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Pandora Radio from Music Genome Project
kramthegram writes "The Music Genome Project, an attempt to define music by it's traits in a way similar to DNA defines traits in humans has led to the development of Pandora. Pandora uses the song choices you make to see what traits appeal to you and present you with custom radio station. While limiting you to thumbs up or thumbs down, the "gene" heuristics allows for a very quick adaptation to your musical tastes." Not sure how deep it goes, and I'm not sure I like that it led me from The Who to Styx and Def Leppard. But this is a neat little tool for discovering new music.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/07/173021 5&tid=141&tid=187
At least this one took over a month.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
Is it anything like Last.FM, or does it run independant of other users? If it runs independant of other users, I'd say Last.FM would win in that category, because it's showing you what other people that listen to the same music that you do like.
I think Last.FM and this have the same aim, recommending music you might like, but I think Last.FM pulled it off better.
...Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Actually, it seems like an interesting idea. We all have libraries of CDs based on our likes and I suspect if the libraries were analyzed we'd find slighlty deeper relations between the disparate music we collect. I've got a very eclectic collection of music and I'd be hard pressed to see the link between Reba McIntyre, Pink Floyd, and David Sanborn, but maybe there is one.
Of course some conspiracy theorist is going to use this to determine that the music industry is actually selling the same 5 songs over and over again, just in different keys and rhythms. Because we all know it's true.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
The best resutls come from submitting a song that you like. Using the Artist will most likely get you going down the wrong path. This is due to not all songs sounding similar from one artist. I have had the best results by putting in 2 or 3 songs that are similar to my ear that like. If you can't think of any songs by an Artist, Google it first. Also, there is a "rating" system. If you like the song, then give it a Thumbs Up, if you don't, give it a Thumbs Down. This will help your station learn what kind of music you are actually looking for. Rate the songs for better results.
I do like the site, unfortunately though after around 3 hours of using it, it stopped giving me new songs that I liked; it just played song's I already said I'd liked, or songs I didn't like. One interesting thing is that is uses basic mp3 files for the music, so it's actually not too hard to download the mp3's directly from the server if you log the right packets.
Pity they'll be putting ads on it (soon).
... I've given up. The Pandora player insists on using Flash local storage, which I had disabled. Now, no matter what I do with the local storage settings, Pandora just keeps telling me I need to enable Flash local storage. Following their instructions doesn't help.
Too bad.
Sean
A very similar concept that actually works is www.music-map.com. This engine takes the input of all users into account and really let's you discover new artists from the genres you like.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I find Last.FM a better method to find new music. Granted, the new Player REALLY SUCKS, I used it before they started the new player thing. There is a Proxy being developed which restores the old functionallity more or less.
Oh, that and the Pandora music project is not free:
Q: How much does it cost?
Pandora is available in two forms. Both versions have exactly the same features.
The first form is an advertising-supported version which is entirely free. Over time we'll be incorporating ads into this version of Pandora.
For those who want to steer clear of advertising, subscriptions are available in two different flavors:
ANNUAL: 12 months of unlimited use for $36
QUARTERLY: 3 months of unlimited use for $12
while the last.fm is free unless you want a "personal" radio.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
and now that I know C a little, maybe I'll try out making a plugin or something..
/right now/.
/would/ go well. (various probability weighting schemes, decreased weight as we move on, requiring much use before it really knows you, blah blah blah...)
I have lots of MP3s. I like most of them. However, I'm not always in the mood for all of them. There is very little music I've dismissed completely as bad, so "Thumbs up" || "Thumbs down" is pretty lame (,stupid, closed-minded, moronic, a horrible basis for anything, encouraging of the already prevailent general-dumbness of people whose music I tend not to be in the mood for, etc)
What I've wanted is a system by which music can be automatically catagorized based not on whether or not I like it, but rather based on whether or not I'm likely to enjoy it
How this would work: Start with the standard "Shuffle", picking at random any song. Then, if I hit "next" right after a song starts, decide "This song doesnt go well with this other song right now", and instead try selecting one which my lack of hitting "next" in the past has indicated
The closest I've seen has been plugins which weight the shuffle based on a rating you choose, which doesnt ever fluxuate.
Point: Playlists should be quaint by now. Why should I need to choose in advance what I'm in the mood to listen to an hour from now?
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Sue them!!
-- RIAA
(the funny/scary part is that it's not far fetched to me that they actually will, for being too accurate in handing out music a user wants to listen to)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I have been a happy (and donating) user of Last FM formerly Audioscrobbler. They do a really good job of matching up music tastes and their radio program is good. They also have a plugin that allows you to submit what you play from most major audio players so you can track what you listen to and compare with others. They have full tagging capabilities and extensive forums as well as music 'groups' of like minded appreciators. I have been very impressed and I admit I haven't played with Pandora much but it doesn't seem too much better/different.
They have people listening to songs and classifying them by about 400 different attributes. They analyze the commonalities in those attributes between the songs you like and the ones you don't to provide more of what you like.
What it says about what I'm listening to right now:
"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rythmic syncopation, varying tempo and time signatures, demanding instrumental part writing and a clear focus on recording studio production."
It works pretty well for me.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
This does work pretty well. Right now, I'm listening to Norwegian Death Metal:
"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features vocals similar to cats being tortured, drum tracks with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, a bare modicum of musical talent, and a complete disregard for human life."
You know, most of the media world is pretty excited about these concepts of "personalized media"... where the media that is presented to you is based on the types of things that you already like (it's just starting to take off in music, but watch for it in the future in television, movies, and internet sites). But I see this as somewhat of a problem, where people are never exposed to new things. If everything in our world is personalized and created specifically for our tastes, how do we define our tastes? When do we ever get a chance to listen to something we don't like, and say that we don't like it? Or listen to new things we've never heard of, and that may not be in any way related to our database of media we like, and say we like it?
The situation presents us with two possibilities: either we get pidgeonholed into a "genre" artificially created by the content distributors (as broad or narrow as that genre might be), or our tastes enter a feedback loop, where the only things we listen to are the things our personalized media players play for us, whose choices are based on things we listen to in our personalized media players.
So where do we get outside input? My suggestion at this point would be to do away with artificial genres and create relationships between media based purely on a database of what people like and don't like. (Last.FM does this now.) Then I would like to see the media player throw in a randomly chosen selection once in a while, just to test its own theory, so to speak. However, for that to work, the selection would have to be truly random; no fair throwing in something that you are marketing heavily (I'm talking to you, [RI|MP]AA...) just to get people to hear it. So instead of choosing music based only on your tastes, your media player will choose music based *mostly* on your tastes, and then throw you a curve ball once in a while to see how you react. Who knows? Maybe that diehard punk fan would enjoy a Beethoven piece or a 70's pop song. But the media player would never know that unless it tried.
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Man, I do not like this Pandora thing, I tried to use it and entered "Britney Spears" as an artist and it said:
"Based on what you've told us so far, we wont play anything, WTF! Britney Spears? what fucking shitty kind of music do you listen? get the fuck out of here!"
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Basically what you are saying is that they are lying about how they choose songs. But why would they do that? If they were using social networking or grouping by genre, and it worked, why wouldn't they say so?
Furthermore I haven't seen anything that would lead me to think that they are grouping things like you claim. Try typing in a band like Ween. You won't get anything that is remotely related by genre or popular tastes at all.
One of the biggest things that I like about this site is that it does play different artists than I find with other systems that determine thier suggestions by genre or social linking (people who liked A liked B), and I have liked many of them.
I can think of a million songs with 'Mild rhythmatic syncopation' and 'Major key tonality' (just an example of the reasons it told me it was playing a song), and I would probably only like a small portion of them.
They are rating on hundreds of different factors. The fact that two songs are related by just one of those factors would not cause it to be played. It is the fact that it is related on a large number of those factors. And it isn't surprising that music within a genre share many traits with each other.
I suspect that the genre of my song (eg 'Hard rock roots' or 'punk roots' etc) is the biggest deciding factor in what it plays -- not the actual style of the song.
Again I don't see any reason to think this. I have found it rare for it to only play music within a specific genre, and to the extent that it did, the songs were all musically simular.