
Hacking Soundcloud: Creating an Interactive Track - haywirez
https://haywirez.com/hacking-soundcloud/
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empressplay
Cool idea -- other people already do something similar though with WIP, if a
rudimentary version of a track gets interest, they come up with a better
arrangement, mix, mastering etc and just upload the revised tracks as
replacements.

That said, if I was to do something "interactive" I'd probably set up some
kind of site where producers could audition hooks and then make the most
upvoted ones into an actual track. Or even further, let the users build hooks
that then get arranged into a full track (by a producer)...

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ttoinou
The base idea of updating an interactive track is good. But changing
distortion according to view count seems bad.

Maybe try with integrating comments that people make over sound (on timecode)
to create a kind of "discussion" between users (use synthetizer to recreate
human voice from text of course) ? The same could apply with the video stream
but that would be more complicated and costy

~~~
haywirez
Great idea with the speech synthesis! Of course there are many more creative
uses to explore. The tracking engine I made for this[0] is flexible, it can
essentially track and use every measurable interaction across all connected
networks and assign different weights to them. For example, I can also connect
the weather, and if it's a nice day in my location, every metric can count for
more.

[0] [https://songsling.io](https://songsling.io)

~~~
ttoinou
Subscribed ! There's a lot of fun things we could do

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suhail
So did you create many distorted tracks ahead of time or are you automatically
adjusting the distortion down? If the latter I wish you talked about how you
did that but maybe I missed that?

Automatically making music seeks a lot tougher.

~~~
haywirez
I created 10 distorted versions. But I'm also working on another follow-up
track which will have over 200 auto-generated versions :D

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applecrazy
A small nitpick, but I'd like to point out that you don't need that () around
`text` in your code:

    
    
      .then( (text) => {
    

changes to

    
    
      .then( text => {
    

Not only is it much cleaner that way, but for single-argument arrow functions,
it saves you the trouble of typing the parentheses.

Programmers are lazy. :)

~~~
leppr
You don't need braces around single-statement if/else/for blocks either, but
you put them anyway because you're a good boy. Same could be argued for
single-argument arrow functions. My point being, this is a debatable point.

~~~
ge96
And here I thought that was language specific like how Python from what I
experienced did not use semi-colons to end statements.

What about an if statement checking if something is true, is it enough to just
say:

if (value) { // true }

I have seen some shortened code that I did not write and wasn't sure it was
valid but it works.

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haywirez
P.S.: If enough artists put a "price" on social metrics within their works, it
would generate market dynamics between the platforms. This would force them to
behave in a way that is beneficial to the creators.

~~~
dpflan
Are you concerned with "fake"/bot generated (pay for metrics) social metrics?

Also, what are your thoughts about the use of blockchain technology to mediate
the price and payment for artists' creations?

Some Services Exploring the Concept:

\- [http://myceliaformusic.org/](http://myceliaformusic.org/)

\- [https://ujomusic.com/](https://ujomusic.com/)

~~~
haywirez
Well, you as an artist using bots would be shooting yourself in the foot. If
others do it for you (competition?), they're wasting money and also making you
look better in comparison...

I've been closely following both Mycelia and UJO. Also helped out
bootstrapping Resonate[0] a bit. I think most of these initiatives have the
same problem; they are putting a horse in front of a car - using new
technology to address yesterday's model.

The reality of today's content consumption is that there are other useful,
unaccounted tokens of exchange alongside money. Going forward most people will
simply not pay for recordings[1], and especially not in meaningful amounts for
niche content (the driver of human culture). But they can contribute a lot by
spreading the word or otherwise caring. Building audience size and "metric
capital" is more important than the small number of direct sales we can
generate otherwise.

I think free content and patronage with money or word-of-mouth is a better
model. It is working really well for podcasts, blogs and similar. It is not
typical for music as we are still stuck in the cultural anomaly of the 20th
century.

My idea was to try and reintroduce a gentle value connection between the maker
and the audience. Something resembling a gift economy[3], not an exact
accounting of debt. There are lots of good ideas to be found via anthropology.

[0] [https://resonate.is](https://resonate.is)

[1] Licensing is a separate issue, a much better use case for blockchains.

[2] [http://thayernick.tumblr.com/post/80563891112/do-you-
wanna-k...](http://thayernick.tumblr.com/post/80563891112/do-you-wanna-know-
just-how-much-money-i-make) (note this is 2014, before streaming)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt:_The_First_5000_Years)

~~~
dpflan
Thanks for the reply.

1 - For patronage, how do you view the Patreon model?

2 - A gift economy seems good, but how do you eventually "gift up" to the
necessities (food, water, shelter)?

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haywirez
Patreon is great, the only thing is that we shouldn't need a middleman that
takes a cut. But insofar as teaching people a new behavior, it's wonderful. It
will take a decentralized identity management solution to move past that.
Something like uPort[0].

To the second point - we are already probably at a level where basic needs
could be met with relative ease, given the will[1].

[0] [https://www.uport.me/](https://www.uport.me/)

[1] [http://mashable.com/2014/07/07/google-founders-interview-
kho...](http://mashable.com/2014/07/07/google-founders-interview-
khosla/#DmUjusurh5q3) etc.

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mkesper
Change to Show HN?

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kevinwang
great idea!

