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Music Mouse

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Re: Music Mouse

#41

Post by pushedx »

runlevel1 wrote: post #31
lioeters wrote: post #2

It's a modern Web Audio implementation of this Mac software from 1986 (last updated in 2004). Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument - https://web.archive.org/web/20220629172536fw_/http://retiary... (Archived because the original site is quite slow: http://retiary.org/ls/programs.html ) It was written by Laurie Spiegel, a composer and early pioneer in electronic music. > Music Mouse is an algorithmic musical composi…

Laurie Spiegel is a Bell Labs alum. Bell Labs is the nexus for so many remarkable people. A bit off-topic, but does anyone know of a book that touches on how Bell Labs managed to recruit and foster so many great minds?

“UNIX: A History and a Memoir” by Kernighan is a really fun read. Just publushed a few years ago as well.

https://www.amazon.com/UNIX-History-Memoir-Brian-Kernighan/d...

Re: Music Mouse

#43

Post by YossarianFrPrez »

runlevel1 wrote: post #31
lioeters wrote: post #2

It's a modern Web Audio implementation of this Mac software from 1986 (last updated in 2004). Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument - https://web.archive.org/web/20220629172536fw_/http://retiary... (Archived because the original site is quite slow: http://retiary.org/ls/programs.html ) It was written by Laurie Spiegel, a composer and early pioneer in electronic music. > Music Mouse is an algorithmic musical composi…

Laurie Spiegel is a Bell Labs alum. Bell Labs is the nexus for so many remarkable people. A bit off-topic, but does anyone know of a book that touches on how Bell Labs managed to recruit and foster so many great minds?

It's somewhat covered in John Gartner's "The Idea Factory: A History of Bell Labs"

Re: Music Mouse

#44

Post by unglaublich »

dmix wrote: post #36
wantsanagent wrote: post #25

Wow, this is probably the most intuitively enjoyable music tool I've ever used. I'm not a musician and I know very little about what makes music good, but playing with this tool felt like I was hearing a better version of my own imagination. Like those scenes in movies where people can suddenly play music and have no idea how they're doing it.

It's rare to have an instrument where anything you do sounds good!

That's the magic of music theory: it constraints the space of all possible invocations of an instrument to those that are theoretically correct. Our 'random input' is fit upon the closest match that yields a music-theoretical correct outcome.

Re: Music Mouse

#45

Post by cstrahan »

isatty wrote: post #37
robinsonb5 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this problem on so many mice over the years, going back to the Amiga days. Often it can be fixed by opening the mouse and gluing a tiny bit of thin card to the nub which presses on the microswitch. (Usually the problem is just that the plastic has worn down over the years and no longer pushes the button quite far enough to make a clean contact.)

Interesting, I’d expect mice to come with hardware debounce by default.

There's an article (on modifying mice with hardware debouncing) that talks a bit about this:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hack-mouse-click-do-it-...

> This is one more example of perfectly good theory not getting used in practice to save pennies per unit and also to perpetuate planned obsolescence. That is, sales would drop if you no longer needed a new mouse every two to four years as a result of glitchy buttons.

FWIW, the [1]Zaunkoenig brand is where I first heard about this. I have their M1K and M2K mice, which are really nice. (I am otherwise unaffiliated with them)

[1]: https://zaunkoenig.co/blogs/blog/zaunkoenig-m1k-firmware

Re: Music Mouse

#47

Post by rzzzt »

wantsanagent wrote: post #25

Wow, this is probably the most intuitively enjoyable music tool I've ever used. I'm not a musician and I know very little about what makes music good, but playing with this tool felt like I was hearing a better version of my own imagination. Like those scenes in movies where people can suddenly play music and have no idea how they're doing it.

PG Music's Band-in-a-Box still exists, but way back in the Windows 3.1 era it already had a "snap to pleasant notes" feature if you wanted to play along a set of chords on a MIDI piano. It could also play chords in the style of famous musicians along with your never-ever-bad notes! I always switched it to the "Erroll Garner" preset and hammered away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Band-in-a-Box

Re: Music Mouse

#49

Post by breakfastduck »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #18
tkam wrote: post #14

Nice! One problem: There's digital clipping. I suspect that the four samples are normalized individually, and when playing at the same time the transients add up to over 0dB. On quality headphones (beyerdynamic dt770 for me) it is quite audible. It happens with the piano and the synth sample, but is more audible with the piano sample.

Additive digital clipping would be happening in your device. You should be able to resolve it by turning your OS volume down. This website could use a volume slider for each voice, though.

Clipping can occur at any gain stage, not just the final output
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