Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
"I was not put on this earth to listen to meat! Frylock..were you?" -Master Shake
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!
Josh Woodward
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.
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
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
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.
...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.
My sigs always suck.
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?
I read Slashdot for the
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.
-- the most controversial site on the Web
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.
- passion
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!
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.
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).