Computers everywhere is bad!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because he does basic beat-matching? No.

I take it that by that you mean that half the time he doesn't even get basic beat-matching right? Hope so. :)

I hope this is profitable...

[nick_burns]

I hope this is more profitable than the Calculator division HP just disbanded.

I'm not much of a clubber...

[mystery_bowler]

...but when the wife and I do get away for an evening so that we may get our collective groove on, I always find the music to be more exciting when the DJ lays out a track that I wasn't expecting but works well anyway. I get bored when the same general tempo and melody get rehashed for too longer, which is my main beef against techno/dance music in the first place. (It must not make that much of a difference when you're high on ecstacy :) ) I'm supposing that a system like this would continue playing similar tracks until a general majority of an audience has a negative response to it. But what then? Does it read that everyone is stopping dancing, so it had better switch gears to a slow song? When the best DJs I've been around notice the crowd slowing down, they might throw on something mellow for a bit, but they're moreso busy trying to find the next P-H-A-T phat hook to get people back on the floor.

But I could see this as a pretty neat technology in office waiting areas. If you have to wait around, it would probably be a more tolerable experience if the music system could know what type of mood and guage your response to the current music (or musak as it most likely is).

I suppose it would be pretty cool for home use, too. I don't know if I'd pay for it or not (I don't have that much need for constant background noise), but having a home audio system that could detect my mood and response and play music accordingly would be awfully sweet.

Re:I'm not much of a clubber...

[mystery_bowler]

Man, I wish I had read all the way through the article before posting...*grin*

Pardon the vulgarity, but the part about leaving the club with the music you helped create sounds just too fucking sweet. I'd club every free weekend if that were an available service in my area.

Re:I'm not much of a clubber...

[kin_korn_karn]

excuse me, but what is the attraction of techno music? are real instruments and musical skill too "20th century" for you techno bigots?

Re:I'm not much of a clubber...

[mystery_bowler]

Not at all. Most of the music I enjoy is of the rock or jazz variety (Weezer, Ben Folds, Squirrel Nut Zippers, etc) and is created with more traditional instruments.

As a matter of fact, I don't own a single techno CD and have very few (less than 10) techno MP3s on my hard drive. I'm only really exposed to techno when I'm out in the club scene, which is a rarity these days.

As far as comparing the HPDJ to "musical skill", I don't think it can ever been said that AI, no matter how complex, is as creative as a human being. As far as "creating" music goes, this technology will probably never have a creative application in the world of professional music. It is most useful for presenting music that humans have composed and gauging reaction. Almost as a bonus it can do the cross-fading DJs employ to keep the music going non-stop.

But for small-to-mid-size clubs who want to keep the music interesting without having to depend on human DJs (who need breaks, cancel appearances, etc), it could be useful.

Re:I'm not much of a clubber...

[dragonfrog]

I get bored when the same general tempo and melody get rehashed for too longer, ... (It must not make that much of a difference when you're high on ecstacy :) )

Unfortunately, you're right - that's why 'raves' (actually haven't had what I'd call a rave in years) are getting dreadful boring and predictable in my part of the world. Same as a bar full of people too drunk to care about the music, as long as it's too loud to hear yourself think.

Re:I'm not much of a clubber...

[gr0ngb0t]

excuse me, but what is the attraction of techno music? are real instruments and musical skill too "20th century" for you techno bigots?

You've not heard much electronic music have you? Try these few albums for some of your "real instruments" and "musical skill"

* Dj Suv - Desert Rose
* Flytronix - Archive
* Carlito and Addiction - erm.. the new one :)
* Tru Playaz - Playaz for real
* Anything on Hospital records etc etc...
(sorry i only really listen to drumnbass, no idea about other styles :)

Have you ever seen the following bands - The Bird, The Hive, Reprazent - all live (with *real* instruments), all drumnbass/breaks, but occasionally mixing it up with other styles...

I once thought all electronica/techno was Black Box, Technotronic, Guru Josh and bad late 80s/early 90s 'dance' music, but theres a whooooooooooooooole fucking lot of tunes, styles, everything. and theres a whole lot of skill that goes into making these tunes, and theres a whole lot of practice that goes in to becoming a good dj and/or producer.

But hey - i guess none of it is Rush, Led Zep, or Van Halen, so it will never be considered "real" music by the slightly scarlet necked masses...

Re:I'm not much of a clubber...

[kin_korn_karn]

But hey - i guess none of it is Rush, Led Zep, or Van Halen, so it will never be considered "real" music by the slightly scarlet necked masses...

1. If that's how prejudiced and small-minded that fans of techno/electronica are, then why would I want to be one of them?
2. It still takes more skill to create real music with real instruments. I've been a musician for about 10 years. I still struggle to write a song on guitar and bass, and don't always succeed. With shit like Acid Music, I can write an [at least] harmonically correct song in a couple of hours. I don't consider that progress.
3. There are some things that SHOULD be hard work, and the emotion that goes into creating music should not be an easy thing to invoke, nor should it be cheapened through shortcut boxes.

Do you appreciate art? Take Michaelangelo, for example. How impressive would the Sistine Chapel be if he had had airbrushes, power scaffolding, opaque projectors, and a 3D model of the ceiling to help him place his compositions?
Oh well, the technology would be more 'kewl' than laying there with a brush for years, so I'm sure you don't get it.

It may save lives too

[CrazyJim0]

Since it monitors every individual, if someone suddenly has a heart attack, the DJ would be notified....

Think of situation A:
Normal club, loud music, drunken confused people wonder what man is doing slumped in chair... prolly drunk too..

Situation B:
Dj sees a flatline... Assumes someone took their wristband off... ok, no difference. Unless there was some foolproof way of knowing if its on or off...

If you could also tell if its on or off, and gurantee this to the DJ, you have situation C:
Um, music stops, someone's heart just stopped.

LOL no, anyway. just thoughts.

This just in...

[rkent]

The clubbers are each given a heart monitor, which sends information to the DJ through a wireless link.

This just in: revolutionary new Hearing(tm) technology lets a human DJ bypass the heart monitoring gear altogether and play records based on vocal responses from clubgoers.

another industry automated

[borne]

As a dj and turntablist [only by hobby currently] myself, as well as a discriminating fan of dance music, I find myself with the perspective of whoever would be spinning music for the kids on the floor. Not that i do not understand that there is a time and a place; sometimes, people are only looking for a beat, and are not interested in 'integrity of performance.' Yet, I feel closely connected enough to have conern for what i consider an art. A simple dj is not actually laying tracks live, but a good one is still creating original music out of the fundamental music.

I guess this is just one more reason to save the vynil - AI has not quite developed the skills to spin the real stuff!

Wait

[wbav]

Wasn't that how Britney Spears was made? Oh, no never mind, that was sugery.

Nope, sorry.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool Stuff is usually simple and easy to use. If a dancer has to be coerced into wearing a heart monitor, it t'aint simple.

And who wants to bet that this plaything doesn't actually work as advertised, and is just an example of the worst kind of marketting?

6 years ago...

[ofels]

We did that 6 years ago in my first company - A device called "BrainMan" using bio feedback.
If I remember it correctly, it had 2 modes- One which collected bio data and changed the music according to the mood you had for relaxation purposes and a second one which generated new music according to the data aquired by the bio sensors.
In those time the whole thing required 2 desktop PCs to operate, but it was planned to miniaturize the device to discman size.
Those were the days we had revolutionary ideas which, when the management changed, disappeared in the closet and have never been seen again.
We had lots of good ideas in those days, and most of them have just made a commercial renaissance by others...

Oliver

wow, you're an idiot

[EnderWiggnz]

>Most people choose Pop music

no, most people choose what they hear on the radio, or on MTV.

American consumerism has shown that people will buy ANYTHING no matter the value if marketed enough.

Re:wow, you're an idiot

[Teancom]

You're absolutely right. I'm going to print out your post and put it between my lifetime supply of Zima and New Coke. And then I'm going to go out, climb into my Edsel, and drive to a local theater showing Waterworld in amazing 3D! And then I'm going to wake up and realize that mass america isn't *quite* the brainless sheep that you assume they are. If the value isn't there, it flops. If all it took was money and marketing, you would be using MSBob right now....

Re:wow, you're an idiot

[Drath]

Um to totally missed the point of this parent, All the things you pointed out failed because the MAJORITY didn't like them, i.e. NOT POPULAR. Popularity != Total Marketing. The idea that mass america is the brainless sheep is false in that respect, but it is true with respect to the fact that if you buy one thing your more likely to buy another of the same; If you buy a Backsteet Boys album your much more likely to buy an NSYNC album. You are a sheep, but you just like to think of conformity as your personality...

Re:wow, you're an idiot

[Teancom]

"American consumerism has shown that people will buy ANYTHING no matter the value if marketed enough."

Point of my post: marketing isn't enough, it also needs value.

So, what did I miss?

Re:wow, you're an idiot

[brunes69]

Who said anything about being brainless? Listen; MONEY drives the music industry. And guess who spends the most money on music: Teenage girls aged 14 - 21. Guess what music they like: Pop/Dance. They're not brainless, or brainwshed, they like it. And when I was younger, I did to. And so did you. So get of your high horse... If youw ant to change the music out there, the only way is to buy what you want, and kep buying. If enough people buy music of genre X, more music of genre X will be produced.

The RIAA doesn't want to contorl your minds, or control the type of music you listen to. They want to make money. Thats it.

Re:wow, you're an idiot

[Teancom]

Please actually read my posts before replying. If you look really, really, hard, you'll notice that I was saying people *aren't* brainless sheep.

Biofeedback good idea and then again...

[Xaleth Nuada]

Imagine a psychological therapy with a biofeedback tuned to give the patient music that will help his or her mood. Similar to bringing yourself out of a funk with progressively "happier" music.

Now imagine an improperly set chip sending a minimally depressed person into a spiralling downturn ending in suicide.

And then imagine "A Clockwork Orange," "1984," "Brave New World." ...etc. We give a lot of power to our silicon interfaces (whatever form they may take) Nevertheless where does our control of the situation end, and someone/thing else's begin?

Algo. of Death is Say!

[Anonymous Coward]

This could end up killing the dancers on something like exstacy, if it gets into a feedback loop with something like:

while(newHeartBeatLevel > oldHeartBeatLevel) {
findTrackWithFasterTempo();
newHeartBeatLevel = oldHeartBeatLevel;
}

who gives a shit

[Anonymous Coward]

electronic music all sucks anyway

i'd take a guitar any time over the shit that passes as "techno music".

"duh i am a dj and i play house and trance" as if there is a difference. fuckos.

Re:who gives a shit

[Anonymous Coward]

just because you don't like techno doesn't mean it sucks, you moron. A lot of guitarist are stupid enough to think that they are a better musician than a DJ. Idiot. Probably you're just an 31337 guitarist playing metalica's song and don't know anything about music.

oh BTW, i play the guitar too, and no, I don't listen to techno.

cheers,

-AC-

Re:who gives a shit

[Aerog]

Yet I can guarantee you that there's a vasy majority of people who could sit down and learn the 5 chords needed to play almost all the popular alt-rock songs out now.

*Enter Surly Abrasive Mode* (so what about karma?)

House and trance are two completely different things, and even such an "amazing" musician as yourself could figure this out. Hell, even Lars Ulrich could do it. it's a lot more than just a "bunch of druggies dancing to a steady bass thumping". Saying that is like saying that Rock is "a bunch of jocks and hicks standing around a couple guys plaing the same chord over and over again and droning on about some pointless crap." But by the looks of your post then this may have hit a bit too close to home. Maybe if you opened you eyes and your mind (try it for a change) you'd learn that "electronic" music is a term as broad as "Rock & Roll". I'm sure that you know that alternative is different than death metal, right?

*End rant mode*

And no, if you haven't guessed, I'm not the biggest fan of Rock. Personally, I find it boring and petty and having to listen to RHCP makes me want to vomit blood, but that's not saying that it doesn't have musical insight and value. Yeah, the good artists are extremely good at what they do. When you listen to something you just get used to the more subtle nuances (that means little differences*) of that style. I listen to trance and pick out pitch variations and the melody behind them. I imagine you can hear things that I'd never have heard in the latest Tool CD (or what-have-you).

But the point of the thing is that you can't take the work of an artist (you try DJ'ing and see how "easy" it is) and turn it into an algorithm**. it's an equivalent to having a computer write songs and (crappy) lyrics.

* Note: (if something is not like something else, then it's different)

** An algorithm is something to do with computers

Based on mood?

[Huge Pi Removal]

although I'd love an intermediate step where some sort of biofeedback picked MP3s based on your mood

Ummm. Why is state of mind necessarily linked to state of body? Sometimes when I'm tired I want more soothing music, but then sometimes I want some serious jazz. Other times when I'm tired I want Beethoven. How is a computer supposed to tell the moods in my head when ostensibly my body is simply saying it's tired?

It will work great!

[matija]

Until the couple making love in a dark corner ruin it for everyone :-)

Sharon Apple's way ahead of you guys..

[Anonymous Coward]

Those bracelet things in Macross Plus that figure out what the crowd is feeling and play cool music for 'em? Are we just now catching up with those folks over on Eden?

Oh yeah.. that's right..

Re:Sounds like a race condition...

[errxn]

1. Clubber takes ecstacy which causes increased heart rate.
2. Software monitors heart rate, which causes music to increase in tempo.
3. Increase in tempo causes ecstasy-fueled dancer to gyrate more wildly, resulting in an increase in heart rate.
4. Go to step 2.

I suck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please call me at 1-510-687-7000. Ask for Mr. John Cats, I'll do whatever you want. Thanks!

Cats

[Anonymous Coward]

CATS: All your base are belong to us
CATS: You have no chance to survive make your time

Have they copyrighted those "genes" yet?

[dave-fu]

Or rather, has ASCAP demanded the publishing and the RIAA the distribution rights yet?
If not, give it a few days. They'll make your heartbeat the next Britney Spears...

Mood profiled MP3 management

[headkick]

A co-worker of mine turned me on to Mood Logic. It is a program that allows the profiling of an MP3 file based on its sonic signature. Profiling is done via user input. Auto profiliing via net database of profiled songs. A user it then able to filter their MP3 collection by tempo, mood, artist, date, genre, or a collection of the above criteria. ID3 tag fixing is another perk. Very nice integration with WinAmp.

OK, now for the drawbacks.
1.) No ogg support, although it has been requested and acknowledged.
2.) Windows only.
3.) Proprietary sonic profiling algorithm.

I have been using this on a Win98 machine at home and I am impressed so far.

Why waste money on advertising?

[mangu]

Well, sure, people will buy things that are advertised. But it's not an infallible recipe. For instance, the Ford Edsel in the 1950's was the most heavily marketed car to that time, and it was a complete failure. Hundreds of millions $$$ (1950's $$$, about 20 to one today) wasted.

Wouldn't it be better if they could sell music without risk, and without marketing costs?

I like it old fashion

[thetechweenie]

This is very cool, and has the geek portion of my brain getting excited. However, I don't think it's anywhere near what a good DJ can do. I love a great DJ who can read the people, and cary you on a trip throughout the whole night of dancing. Er, I think I just said way too much about myself. You don't have to be an etard to love techno or dancing. You just need large amounts of RedBull and vodka. ;P

MP3's

[ThePilgrim]

If this stuff is going to be used to pick MP3's based on mood, I think we'll see a lot more suiside attempts.

Do you realy want a Smiths album when you are allready fealling depressed

Genetic Algorithms appropriate?

[elh102]

Non-gradient based optimization techniques such as genetic algorithms typically require many, many iterations, trying many different genetic combinations over many "generations" before obtaining an "optimal" solution. Are club-goers to be subjected to hours of crappy music in order for the computerized DJ to figure out what the crowd likes?

Re:Genetic Algorithms appropriate?

[vidarh]

That's not required. One way of training GP and GA systems without inflicting it on other people, would be to run the system alongside a real DJ:

Each of the GAs could get to choose a few tracks, and the DJ chooses a few tracks. After a few tracks, the GAs are assigned fitness values based on whether they match the DJs choice, choose a track from the same album, same artist or same genre (or any other criteria you think are relevant). Then you generate a new generation of GAs, and repeat.

If the DJ has a clear style, and you do your programming right, the GAs should converge on choosing music relatively close to what the DJ would choose in the same circumstances, and their fitness would increase.

Obviously, if used alongside a crappy DJ, this would generate GAs that would make equally crappy choices.

That's the only reason it was ever posted here

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't in Diamond Age, we'd never hear of it, and it never would have been posted to /..

It'll work, but not quite as they intended

[fireboy1919]

I can think of a couple of ways this could be useful. First, a DJ should have some idea of what they want to make the crowd feel. If a fuzzy genetic algorithm told him something about the emotions of the crowd based upon heart signals (for instance, everyone is roughly "excited"), he might have an idea of what to play next to make everyones experience more entertaining. As a sound technician (which is in no way a DJ, but still has similar attributes), I have noticed that I can do my job best with as much information as possible. At best, this has includes hearing the mix before effects are added, hearing it after, seeing the (amplitude of sound) levels for each channel being mixed, and seeing frequency responses from a real time analyzer. Walking around the room to listen to the sound in various locations also helps. I imagine if I had biofeedback, I could do an even better job of making everything what the audience wants to hear.

It might also help (though minimally) in the design of certain types of music. If you haven't heard, disco is usually set to a tempo which is roughly the speed of the human heartbeat based upon the theory that it makes it more exciting, and a lot of modern pop has encorporated elements of disco. In addition, consider that the Mozart's music is very similar to a mapping of neuronal firings in the brain, including (remarkably) the same fractal dimension, and it has been proven to increase the spacial and temporal reasoning skills temporarily (the Mozart effect).
This could be wrong, but biological theories are a starting point for many kinds of music. Good stuff could come out of this! The real problem that is not being considered is that music is something of a context sensitive language, with lingual rules. Generating music with just a computer must necessarily be a simple subset(because creation in the context sensitive case is NP-hard). Therefore, it will be a tool for people to use, rather than a solution of itself, for a long time.

Or rather

[twilight30]

...you'd hear more dull 2-step? ;)

I hear what you're saying, but I'd be more interested in seeing this as an additive, rather than replacement for, DJing in clubs. Ultimately the key to having it work is the core notion of 'taste' or aesthetic judgment.

Oh, what the fuck. Bring on the DrudgeDrools2002 and slap that cunt silly!

Diamond Age, anyone?

[!ramirez]

This reminds me a lot of a particular scene in "The Diamond Age", where Miranda is in the club with the flashing dragonfly lapel pins, which pick up on your mood and the audience basically composed the music, moving along in time with whatever the dancers were doing.

I'm surprised no one else picked up on that. Hrm.

Fractal Music

[Saint Stephen]

The Grateful Dead used to do this song called "Space". Similar tunes were "Feedback" and "Drumz". Real freaky things with eletronic music. The Dead were also big into MIDI.

The last Dead show I saw, in 1995, right before Garcia died, I saw a computer monitor just off the stage, hooked up to all the midi shit and the soundboard. When the band played Space, it was like no other space that had ever been played -- I swear to christ it was fractal music. The music began to play itself, the band stopped playing and left the stage and it began playing NEW patterns, not just ordinary guitar feedback. It would have never stopped. In fact, it continued during the whole intermission, always generating new patterns. Finally they just killed the sound.

Ordinary fractal pictures take a complex valued function, and assign different colors to it based on its closeness to zero. What they had done was map the function onto different MIDI instruments and notes, sound instead of colors. Then they seeded it with their own playing, and took off.

It blew my fucking mind wind open.

Better include a robot arm...

[jinx90277]

...since most DJs I know spin vinyl, not MP3s.

As an amateur DJ (and mixtape maker ever since I got my first AM/FM radio/cassette combo when I was eight), this technology leaves me cold. The art of a good mix is to have a definite flow in mind beforehand. You lead your audience through a series of moods and textures and try to leave them thrilled with the journey. Remember -- if it was up to the crowd, they'd instinctively reach for the records they already have on their bookshelves at home, since that's all they know. A good DJ is a teacher, or a tour guide.

And, while I'm at it -- wristwatches for the biometry? They'd have better luck if they could embed the sensors in those glowing necklaces that the rave crowd always seems to be wearing...

Re:Better include a robot arm...

[vidarh]

And this precludes leading the audience exactly how? After all, if you want that, all you have to do is modify the fitness function according to how you want to lead people.

If you think the idea of a good night is to have everyone collapsing after hours and hours of insane heart activity, then maximizing heart rythm would be a good fitness function. If you want to vary the speed and peoples response, then you have the fitness function vary over the course of the night.

As simple as that.

It seems as if everyone here assumes that biofeedback absolutely has to be used to have the system maximizing heart rate continuously.

Re:Better include a robot arm...

[krazy_kc]

No kidding!

Your fitness function could handle the "teacher" aspects as well, just because a human didn't introduce you to the new hot track, doesn't mean you won't like it. In fact, the fitness function given enough time and iterations, could get very good at figuring out what the next best track is going to be.

A DJ has to go to the record store, buy the records he can afford (or be given free), go home, listen to the records (in real time), decide if they are going to be a "hit", figure out if they are going to be a big enough "hit" to warrant changing around existing sets, etc.

A computer could download the files, assign them rateings based on previous patterns, filter ratings, add to playlists, try out new play lists based on past patterns etc. In time the computer with the right data/fitness function could become extremely good at "teaching, tour guiding."

Seems like a good tool for human DJ's actually, they can narrow down the list of records much quicker, and maybe find some tracks they never would.

We're all gonna die...

[BreakWindows]

When people hear music they like and start dancing, their heart rates increase. HPDJ-9000 realizes this, and generates a faster tempo. The dancers' heart rates speed up more. The music speeds up more. Next thing you know, BAM, the local club looks like Benny Hill, whopping people on the head and kicking pants in super-fast motion; hearts explode, eardrums burst...it'll be chaos!

Should be one hell of a party though...I'm in.

Re:We're all gonna die...

[vinnythenose]

My only question is right before all the hearts explode, how does the machine react. Does it think "Oh, they must be really happy with this music, I'll crank it up" when their hears at at 300 bpm?

perhaps so but

[streetlawyer]

why would anyone in the marketing business choose to do things the hard way, by promoting things that people don't like, when there are things which people do like, which would presumably be cheaper and easier to sell.

For extra credit, if marketing people are so stupid, why do they earn more than you?

For extra extra credit, if marketing is so easy and lucrative, why don't you go and do it, and write free software in your copious spare time?

for extra extra extra credit, if you lack the "social skills" to be a marketeer because you're "an engineer who only cares about the right way to do things", what makes you so sure that your intutions about what the public likes are accurate?

Triple points if you know more than two people who don't share your personal taste in music.

Re:perhaps so but

[Stiletto]

Exactly.

It's EASY to brainwash people. Marketers know this and stick to the established formulas. Top-40 is an established format. A large demographic has been told they like this kind of music, so that's what sells! A large enough demographic has been told they like "classic rock", rap, or country, and these markets sell, too. It's easy because the conditioning is already in place.
Marketers aren't stupid, just not very creative or adventurous. I'd be willing to bet if you had a large enough marketing and advertising campain, you could get people to like (and buy) anything.

It still doesn't mean these people have any taste, which I believe was the point of the parent of this thread. No one can really quantify taste.

Re:perhaps so but

[brunes69]

This reply is totally baffling. You are basiclly agreeing with everything I said, yet doing it wiih a tone that makes it sound like you're disagreeing.

I think its stupid

[HanzoSan]

We shouldnt mix technology with art.
Music is art, no computer program will ever replace a good DJ, or good musician.

Why even try?

This makes the audience important

[enemenemuh]

Think of MTV. Stupid Boygroups are pushed because there is a majority of people who seem to like it. A computer DJ could produce the same effect. There are always enough people who want to hear the recent hit single of artist X again and again, or more generally spoken: The majority always wants the same kind of music.
So, a computer DJ might end up playing endlessly some OntheTop-Dancefloor-Trash or whatever the local audience might like. This kind of playing behaviour is actually happening in bad clubs with bad DJ's. - It is not with good DJ's, because they surprise and are innovative. You don't have to care about what the rest of the audience wants to listen to (as you might have to with a computer DJ) because you rely on the DJ, who makes his own unexpected choices.

is this a full body moog?

[Anonymous Coward]

or better yet a way for game hardware to
react to your gameplay.

For example, use biofeedback to measure your reaction speed and auto adjust the game AI to play just above your level.

"Genetic Algorithm" -- the new buzzword

[Stiletto]

It's nice to see that a new buzzword has emerged to allow people to gloss-over topics they don't get, or aren't willing to desribe in detail. The uses are infinite:

WSJ: Microsoft's new product uses genetic algorithms to make Windows XP easy to use!

Programmer: Well, we actually used several perl and php scripts to talk to MySQL to sort and manage user data.

Marketing document: Our product uses genetic algorithms to sort and manage user data.

Boss: So how does this program work?

Me: Well, I take input from the user, run it through a genetic algorithm and the output is what is expected.

Boss: Great! Ship it!

Re:"Genetic Algorithm" -- the new buzzword

[SpeelingChekka]

It's nice to see that a new buzzword has emerged to allow people to gloss-over topics they don't get

Perhaps it only seems that way to you because its a topic you don't understand. The term "genetic algorithm" is FAR from new, genetic algorithm research has been going on for decades (with some machine-learning-related texts dealing with "evolutionary programming" dating back to the 1960s), and the term describes a very specific (and actually somewhat mundane) AI technique. Its not a "general term" being used to describe something that they aren't willing to describe in the article, in fact, its pretty much a certainty that they chose that word precisely because it refers to the *exact technique* being used, and there is no ambiguity in using it if you know what genetic algorithms are. Hardly a buzzword.

Re:Sounds like a race condition...

[Anonymous Coward]

5. 400 clubbers found dead due to heart failure.

Screw the DJ

[indole]

(As an electronic music lover)
I'd have to say the DJ is over-rated as hell.
You can scream all you want about the subtleties of reacting to a crowd, but frankly, thats not music-making. Its still playing other peoples songs and taking credit for them. But I digress.

This link provides background including the paper published concerning the first version of the software (no heartrate - beatmatching, just electronic deejaying)

Re:Screw the DJ

[Anonymous Coward]

yes, this is just what we need. lets make the DJS more fake than they already are. check out djs on strike!

Re:Screw the DJ

[dj_flux]

You're right - it's not music making, and I think you'll be hard pressed to find an experienced DJ that disagrees with you. What it is, however, is juxtaposing existing music in new and unexpected ways to keep your audience engaged. There are a lot of mediocre DJs out there, (most of the big names even), that simply play anthem after anthem and never really do anything interesting. There are also many who take mixing to the next level and put together sets that keep people on the dance floor. DJs just play records for people. Some are better at it than others, and it's hard to tell the difference if you don't dance.

That being said, one of the things that separates good DJs from great DJs is the ability to not only read and react to a crowd, but anticipate how a crowd will react to a track that's dissimilar to what's being played - thus creating progression. I don't see that ability in this system.

What If

[loconet]

Interesting, what if a fight breaks up in the club? Interesting to hear the beat of that mood

Anyone remember...

[jareth]

Macross Plus? The people at the Sharon Apple (virtuoid idol) concerts were fitted with bracelets that monitored everyone's vitals. The computer people modified the music and lighting to control everyone's mood. By the end of the movie Sharon Apple was able to sorta do mind control on people. This is what I wanna see next time I go to a concert!

Re: Automate the clean-up

[Guru2Newbie]

If situation C occurs, simply have a stretcher-bot with flashing lights and low siren come out onto the now-silent floor, zero in on the collapsed/croaked dancer, and carry him/her off the floor to be revived (whilst simultaneously calling an ambulance). Afterwards, the music continues. People would love it!

Wouldn't that algorithm....

[Muad'Dave]

...always end up with music by "The Dead Kennedys"? Talk about fast beats and lyrics. A normal-length song in 1:20!

generative and systemic electronic music

[Alex Reynolds]

I did an interview with Autechre about generative music here:

http://www.autechre.nu/cgi-bin/newspro/interviews. cgi?newsid1004112934,55737,

Their version of feedback in live shows is more of a visceral, human thing, not really reliant on biomonitoring data from electronic devices. But one of the musicians talks about certain algorithms in his music having certain effects on a crowd, and how he tunes his response according to the vibe.

Lots of links on systemic music.. where to start...

One place is a Java plugin for drawing together systems of sound: http://www.softsynth.com/jsyn/. Application of it here: http://www.yeeking.freewire.co.uk/html/index.html

Another is Dr. Essl's fLOW: http://www.essl.at/works/flow.html.

Or Sseyo's KOAN: http://www.sseyo.com/

And of course a standard like Max/MSP: http://www.cycling72.com/

Happy generations!

Positive or negative feedback?

[dar]

although I'd love an intermediate step where some sort of biofeedback picked MP3s based on your mood.

I'm not sure I'd like that. I'd hate it if I was feeling blue and the music tried to cheer me up. At least I hate it when people do that.

On the other hand if you're already down and the it plays depressing music - you could spiral right on down to suicide.

--

lazy!

[psychalgia]

I still think generative music has a lot of potential, although I'd love an intermediate step where some sort of biofeedback picked MP3s based on your mood."

and i think im lazy for using cruise control! damn dude, you HAVE a remote, what more do you want!

it's this simple

[niekze]

Most club/party DJ's spin vinyl. They don't spin mini-disc, cd's, or mp3's. Why? because it's real. If this doesn't make sense to you, then you're just out of luck.

Diamond Age

[eudas]

Didn't I read abou this in Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age"?

welcome to the next generation, i guess... although even with this kind of thing people are still social animals, and thus will desire the human interaction that other posters think will be missing. imo, they need not worry.

it'll be interesting to see how it pans out.

eudas

the techno music artist.. BT

[Monofilament]

I saw an interview with BT a little while ago. Where he was talking about just this thing. He had picked up one of those headband brainwave trackers. (I believe slashdot a while back had put a story about a similar product to use as a mouse or keyboard.. for people with disabilities). BT was talking about using it to track his brainwaves while he does his music at a show.. and then come up with a way that it would control his lighting rigs and possibly some of the music effects, such that the feelings he had at the time would actually control the equipment. Not only giving him more control but giving an interesting edge to the "vibe" he is trying to produce at a show.

Re:Or rather (way OT - oh well)

[CmdrPinkTaco]

I don't live in the UK, but I am a clubber here in the states and cant stand Jules (looks like R1 replaced him with Fergie this year and Im still trying to figure out who is worse) - I laughed out loud when he remarked that it doesn't respond to the crowd - like he is even remotely aware that there is a crowd that he is playing to. Seems like his sets are based on the biggest anthems of the moment.

I think that a Dj who used this as a suggestion device would be interesting. A lot of good DJs are planning their set 3-5 songs ahead of the one that is currently playing - if the device could be used to offer up suggestions (like something the DJ may have in their crate that they haven't played in a while) it could be interesting. I can see this being used as another tool behind the decks (ban the beat counters), but can't really see something like this completely replacing DJs.

Just my 2 cents.

DJ's need to stop getting so uptight

[Spiff28]

Everyone seems to be obsessed with talking about how DJ's will never be replaced because of their flow and their artistry. "A computer will pander to the audience, play only what they want to hear, and never have such epic progressions or varied styles!"

Bullshit.

Artistry or not, DJ'ing consists of the following:
- a library of songs/tricks/skills
- knowledge of what songs work with what
- tailoring predefined progressions toward your audience

Now, most DJ's as artists tend to not even think about this. Something just instantly feels right, so that's what goes on next. But really, it feels right because they know that it's going to compliment the current song, the current mood, and will lead to someplace where the DJ is similarly comfortable.

Just because the crowd doesn't expect it doesn't mean the DJ doesn't either. (Triple negative, woohoo!)

My point is, DJ'ing comes down to making decisions based upon some sets of knowledge. I think it is very possible for a computer to mimic this. A library of songs is easy to build. A reference of what songs work well with others is possible, both through a DJ's input, or noting how a crowd responded to the two mixed together weighted by the rest of the mood of that session. A list of progessions that generated certain moods is possible. Mutations upon those to cause those "sudden unexpected surprises" is possible.

And yes, I DJ. With that thing called vinyl.

Re:DJ's need to stop getting so uptight

[Anonymous Coward]

Too lazy to create an account right now.

Anyway this is absolutely true of DJs who just mix from one track to another without doing anything interesting with it; this describes 99% of DJs around. Nothing inherently wrong with it either, since these guys can get a crowd going just fine. Crowds are mostly composed of people who don't care what the DJ is doing as long as he doesn't suck. They just want to dance.

It won't replace top-quality DJs who do interesting and often multi-record mixes, make proper use of effects, and tweak the mixer for all its worth. Adam Freeland is the first person who comes to mind.

To put it another way, good DJs take a few records and mix them into something new. Average DJs just mix records.

It's funny too, that style of DJing isn't hard. It's not really any harder than "normal" DJing once you can beatmatch well, if you have the creativity for it. But few people play this way. IMHO this is because too many DJs are music fans first and artists second. I suspect that most of the ones that are artists first wind up heading towards the production side of things and become more interested in that than the DJing.

Re:DJ's need to stop getting so uptight

[Anonymous Coward]

no shit! how are you going to talk about what DJing is when you've been doing it for the amount of time that most people last at a fast food job? nothing worse than a poseur.

just what we need....

[2names]

Most of the clubbers I've ever met are really just clingy, needy, dorky misfits who -- underneath all the wild exterior -- are simply looking for attention. This means that if these are the people whose insides are defining the music, we'll all be listening to an endless loop of Barney and Engelbert Humperdinck singing a Natalie Merchant arrangement of WASP's "I Wanna Be Somebody". Fucking christ, aren't there better projects to be working on than comfort music for horny, young, self-absorbed pacifier suckers?

Rave in Alaska; Headlines..

[GISboy]

A baby seal walks into a club.

(Insert 3 second pause and *If* raucous laughter/groan does not ensue once you get it... I don't know what to tell you)

this is a DEA wet dream

[Rai]

since they'd prolly assume anyone who's heart rate is too high must be on e and the arrests would pile up.

still, it would be nice to mix everyone's heartbeats into some ambience.

Generative music links

[androse]

http://www.sound-hack.org

http://stub.org

http://slub.org

http://kanak.perl.it/music/

http://fals.ch

I wonder if I can book this machine for my wedding

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be any more expensive than the quotes I've gotten already. Jeez.

I just hope I don't get nervous during the speeches.

DJ/Producers

[Rai]

true, but most of the better DJs are also producers who create their own music or remix others. John Digweed produces as Bedrock (with Nick Muir), John Graham produces as Quivver, Danny Howells produces as Science Dept (with someone else who's name i forget), Sasha produced as ...Sasha, and so on and so forth...

as far as DJs being overrated, let's hear you mix (or trainwreck) for 3 hours and see how overrated it is.

GA DJ

[Anonymous Coward]

Artificial as it is, it'll probably have more imagination than those dudes who create that soul-less mish-mash of sample CD sounds (you know what that is). Let's go back to real creativity, let's go back to 4/4 analog uncompromised tekkno!!

but what if...

[Anonymous Coward]

they're all drinking Red Bull? Josh

I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[Ulwarth]

I'm a professional club/rave DJ, and I've also been in the "scene" for several years just as a raver, so here's my perspective.

DJs such as Christopher Lawrence, Nicholas Bennison, Sandra Collins will never be replaced by a program like this. The organization of their sets and impeccable taste in tracks can never be replaced by aritifical intelligence. What they do is as much an act of pure human artistry as Mozart or Chopin.

That said, what _most_ rave/club DJs produce is just a bunch of semi-related tracks beatmatched together in a more or less random order. A program like this could easily match or beat your average human DJ in this regard. Especially because the article specified that the program is mixing together prewritten tracks (I assume written by humans). If it was composing completely from scratch I doubt that it would be very compelling.

One final point: many people don't realize this, but a big part of what makes rave/club music sound the way that it does is the fact that it's on vinyl. In particular, the sound of two tracks mixing together (mainly the way the waveforms for the bassdrums interact) is very distinct, and a big part of the live DJ sound. You don't get this sound when people are mixing with CDs, you don't get it when performers are playing "live" with synthesizers, and you won't get it from a computer (assuming that it is not using a robotic arm and turntables to play the tracks).

Re:I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[Fyndo]

The organization of their sets and impeccable taste in tracks can never be replaced by aritifical intelligence.

Also, a computer will never defeat a grandmaster at chess. They won't be able to replicate the inventiveness of a human player.

It may be a while, before a computer can be a better DJ than a human, and it may be impossible, but I think being sure it's impossible is awfully premature, given that people have been trying for a very, very short time.

and you won't get it from a computer (assuming that it is not using a robotic arm and turntables to play the tracks)

Bullpucky. Writing a program to replicate that effect wouldn't be terribly hard. It'd take a little research, but if you think it'd take an appropriately equipped programmer much more than a week to hack something that could do it, you're wrong.

Re:I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[TheSync]

One final point: many people don't realize this, but a big part of what makes rave/club music sound the way that it does is the fact that it's on vinyl. In particular, the sound of two tracks mixing together (mainly the way the waveforms for the bassdrums interact) is very distinct, and a big part of the live DJ sound.

Uh, I don't get it - it there a bandwidth limitation of CDs in comparison with vinyl? At the end of the day, the two analog output signals of a CD and the same work on vinyl should be very similar over a wide band. Which frequencies aren't being represented? Or is there some kind of whack feedback between the speakers and the stylus?

I find it difficult to believe you can do the same things with CDs you can with vinyl with regard to scratching/dropping "user interface", but I've seen some imrpessive looking CD mixers recently, and I imagine the "user interface" will get better and better.

Re:I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[duckbill]

You may be right. Unfortunately I'm not a connoisseur of the art form to where I can directly reply to your contention.

I will surmize that the autere's you mention are far shorter in supply than the demand for rave clubs. I would also guess that this is particularly true in medium sized urban areas, as the best ultimately move into the NY/London/Berlin et. al of the world.

Consequently, I imagine this innovation could improve the social scene in many areas.

Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing an adoptation for other scenes. Possibly track selection in non-live music social clubs.

"One final point: many people don't realize this, but a big part of what makes rave/club music sound the way that it does is the fact that it's on vinyl."

You may be right on this point. I can no longer find the article, but David Chesky once surmized that we respond to vinyl better because of its continuous waveform. He presumes that our evolutionary survival skills actually let us perceive the start/stops of the digitized wave.

I'd really love to see a blind test or a psychoacoustical survey on this topic. My main recreational outlet is listening to music, and I haven't been able to tell a great difference on similarly produced/mastered tracks except for on very expensive playback equipment. Then I (think I) can discern a more warm texture to music with natural sounds. I cannot tell much of a difference with artificial sounds, and I've never tried doing it blind to confirm that I really do hear a difference.

Re:I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[Rai]

as an amatuer DJ/producer, i must disagree with your final point refering to the unwritten 'vinyl only' rule. i know many DJs who use CDs in live performances (Dave Ralph, DJ X, Micro, etc), some of them even have it in the contracts where you must provide a performance cd player for them, and the crowd doesn't notice. it's all the same music, regardless of the media it's played from. although i exclusively use vinyl, one of the best pro DJs in my area can work wonders with CDs. plus, he never has a problem finding tracks. while i'm in scouring record stores looking for a certain tune, he can download it, burn it on cd, and be ready to mix (i think therein lies the purpose of the anti-cd rule).

Re:I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[Ulwarth]

Uh, I don't get it - it there a bandwidth limitation of CDs in comparison with vinyl? At the end of the day, the two analog output signals of a CD and the same work on vinyl should be very similar over a wide band. Which frequencies aren't being represented? Or is there some kind of whack feedback between the speakers and the stylus?

Yes - what you say is correct. Anyone that says that vinyl is a better representation of the "true" sound is full of crap.

From a non-technical point of view, I just know that it sounds different. In fact, a good DJ takes advantage of that sound to beatmatch - when the kickdrums are dead on, it gets that special vinyl-only overlapping kickdrum sound. When it's not quite on, you don't hear that.

I think, though I am not sure, that it has to do with the behavior of the analogue waveform when it caps out. An analogue singal gets "rounded" as it hits peak; a digital signal just cuts off, completely square. Normally this isn't a problem because you're not overloading your signal, but in the special case of two strong kickdrums dead on, you hear it. For me (and many dance music listeners) that sound is very pleasing and very important to the dance music performance.

When only one song is playing - that is, when you're not in a mix - it doesn't sound any different than a CD. So you could argue that my point is very minor. But it does matter to me.

Re:I'm a professional club/rave DJ

[Ulwarth]

I said:
The organization of their sets and impeccable taste in tracks can never be replaced by aritifical intelligence.

Fyndo said:
Also, a computer will never defeat a grandmaster at chess. They won't be able to replicate the inventiveness of a human player.

There's a big difference. Chess is not subjective; winning or losing (and even the individual moves) are easy to evaluate with an algorithm. How do you write an algorithm which decides what music is most pleasing to the human ear? Humans can't even agree with each other. Programming a computer to do it would be a monumental task.

That said, you're right: I shouldn't say "never." Crazier things have happened. But in my professional opinion, as both an experienced computer programmer and as a professional DJ, it won't happen anytime in the next (say) decade.

Sorry, I love tech, but this bird won't fly

[Kaneda]

I might have believed in this a couple of years back. I started out "DJ'ing" with VTT (Virtual Turn Tables) running 2 soundcards in a PC through a mixer and MP3's running on each soundcard.
It sucked.
Then I bought Pioneer Pro CD players and a better mixer. They rock. Very cool.
Recently I bought Technics 1210, and my life has changed.
I came into this with an open mind, and in fact I started out trying very hard to go all digital, but the fact is, for DJ'ing, nothing beats good old analog vinyl. There is something about having your hand on the vinyl itself when you cue it up that can't be replaced by digital tech (although the newest pioneer players come damn close)
It's a tactile thing.

My thought about this - a DJ does so much more than seamlessly mix the music on the night - a HUGE part of the job is getting hold of the right music.
It's about not only reacting to the crowd but pushing them too. And about doing the unexpected, not just what the crowd thinks is next.

A good dj knows when to keep the tempo in check so as not to tire out the dancers too early. Or when to really wind it up. Or what to play to an empty dancefloor to hook people back in. Or how to interact with a performer or platform dancers at a party.
I went to an outdoor party once where the dancefloor got buzzed by a microlight - the DJ, Tsuyoshi Suzuki, cut all the sound except the bass, and the whole dancefloor just throbbed as the plane almost landed on us.
Could a computer react to that?

imagine having to listen to *anything* at 300 dB

[phossie]

you wouldn't be hearing much for long.

This will be so disheartening...

[Jace of Fuse!]

This will be so disheartening to a vast number of artists when the biofeedback tells the DJ what the clubbers REALLY think of some of the music being played today.

Suddenly tunes that lack any structures of sound such as beat, melody, rhythm or harmony are going to be proven once and for all to be the crap that they are. And poorly written lyrics that aren't in tune, in synch, or lack rhythm AND rhyme are going to throw the music straight out.

In the end the dancers are going to learn that most of the music they THOUGHT they like, their bodies really don't, and the DJ is going to be left with nothing left to play.

Finally we won't have to listen to Destiny's Child anymore.

...

Re:Sounds like a race condition...

[Spankophile]

Actually, that isn't a race condition at all. If would be an infinite loop. Of course, when the people start dying, you would have effectively inserted a "break" after step 3.

Of course, you might have been "pun"-ing on "race condition" with regard to peoples' hearts racing. In which case, I apologize.

Re:Sounds like a race condition...

[bughunter]

Actually, that's isn't an infinite loop at all. It would be "positive feedback."

Biofeedback, eh?

[rice_burners_suck]

Next thing you know, they're installing sensors in peoples' heads that will transmit all their thoughts (even their subconcious) to a big huge central computer the size of the powerplant in the Matrix, where all thoughts will be processed, and then all the devices around the person (light bulbs, radios, phones, whatever) will automatically adjust (through the Internet, which will have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the bandwidth as today to support all this stuff) to the person's mood and stuff.

Of course, Microsoft will come around and implement Bio Rights Management (BRM) and they will install their innovative technologies on these enormous computers. Once a day, these computers will crash, leaving everybody in the world thoughtless (except for the elite few who will remain unconnected for the purpose of rebooting the computer when it crashes, a process which will take 100 years, including the scandisk and stuff) until the computer comes back online. So you might be sitting around on a bright sunny day and all of a sudden there's a rainstorm out of nowhere which you and everybody else never saw happening because you've been unconcious for 100 years while the scandisk was going on.

But where was I? Oh yeah, Bio Rights Management. Every thought will run through thought filters in Microsoft's innovative technology which will decide whether what you're thinking is compatible with Microsoft's business plan, and if not, the thought will be blocked and you will receive an electrical shock as punishment. Also, to fund the system, advertisements will automatically be 'beamed' into your head. That process will be painless and will feel just like a song stuck in your head. In fact, you'll also have a very strong urge to buy the product being advertised. And once a month or so, Microsoft will give you this extremely strong urge to donate your paycheck directly to Microsoft. By this time, Microsoft will have purchased the IRS, making your tax problems more integrated and innovative.

But that's 100 years down the road.

Discotheques are a sign of the Apocalypse

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

Would you enjoy to watch a soccer match, with only robots, executing programmed tasks?

I suppose that live musicians said the same when dance halls were becominng "discotheques".

Biofeed*back*

[Pseudonymus Bosch]

I understood that biofeedback implied that the feed goes back to the measured being, the dancers, thus enabling a self regulating control loop. I'd call this "biotelemetry" or something.

Chicago Airport tunnel experience

[John Harrison]

While in the Chicago airport recently I thought of something similar, though admitted much simpler. The tunnel that connects the two United terminals (B&C?) has a bunch of neon lights arranged in rainbow patterns that cycle through various blinking patterns. The sound system is playing the "United Airlines Music" while you look at the flashing lights. I suggested to my brother as we calmly rode the people mover (we weren't in a hurry) that it would be interesting to have a system that could monitor the number of people in the tunnel. It could then make the music and the lights change according to the number of people. Lots of people could cause louder, faster music and wildly blinking neon lights while just a few people could cause the system to make the lights and music a much more calming experience. Then you could watch people's reactions to see if the hectic music made a frantic situation even worse. You could also switch the system around and see if you could slow large crowds of people by playing softer, slower music. My brother thought it was an interesting idea but said that you'd probably be sued when some 55 year-old business man came through and had a heart attack due to the extra stress of going through such a tunnel.

Hmm, respond to your mood how though?

[Kasreyn]

Do you want it to put on music that matches your mood? Or do you want it to put on music to move you to another mood?

Imagine a biofeedback mp3 playlist owned by a depressive person that puts on happy music when he's feeling low. Could be one way of looking at it.

-Kasreyn

Re:imagine having to listen to *anything* at 300 d

[ElDuque]

I wonder if there has ever been anything that was 300db...remember, the decibel scale is logarithmic, and the space shuttle taking off is about 180db or so. I can't imagine anything being 10^whatever times louder than that.

This also raises the question "Did the big bang make any noise?" because there was no universe for it to be heard in....

Re:imagine having to listen to *anything* at 300 d

[arkanes]

300db would quite likely kill you, because the shockwave from a sound that loud would pulverise your bones and explode your heart.

-1, Offtopic

[Computer!]

The fact still remains that pop music is what most people listen to.

Well, "popular" is what "pop" is short for. Of course, the term "pop" has been applied to unpopular music with a similar catchy-ness, like Jets to Brazil or Apples in Stereo. The point is not that people listen to crap, but why do they?

There is plenty of choice out there and whether you listen to Led Zeppelin or The Beatles, who mind you, were a pop group still with plenty of fans, is a choice.

Not if listening to indie music is nearly impossible, like it is in most of the 'burbs, and the Midwest in general. I live in Dallas, a no-man's-land for national indie acts. Whereas there's an all-ages show every night at 100 different venues in NYC, we might get one or two a month. How are kids supposed to shake off the influence of crap radio when there are no alternatives?

Marylin Manson and Rob Zombie sure aren't pop [...]

Oh, really? Multi-platinum arists are underground all of the sudden? Everybody's definition of "pop" is different, but come on...

but anti-pop is just as big a market and they are simply cashing in on all the teenaged boys trying to be cool[...]

Fred Bizkit and crew (POD, Linkin Park, et al) are just as popular as Brittney. Real anti-pop (think Fugazi, At The Drive In, underground hip hop, etc) is a tiny, tiny segment of the music market (less than 1%) with a monopoly on quality. Check out Insound for the best bands you've never heard. No, I do not work for them. Get a record player. Go out to local shows and small national acts when they show up in/near your town. Grab your town's alternative music weekly. There's a lot of great tunes out there made during the last five years.

It would be great if the radio had more variety and more challenging music. That's unfortunately impossible right now, with the way the 'biz works. Who knows, maybe we can change that.

never been to a rave, have you? = )

[Anonymous Coward]

this software does *exactly* what a good DJ tries to do. mix from a pre-existing selection of music, get a reaction from the crowd, work them into a frenzy, let them down a little, and pick them up again. like frankie knuckels once put it, the goal is 'to be the pupeteer'.

so, if it's smart enough, it should adapt to people getting tired of old tracks (which happens) and have to come up with something new now and again. if you put random enough things into the 'crate' you could conceivably get new styles and sounds out of it.

My God, They've Simulated Trance DJs!

[meehawl]

When the crowd gets into the music, the HPDJ will sense that more people are on the dance floor and monitor how actively they are dancing. It will then gradually build up the tempo to whip the dancers into a brief frenzy, before calming things down for a chill-out period.
This is nothing more or less than what those simple mindless trance DJs play to monged-out crowds everywhere.

wandering off to the bar

[brer_rabbit]

If the track sounds so awful that people cannot get into it, they may wander off to the bar...

Actually, the club owner would setup the system such that if *not enough* people are at the bar the music will become awful. I'm half serious here: club owners make their money on selling a rum & coke for $7. It's not in their interest to have people *only* on the dance floor all night.

wHAT A sTUPID pOST.

[Anonymous Coward]

fIRST OF ALL, cOMPUTER nERDS DONT DANCE.

sECOND OF ALL, IF THEY DID, WHY WOULD WE WANT THEM PICKING THE MUSIC? tHERE'S A REASON djS' EXIST. i SUPPOSE WE COULD REPLACE THE DJ WITH A COMPUTER, BUT THEN WHY NOT THE DANCER? aND THEN THE MUSICIAN, AND THEN THE COMPUTER. hELL WE SHOULD ALL GO VACATION IN FIJI AND LET COMPUTERS TAKE CARE OF ALL OUR CRAP.

The True Rave

[Cowboy Deejay]

The idea behind deejaying a party is forming an intimate relationship with the dancers. A DJ watches the crowds reactions to the music and feeds off of their energy, and then lifts the crowd even higher until an ecstatic state of union between the DJ, music, and dancers occurs. Letting computers take control of the dancefloor takes away from the true shamanistic act of deejaying. Computers can't feel love. Computers can't appreciate the unified vibration that carries the dance into higher planes of exsistance. Giving computer control of the party takes away everything we as humans put into it. Computers may be used to make the music....but remember, there is a beating heart on the other side of that vinyl groove.

AI - I don't think so

[Birdie-PL]

Well, calling this AI is a bit far-fetched. From what I understand, the system is a very simple genetic algorithm using some 'bio-feedback'. So the only new thing here is this feedback and evaluation function and that only if it's not trivial.

Apart from that, there is nothing special. Been there, done that and in high-school.

what an ass.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And yes, I DJ. With that thing called vinyl."

You and 20 million other schmucks. Most of whom give off the same irritating attitude, especially when they've been "spinning" for about 6 months.

And you all love to talk about "spinning" their "vinyl". As if those are code words for cool people.

If your musical knowledge runs only as deep as BT, Crystal Method and Squarepusher, you should just back away from the fucking turntables and leave it to the professionals.