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AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

brain.fm

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Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#221

Post by ulrikrasmussen »

unicornporn wrote: post #170
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great list! Listening to "Gas", I thought you might also like Fennesz - Venice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWAghDS6s4Q&list=PLKtI6DyKnY... And while we're at it, just a few of my favorites: Greg Haines - Slumber Tides: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmMDkZhl_R4 Nest - Retold: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r69TiaIE4uo&list=PLaAArUShcY... Murcof - (Ulysses, Martes, Remembranza - all great): https://www.youtube.…

Best list I found in this thread yet. Am I the only one that likes to work to (mostly) instrumental sludge metal and post-rock? ISIS — Celestial (2000) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8XN-3YZL5Y

I'm glad you like it :). I think ambience and soundscapes should still have interesting musical elements. If it only works as background noise, then I get bored by it.

I've also listened to Isis quite a lot, mostly "Oceanic", which is great. There is a pretty good remix album of "Oceanic" that opens with a remix by Fennesz.

Let me just throw a few more out there:

Antenne (two albums, just called #1 and #2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xel8T2A_pKk

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Englabörn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StuK0Bxoe2g&list=PL0dYx2N3BT...

The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble - Here Be Dragons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyORieDhpkg

Kreng - Grimoire: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU12fCP5AqY

La Grande Bellezza - Original Sound Track (sans disco tracks): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO8DqDWBzLI&list=PLf8QJjyzKL...

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#222

Post by bonoboTP »

slagfart wrote: post #215
bonoboTP wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a piece of my soul in that thing. Good for you, but that's none of my business. I don't want to be harsh, but I don't like this kind of emotional manipulation. You're trying to prime me to be buddies with you and cut you some slack. I have some questions. In what sense is this an AI and not simply a computer program? Did you use methods that are discussed in AI or machine learning textbooks and conferences,…

Someone poured their heart and soul into something that may not make a profit! Don't be such a cranky scrooge just because they confess that. An ex used to run neurological studies, and they are incredibly expensive. The small survey groups will no doubt improve with time. If you don't believe the hard science, then try the product and see if it works for you compared to the music that's linked to in the above posts.…

> Someone poured their heart and soul into something that may not make a profit!

Sorry but that's irrelevant. A homeopathy practitioner could say the same thing.

Their site front page says in big font: "Dramatically improve focus, relaxation & sleep". And it says science all over the place and contains pretty sciency charts. An intentionally wide range of charts. Vertical and horizontal bar charts, pie charts, line graphs, all to make you go "this looks legit science!"

So where is the peer-reviewed, randomized, controlled, double blind trial to support these claims? The only study that tries to compare it with placebo music seems to be unpublished as of yet and all we can see is some charts. We don't see their methodology, the results, significance etc.

I would have no problem with this if they didn't brand it so extremely heavily on science.

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#223

Post by ahewett »

ryan-allen wrote: post #163
ahewett wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, this Adam from Brain.fm. I created the music "AI" thing. Glad to have the praise of a musician! My family's very musical, so it took some convincing for them as well. The thing is, it still takes creativity! It took me half a year to create it, and there's a little piece of my soul in this AI. A horcrux, programmed in. :) It makes music how I would make music. Well, most of the time. I had to create the thing be…

I guess you can't talk much about the AI as it's proprietary? It sounds pretty interesting though. What harpsichord concertos did you feed it? Is every session that is created unique? So you are not listening to the same thing each time?

It is proprietary I guess, but I don't really mind talking about it :) I did a talk recently at Northwestern (The Garage) and they were interested, so I spilled the beans. I'd like to get that talk up actually.

I used the Bach's harpsichord concertos - Allegro/Presto/etc, since we're doing focus in that case. It's actually the 2nd most popular theme on the site! I made that one for myself to be honest - I grew up with those things and it was a labor of love, that one. Took some major reconfiguring, but it was worth it I think.

You're definitely not listening to the same thing each time. There's a huge variety. It doesn't generate the sessions in real-time (audio processing of this kind is very, very CPU intensive), but we take the data we get and process it for later use. At this point there's so many sessions "cached" that you get huge variety right off the bat and we're building up an infrastructure to create more sessions faster

I'll be adding more "themes" later. To explain, in some cases there are sessions that use a specific protocol, like the harpsichord one. That's static. But other themes are more flexible, and so different protocols can be used for the same theme. By protocol I mean what we're actually trying to stimulate in the brain.

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#224

Post by bonoboTP »

ahewett wrote: post #124
jkxyz wrote: post #15

I'm sure that most of the benefit of using this tool is derived from the fact that the music is consistently low-tempo and relaxing ambient music. Comparing that to an album of ambient music, it might not be so consistent in its style and so could distract from the focus. Still, the generated music is quite nice. I still feel that I'd rather listen to a real album, though, created with artistic intent and not compute…

Hey, this Adam from Brain.fm. I created the music "AI" thing. Glad to have the praise of a musician! My family's very musical, so it took some convincing for them as well. The thing is, it still takes creativity! It took me half a year to create it, and there's a little piece of my soul in this AI. A horcrux, programmed in. :) It makes music how I would make music. Well, most of the time. I had to create the thing be…

What makes you use the word "AI" as opposed to "algorithm"? What kind of AI techniques do you use just broadly speaking (I mean techniques that are described in AI textbooks, AI courses, AI conferences)?

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#225

Post by tarblog »

jonaf wrote: post #211

Is there any real science to this? Can someone provide legitimate references? I tried this last time it was on HN. It felt like a hoax; I was less focused because the sounds were less calming than the air conditioning in the office, and because the trial repeats after about 10 minutes.

My first thought was Lumosity [1]. I'd love for these claims to be real, but I'm just not willing to believe claims like these until I see a significant result in a randomized controlled trial.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumosity#Effectiveness

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#226

Post by tarblog »

ahewett wrote: post #117

Adam from Brain.fm here! Happy to answer any questions. :) I've been doing this stuff for a while and I love talking about it. I've contacted Giovanni, our lead neuroscientist, so hopefully he'll be able to get on soon as well. I'm a regular of HN and it's wild to see something of mine up here.

Do you have any science to back those claims up? What are you basing it on?

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#227

Post by ahewett »

vijucat wrote: post #210

3 suggestions: "Library Background Noise for Relaxation" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTm2oQRsISk "DISTANT TRAINS ECHOING IN THE RAIN.. Relaxing SoundScape to help Sleep, Study & Meditate" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTXoxV-MFMo "One Hour of HQ Coffee Shop Background Noise" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOdLmxy06H0 brain.fm is great, too! But honestly, silence + just getting into the groove works best. Minim…

Those are great!

And glad you like Brain.fm as well :)

To my great surprise, silence is actually the worst performer in our research and for other researchers I've talked to. check out our focus study, and also if you hit the "more" button you can see a kind of bibliography (that we need to organize better).

Silence can be a distraction in itself. Counter-intuitive, I know. I actually think I remember an article about this popping up in my news feed recently, trying to explain why. I was in a hurry so couldn't really read it, but I'll try to find it again after all this craziness dies down :)

But anyway, everyone's different, and different situations call for different tools. When the noise level is just too high for me (like, construction outside, vacuuming, etc) I use those crazy earmuffs meant for gun ranges. A shopvac could be right next to your ear and you wouldn't notice hah

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#228

Post by tarblog »

ahewett wrote: post #223
ryan-allen wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you can't talk much about the AI as it's proprietary? It sounds pretty interesting though. What harpsichord concertos did you feed it? Is every session that is created unique? So you are not listening to the same thing each time?

It is proprietary I guess, but I don't really mind talking about it :) I did a talk recently at Northwestern (The Garage) and they were interested, so I spilled the beans. I'd like to get that talk up actually. I used the Bach's harpsichord concertos - Allegro/Presto/etc, since we're doing focus in that case. It's actually the 2nd most popular theme on the site! I made that one for myself to be honest - I grew up wit…

>We take the data we get and process it for later use

What data do you collect/use to make the music?

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#229

Post by ahewett »

jonaf wrote: post #211

Is there any real science to this? Can someone provide legitimate references? I tried this last time it was on HN. It felt like a hoax; I was less focused because the sounds were less calming than the air conditioning in the office, and because the trial repeats after about 10 minutes.

I think maybe you were thinking of a different site link, because this is the first time we've been on HackerNews to my knowledge, and our shortest sessions are 15 minutes, and they never loop. If I'm wrong then really sorry about a bad experience, must have been a bug. Give it another shot if you have a moment :)

Lots of science to this. Here's a good start: https://www.brain.fm/pdfs/ResearchLibrary.pdf

We're still organizing it. Apologies for any inconsistencies. There's still stuff we need to add as well.

Re: AI generated music to improve focus, relaxation and sleep

#230

Post by ahewett »

tarblog wrote: post #226
ahewett wrote: post #117

Adam from Brain.fm here! Happy to answer any questions. :) I've been doing this stuff for a while and I love talking about it. I've contacted Giovanni, our lead neuroscientist, so hopefully he'll be able to get on soon as well. I'm a regular of HN and it's wild to see something of mine up here.

Do you have any science to back those claims up? What are you basing it on?

Hey, good question!

Here's a bibliography we're still working on. More to add, but a good start so far: https://www.brain.fm/pdfs/ResearchLibrary.pdf

We've also done our own research that is pending publication:

https://www.brain.fm/pdfs/EEGFocusAnalysis.pdf https://www.brain.fm/pdfs/EEGSleepAnalysis.pdf

Here's an independent study on HRV using our tech: https://www.brain.fm/pdfs/ElioConteHRVandBWE.pdf

We're planning on following that one up with a more robust study, because our users do get great results with HRV and it's an interesting topic.

One of our former neuroscientists published a meta-analysis, but it's a bit outdated now re: what we're doing. Still, it's on our site or in the journal if you're interested. :)

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