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The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

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Re: The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

#251
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be a fun project for sure! So many of the selections that great DJs make are curveballs and surprising choices. This is less true in more samey genres, but true pioneering selectors will tend to surprise you with their taste and juxtapositions in a way that's hard or maybe even impossible to really capture in an algorithm. Put another way, even in something as simple a song selection, the weirdness and con…

I'm not entirely convinced by your argument. Some years ago there was an episode of the Gadget Show where they were testing an app for suggesting food ideas. I can't remember how it was supposed to work, it was too long ago, but it was something to do with having profiles of different food types programmed into it and then it used some sort of algorithm to compare taste profiles and come up with combinations that sho…

Chocolate on pizza doesn't seem very novel.

Many restaurant chains sell chocolate on their pizza base as a dessert; chocolate is also known to complement many savoury dishes as a 'secret ingredient'.

Re: The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

#252
post #58

This is a great project, well done. Algorithmic music is fascinating to me, I feel like there's a lot of untapped potential in the concept particularly with more 'complex' genres where higher levels of composition and structural continuity are required. This tends to work much better with loop-based genres but I'd personally love to do a side project on something that could write melodies from some sort of generative…

This reminds me of the "generative design" trend in architecture, which has been attempted numerous times with typically underwhelming results. See here for an interesting essay (with nice illustrations) arguing that it's a doomed effort:

https://www.danieldavis.com/generative-design-doomed-to-fail...

Re: The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not entirely convinced by your argument. Some years ago there was an episode of the Gadget Show where they were testing an app for suggesting food ideas. I can't remember how it was supposed to work, it was too long ago, but it was something to do with having profiles of different food types programmed into it and then it used some sort of algorithm to compare taste profiles and come up with combinations that sho…

Chocolate on pizza doesn't seem very novel. Many restaurant chains sell chocolate on their pizza base as a dessert; chocolate is also known to complement many savoury dishes as a 'secret ingredient'.

There's a restaurant in London that incorporates cacao in some form or other in every dish. It's a bit of a gimmick in that in a lot of them it's not really noticeable, or just used very sparingly. It's probably easier to do with the constraint of "some form of cacao" than chocolate, though.

Re: The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

#255
post #169
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no one would notice anything's amiss I doubt it. Perhaps you were lucky with the piece you listened to, but I checked it for 5 minutes and the off-beat things it generates are pretty much unheard of in this genre. Not that there's no off-beat produced by humans, but it doesn't sound anything like this. Simply because what the machine is doing here brakes the rhythm too much, making it harder to dance on, and after al…

This is a rant, from someone who's been playing music for 3 decades, rock, electronic, and classical. Also I've been meditating a lot. I started realizing recently the huge separation between thoughts about music and music itself, just as there is between thoughts and action. The world we live in, of temporary digital media, is a mirror of our thought processes. Our whole modern day and environs are spent in thoughts…

>There has strangely been a long-term dream of computer scientists to replace composition. To "spit out" songs as someone put it. It's usually too scary to ask ourselves "why?" because it usually is a game of validating one's own mind against others' impressions. For some reason, auto-composition seems like some kind of holy grail, but of what?! Saving money buying music? A fantasy of abundance? A kind of "gotcha!" that a pure thought-person has outwitted a silly irl composer? What do you actually get for creating an intelligence that wins a Turing test? You certainly don't get sweaty friends deliriously dancing on drugs at 3 am. You typically just get another social promotion in the direction of aiding greater powers at their control over the world. Is that what it's about? Closing ourselves off from human musical expression in exchange for increased financial standing? Get a job bc you proved you can fool some of them of the time? To validate a work ethic that regards music as frivolous by demonstrating that it can be simulated accurately enough?

To me, music is music, regardless of the creator. If it sounds good, it is good, whether it was composed by a human, a program, or a combination of the two.

If your issue is that this generative music doesn't sound sufficiently good compared to a good human producer/composer, then that's fine. The rest just feels like some kind of weird projection onto my post that I don't understand.

Computer-generated music is not at all considered an interesting goal for financial reasons. I don't even know what you're trying to mean by that. I think it's interesting because:

- It's one of the areas where the best humans still greatly outperform the best programs

- I believe computers do have the potential to one day create excellent, artistic music

I don't align with your view of experiences, passion, cost to an individual, etc. I think Beethoven's music would sound just as good regardless of if he were deaf or not deaf or a mass murderer or anything else. I think art stands on its own, with the backstory just as interesting trivia for those who want to know more about its creator.

Re: The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

#256
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep rebirth was amazing. Even more amazing was Reason from the same company I think. Wasted so much time on reason.

Propellerhead, right? I remember opening Reason for the first time (I had no experience with music hardware) and was completely lost. I played around with knobs for a long time trying to make sounds with limited luck. Then I clicked something and the entire rack flipped around and there were patch cables hanging there that I could plug anywhere. I think I plugged things into different holes, the one sound I had going…

I was in sane boat until I found a pirated version of a tutorial that took me through creating a house track from scratch. Brilliant fun. Total waste of my time though!

Re: The Endless Acid Banger: algorithmic self-composing acid techno music

#257
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the patterns sound really good, but can you change the bpm? I think a DJ set at the same bpm all night would be kind of boring. I love acid techno, but I mix it into other (sub)genres, and have never heard a set where it was only acid techno. That said, it sounds like some of the drum patterns are more electro than techno, which is nice and provides some variety.

https://i.imgur.com/WfI2Yka.png THere is a clock dial for bpm... does that solve your issue?

Ah thanks! Didn't catch that. Not an issue really, but come to think of it, I personally I would add the bpm number, and put that control at the top.
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