
Generating More of My Favorite Aphex Twin Track - sajid
https://medium.com/@metalex9/generating-more-of-my-favorite-aphex-twin-track-cde9b7ecda3a
======
Fricken
There's a nice website with a clean UI called 'Music for programming', put
together by a guy who curates playlists designed to compliment anyone who
wants to buckle down and do deep focus creative work for a while. I've been
through each of his 53 playlists several times. 'Asiatsana' is one track in
one playlist, but the music overall is very much in keeping with the mood and
tone of Asiatsana.

[https://musicforprogramming.net/?fortyfive](https://musicforprogramming.net/?fortyfive)

~~~
spiralganglion
The curator of Music For Programming [0] (which is fantastic, yes!) also put
together the very silly collection of mixes called Businessfunk [1], which are
also great coding music.

And if you try Businessfunk and decide you have the stomach for it, I
recommend following up with the Komputer Cast mixes by Com Truise.

[0] [https://musicforprogramming.net](https://musicforprogramming.net) [1]
[http://datassette.net/businessfunk/](http://datassette.net/businessfunk/) [2]
[http://comtruise.com/kc/](http://comtruise.com/kc/)

~~~
aasasd
Datashat also has a mix for the Near Mint web radio program which is
essentially Businessfunk No. 4: [https://mixcloud.com/Resonance/near-mint-8th-
march-2016-data...](https://mixcloud.com/Resonance/near-mint-8th-
march-2016-datashat-business-funk-special/)

Notably, Businessfunk mixes are made of ‘library music,’ i.e. stock musical
clipart. Gotta say, I've lately heard a bunch of rather good music from
libraries, e.g. the entire soundtrack of ‘IASIP’ (though that one is from
“production music” libraries, i.e. more specialized for film, television and
the like).

------
haywirez
For musicians and devs, it's a good hint that Markov chains are "good enough"
for most interesting music applications, ML/AI doesn't typically yield better
results. Happy to see this on the front page!

~~~
mturmon
I don't disagree with this observation, but I wanted to mention a
counterpoint.

Eno's "Music for Airports" famously uses a system of multiple tape loops that
produce sequences of different periods. As you listen, you can hear phrases
that occur nearly together and then later, well-separated in time, as the
periods of these loops go in and out of phase:

"One of the notes repeats every 23 1/2 seconds. It is in fact a long loop
running around a series of tubular aluminum chairs in Conny Plank's studio.
The next lowest loop repeats every 25 7/8 seconds or something like that. The
third one every 29 15/16 seconds or something. What I mean is they all repeat
in cycles that are called incommensurable — they are not likely to come back
into sync again."

This interaction of periods will have long memory. (If the tape lengths are L
and L+d, for small d, then the repeat time could easily be as long as L*(L/d),
and even longer if d does not divide L evenly.) Thus, it is very different
from what you get with a Markov chain.

~~~
twic
There was an interview with Eno in Wired in 1995 [1] that i still think about
sometimes. Amongst other things, he talks about lifting himself to the next
meta-level of composition, where he doesn't write music, he writes rules for a
box which makes music:

 _Q: If I could give you a black box that could do anything, what would you
have it do?_

 _A: I would love to have a box onto which I could offload choice making. A
thing that makes choices about its outputs, and says to itself, This is a good
output, reinforce that, or replay it, or feed it back in. I would love to have
this machine stand for me. I could program this box to be my particular taste
and interest in things._

 _Q: Why do you want to do that? You have you._

 _A: Yes, I have me. But I want to be able to sell systems for making my music
as well as selling pieces of music. In the future, you won 't buy artists'
works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of "their" works, or
that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich
box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-
movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box. Or you could
buy a Brian Eno box. So then I would need to put in this box a device that
represents my taste for choosing pieces._

[1]
[https://www.wired.com/1995/05/eno-2/](https://www.wired.com/1995/05/eno-2/)

~~~
pcf
This should be doable? You could feed your entire catalogue into the machine,
and have it start generating music. For every pass, you could listen to the
created piece and tell it "I would not make anything like element X, because
of [specific reason], so take that out."

Enough of these passes and detailed removal of elements you wouldn't create,
and you should get closer and closer to a machine that would be your musical
clone.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
You need a machine description of "element" \- which turns out to be a lot
harder than it sounds.

------
glitcher
On a side note, saw a nice write-up celebrating the recent 25th anniversary of
Selected Ambient Works Volume II:

[https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23648](https://www.residentadvisor.net/reviews/23648)

I feel like that album has a lot of potential for generative experiments.
Admittedly, the album has an over-arching tone of eeriness throughout, which
isn't something I want to listen to while I work most days. Maybe it would be
inspiring to game developers working in the horror genre :)

~~~
lostgame
Actually, speaking of games with Aphex Twin's music, I'm not sure how many
folks here recall the Dreamcast classic 'Rez' \- a synesthesic, psychedelic
rail-shooter which actually featured a track of his, under his legal name
'Richard D. James'.

If you guys haven't played it, seriously give it a shot. I believe there is a
re-released version on XBOX and PC, though I can't speak to the quality of the
ports, as I still play my Dreamcast almost daily. ;)

~~~
DanBC
Rez is brilliant and I remember my dreamcast fondly.

This page seems to say that his music wasn't used in the released version.
[https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/10/k-project-rez-
prototype/](https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/10/k-project-rez-prototype/)

~~~
lostgame
Okay, that seems to _directly_ contradict my actual memory of the game! I'm
absolutely going to have to confirm that. I distinctly remember reading
'Richard D. James', and recognizing the name, as I was a massive fan of
'Drukqz'.

Strange how memory affects us.

EDIT: And whom lucky enough to own one does not remember the Dreamcast fondly?
;) Crazy Taxi, Quake III, Skies of Arcadia, Ecco, THPS2 - I'd argue the ratio
of quality software to shit software was literally almost 1:1, compared to,
for instance, the PS2, where you might get 1 great game for every 10.

~~~
toast0
I recall there's a Dreamcast disc image floating around somewhere with a
different music selection. Depending on where you got your copy of Rez, who
knows what you've got. :)

I just pulled my dreamcast out to play some of the games with my son. It's
still a great system. There are some low quality games, but it definitely
feels like you have to seek them out; as opposed to the shovel ware feeling I
get on the PS1/PS2. Looking at the released game list though, I feel like some
of these titles were probably good at the time, but won't hold up; but many of
them are still as good as they were. VGA output is pretty nice too.

------
fb03
If you guys enjoy generative music, you should try Sunvox.

The author has created a js library which you can use to play .sunvox files in
it, it is pretty nice too.

[http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/jsplay/](http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/jsplay/)

try 'machine 005'. I've been using it for coding lately.

~~~
IggleSniggle
Sunvox has a js lib now?!?!? YAAAAS

~~~
fb03
Yeah! Webassembly blob and you use JS to operate it.

------
Graham24
"Selected Ambient Works 85-92" is a quality product.

~~~
LeonM
Probably my favorite album for programming and other work that require
concentration.

I still haven't encountered anything like it. I wish there was more.

~~~
ct0
Check out the artist Solar Fields

~~~
munificent
I love Solar Fields.

Also: Global Communication, Ocouer, Christopher Willits, Marconi Union,
Eluvium, Ólafur Arnalds, Balmorhea.

~~~
50
Can’t forget Keith Kenniffs’s projects, Helios and Goldmund.

------
prepend
Thanks for writing this and spending the time to break down and explain how
you did it.

I’m not the biggest apex twin fan, but I’ve followed him for a few decades and
always liked his visual and audio tricks mixed into his music. I feel like he
would enjoy the idea of an infinite track and hope he responds somehow.

Are there any file formats that allow generative music so I can download this
and play in a non-internet connected situation?

~~~
alexbainter
generative.fm is a progressive web app, so it _should_ work offline with the
caveat that you'll need to play a piece once online before it works offline.
I'm working on getting this communicated through the site but just haven't
gotten around to it yet.

~~~
ronjouch
Cool. Awesome work, thanks for sharing :)

------
spacemadness
In knowing the original track very well, I find this version fascinating but
also frustrating to listen to. It really emphasizes for me the importance of
well thought out note placement and timing and the connection throughout,
especially in minimalist pieces. This might sound pompous, but it's like the
original seeks to tell a story, but this version is like pulling words and
phrases out of a hat; the emotional payoff doesn't exist for me. I hope that's
not discouraging in any way, as I think this type of experimentation should be
celebrated and the writeup is excellent. I'm only speaking of what effect this
has on me tied to this particular piece of music.

~~~
alexbainter
I know what you mean and I don't find it discouraging at all. Your analogy is
perfect. The way the original piece evolves and builds on its phrases over
time is very noticeably lacking in the generative version. In my version, any
emotional buildup from one phrase to the next can only happen in short spurts
at best, and it happens completely by accident. Of course, if I was putting on
music that I wanted to really focus on and enjoy, the original would always be
my choice. For me, the appeal of an endless version was that I could turn the
music into ignorable ambience for my environment. Since we're making
analogies, to me it's a bit like seeing a painting you like and saying "Gosh I
like that color," then painting your walls that color. It can't compare to the
painting but it might remind you of it.

------
Jaepa
Doom from 2016 had this really cool feature in it where the music was
procedurally adaptive based on the context of the game. When you were getting
into a battle the music would mutate and become a lot more aggressive. Small
fights would be different from big hairy fights. Ending a fight on low health
would be different from leaving it unscathed.

For long time I've always thought it would be great to have something that had
a similar effect based on text input speed.

Situations like getting into a massive battle, or leaving a battle with low
health would have the music mutate to

~~~
na85
I believe the first mainstream game with adaptive music like that was Half
Life 2 in 2004.

~~~
hrydgard
Mario 64 did it in 1996. For example that early level with the shipwreck, the
music morphs as you go into the water and dive around the wreck. If you go out
of the water again the music morphs back to the original form.

~~~
na85
I'm not sure that that counts. My recollection of that game was that it's a
binary choice of being underwater/at the surface, whereas the music in HL2 in
a given spot would change depending on what the enemies were doing, how fast
you were going, whether or not you were driving, if you found ammo for the
rocket launcher, etc.

~~~
spiralganglion
Lots of N64 games did this, especially the Rare ones — Banjo-Kazooie had a
fair bit of music dynamism, Conker's had even more. It's pretty easy to do,
and game devs figured it out pretty early on.

------
pimeys
Seems to go more to the direction what Autechre is doing nowadays. I'd
recommend to have a listen to the NTS Sessions if you feel adventurous...

~~~
didymospl
I'm glad you mentioned them. Autechre produced my favourite hacking background
music. I agree, people interested in the generative music should definitely
give NTS Sessions a listen. But for the newcomers I'd suggest to start with
their early IDM albums(Incunabula, Amber) as NTS Sessions may sound too
"glitchy".

~~~
pimeys
I think nobody else goes where they are going right now. Very forward looking
and absolutely amazing listening when you "get it". Elseq, NTS Sessions and
now these 40+ hours of live archives released. There is an algorithm that just
does things to sound. Sometimes it's just noise that turns into the most
beautiful thing in the world.

------
NelsonMinar
Generative music comes full circle. This side of Aphex Twin is more or less
directly inspired by Brian Eno's Music for Aiports. Which itself comes out of
Eno's generative music experiments.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Are you sure it was so insprired? Early IDM artists have sometimes admitted
never hearing their forebears (Stockhausen, Steve Reich, etc.); they just
reached similar concerns independently by noodling with electronics.

~~~
gexaha
Aphex Twin actually listened to Stockhausen (and vice versa):
[http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/10/15/karlheinz-
stock...](http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/10/15/karlheinz-stockhausens-
electronic-music-tips-for-aphex-twin-plastikman-others/)

and they probably met
[https://www.reddit.com/r/aphextwin/comments/8vyrbf/aphex_twi...](https://www.reddit.com/r/aphextwin/comments/8vyrbf/aphex_twin_having_a_chat_with_composer_and/)

~~~
Mediterraneo10
Richard D. James only heard Stockhausen for the first time _after_ the press
had been claiming his early works were influenced by Stockhausen. It turns out
they weren't.

~~~
NelsonMinar
I don't think it's possible to make electronic music and not be influenced by
Stockhausen. If not directly, then indirectly through diffusion.

~~~
Mediterraneo10
By the 1980s most Stockhausen recordings were out of print (as Stockhausen had
bought the rights back from Deutsche Grammophon), and Stockhausen was no
longer traveling widely to promote his works and he had become rather
reclusive as he focused on writing the _LICHT_ operas. So, there was limited
opportunity to hear his work and his influence on electronic musicians of that
decade is overstated. The advent of drum machines and then PCs that, as people
discovered, could be modified to produce unusual sounds is really what sparked
electronic experimentation for most producers of that generation.

------
seszett
Although I like the result, I find the track less soothing without the birds
in the background. There's probably a way to generate those as well though, I
suppose.

~~~
alexbainter
Agreed. I considered adding birds to it but I've found if I play this track in
the morning and open my window so I can hear actual birds it's a nice
experience.

~~~
bonniemuffin
I'm listening at 7AM and can confirm it mixes well with the real-life birds
outside.

------
xtagon
Reminds me of the Infinite Jukebox:
[http://infinitejukebox.playlistmachinery.com/](http://infinitejukebox.playlistmachinery.com/)

~~~
ahofmann
Or this (with aisatsana selected):
[https://eternal.abimon.org/jukebox_go.html?id=3ESsjKqrj3M79I...](https://eternal.abimon.org/jukebox_go.html?id=3ESsjKqrj3M79I8sSZieK3)

------
jxdxbx
This is very cool. My personal favorite Aphex track is Donkey Rhubarb if
you're feeling ambitious.

~~~
abrugsch
Oh wow... an endless generation of D.R. would send you straight to the asylum!
as much as I love the bonkers-ness of Donkey Rhubarb, it's existing length is
quite enough for one sitting!

<EVIL> Come to daddy on the other hand... </EVIL>

~~~
bloopernova
One day, someone will feed the Come to Daddy video into a machine learning
cluster somewhere and turn it into a 12 hour video that could give Charlie
Brooker nightmares.

~~~
chabes
Windowlicker would be similarly nightmarish

------
yaw
There are a number of languages / environments to help with the creation of
generative music under the umbrella term 'live coding' \- the community also
tries to keep the performance aspects of music intact.

Lots of great starting points at: [https://github.com/toplap/awesome-
livecoding](https://github.com/toplap/awesome-livecoding)

------
vool
As if aisatsana was not beautiful enough, it was first performed in London's
Barbican Centre in 2012, on a suspended grand piano, swinging in the air !

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJHsT8kEyzs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJHsT8kEyzs)

------
jugg1es
I really love Aphex's piano tracks. So intimate that you can hear the pedal
shifting in the background.

~~~
whatok
Pretty sure most of those tracks are not actually playable by a single person
and that they're all programmed.

~~~
icelancer
Many of the pieces are playable, like Avril 14th. There are a number of people
[0] playing it on YouTube and I've been able to knock out a rendition as well.

[0]: My favorite -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97FBWB4vv3s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97FBWB4vv3s)

~~~
whatok
That's pretty good but I don't think the higher octave stuff near the end is
spot on. This is not playable:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uhTwxqE4Co](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uhTwxqE4Co)

~~~
NateEag
I've used my nose to hit individual notes in the middle of the keyboard while
using my hands at the extreme ends.

I didn't listen carefully to the whole track, but I think you could handle
what I did hear that way. Not certain that would work here, just thought I'd
point out that there are options beyond your fingers for pushing keys.

J. S. Bach is reputed to have held a stick in his mouth to have an additional
note on tap - much more practical and playable than my stupid nose trick. If
you used a forked stick or a crafted tool you could easily get more than one
note, for that matter.

[http://www.storycompositions.com/2008/07/rare-stories-
about-...](http://www.storycompositions.com/2008/07/rare-stories-about-johann-
sebastian.html) (see section "His Music Is Terrible")

(I've also used my face to move modwheels while holding dense chords with both
hands, but that's not really relevant to piano technique.)

~~~
whatok
Agreed, by playable I was meaning by two hands.

------
xitrium
How do you feel about Alberto Balsam? :)

~~~
fgkramer
I'd actually pay for it.

~~~
chaseha
Yes. My favorite Aphex Twin track.

Relatedly, would strongly recommend the Booka Shade DJ-Kicks album - Alberto
Balsam is one of the tracks they selected
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onLPjryBtns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onLPjryBtns)

------
spiralganglion
Generative.fm was shared here last week, spawning a number of interesting
discussions. If you enjoy the comments here, I suggest checking out that
thread.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19397817](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19397817)

------
chaseha
I find that perfectly quantized tracks sound artificial over time. Not sure
how close “aisatsana” sticks to perfectly on-(half)-beat, but adding slightly
random quantization offsets to each generated note could be interesting to
lend the results a more "natural" sound

------
theon144
Nice! Simple, but works out super nicely :) Even the occasional odd note
doesn't seem too out of place, since the phrases are short and "self-
contained".

I also enjoyed the rest of the pieces on generative.fm, they all have a
specific "character" which is quite rare. Nice work!

------
Uptrenda
It's a beautiful piece and you've done it justice OP. Just wanted to say that.

------
post_break
Just pop it into paul stretch and convert it into an hour long masterpiece.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1saQ7KLbDUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1saQ7KLbDUY)

~~~
fb03
PaulStretch is amazing!

I recommend it to everyone trying to meddle with music, specially
ambient/drone.

[http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/](http://hypermammut.sourceforge.net/paulstretch/)

------
shaftway
This seems very similar to what the Infinite Jukebox does. Granted, it uses
the straight audio, so it's more well suited to pop music. But here's the link
for this track:
[http://infinitejukebox.playlistmachinery.com/?trid=TRIMVDB14...](http://infinitejukebox.playlistmachinery.com/?trid=TRIMVDB14AFE744C52)

------
ronjouch
Not generative, but of interest if you like that:
[http://musicforprogramming.net/](http://musicforprogramming.net/)

------
n_sonic
This is excellent. Thank you so much for sharing (and it's certainly a track
that I've also wished was longer!) I'd be interested to see if this approach
can be implemented within a DAW? This would allow the notes to be played and
then treated with FX, EQ and mastering (or maybe just some sound design to get
it sounding even closer to the original)? At a push, one could run the output
of the browser through the DAW I suppose :)

~~~
llamataboot
Sure - even the built in midi effects are enough to do a lot of generative
stuff in Ableton, and when you get into Max the sky is pretty much the limit.

But, you could pretty much feed any source of generated midi into a DAW in
real time in multiple channels and then have effects on different channels,
etc.

~~~
fb03
True! Also, if you are not able to afford Max/MSP, you can do basically the
same stuff (although with a clunkier UI) with Puredata, which is a live coding
'graphical language' setup just like Max . In fact it is (or was idk)
developed by the same author, Miller Puckette.

On Windows, you can use a package like loopMidi to create a virtual midi port
which you can use to output the live generated midi data to any daw.

------
bartcobain
Reminds me of this Bandcamp user makes some really cool Sci-Fi ambient loops,
this one is a Blade Runner ambient loop:
[https://cheesynirvosa.bandcamp.com/track/blade-runner-
ambien...](https://cheesynirvosa.bandcamp.com/track/blade-runner-ambient-
deckards-apartment-sound-also-in-the-movie-alien)

I think something like this would be awesome in generative.

------
runjake
As an aside, if you like the track discussed in the article, check out Brian
Eno's ambient work [1].

This track is a very obvious homage to Eno (and that's great).

Coincidentally, Eno and Richard James are both into generative music and I
have little doubt they'll be taking a peek at this article.

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TSJbT_NWUY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TSJbT_NWUY)

------
danet
I tend to listen to ambient music. There's radio show on CBC radio 2 -- After
Dark, that plays tunes with not too many lyrics.

~~~
spiralganglion
CBC Radio 2 used to (or might still?) have a similar program called The Signal
that was really good. And before it, there was a program called Brave New
Waves that was probably my favourite late night show in existence. Really sad
it doesn't exist anymore.

~~~
danet
After dark is the contiuation of the signal -- same music but different host.

I have archive of the last 3 years of the signal in mp3, it's about 90GB.

Send me a message at gimmespam at flamy.ca and I'll send you a link.

------
8bitsrule
One tactic to roll your own is time-stretching. A useful and fun algo (since
tamed in 1999) is the phase vocoder. Especially nice for instruments with rich
spectrums.

Example work (1986) Wishart's _Vox 5_.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y23kobWHs8M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y23kobWHs8M)

------
haasted
Great article. Is an extended edition of aisatsana available for download
anywhere, or is it only available through generative.fm?

~~~
ars
How would that work? The idea is it never ends, so how do you download it? It
creates a new song each time.

~~~
haasted
Well, I would be willing to settle for a mix of 1-2 hours. :)

~~~
ryankrage77
You can use audacity to record audio coming out of your computer - just change
"MME" to "Windows WASAPI" next to the input/output device settings.

Then, play audio from generative.fm and record it for 1-2 hours. You can
export to MP3 or WAV when done.

I did something similar (but with OBS) in this video where I remixed music
from the game Mirror's Edge Catalyst using Sonic Pi -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ8dD5Bz3_E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQ8dD5Bz3_E)

Personally, I like the generative aspect.

------
marstall
This piece reminds me of Harold Budd's album "The Pearl" (1984)! Which is 42
minutes long - so another way to approach the same problem :)
[https://open.spotify.com/album/5SSf6lNbSoaAUx6PxQVjlP](https://open.spotify.com/album/5SSf6lNbSoaAUx6PxQVjlP)

------
logotype
For the last 11 years I’ve been listening to autechre exclusively. Maybe
that’s weird, but it’s all the sounds I need :)

~~~
richard_todd
How did this come about? At some point you realized you were listening to
mostly Autechre, and made a conscious decision to cut everything else out?
(I’m listening to LP5 now, somehow it has always been my favorite)

~~~
logotype
yes, exactly!

------
Sendotsh
As an Aphex Twin fan and someone very interested in procedurally generated
music, this is absolutely brilliant.

------
octosphere
I always think a bit of drum and bass will start playing at any moment
listening to this[0]. Aphex Twin's music is so random at times

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_MRe3JwFc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_MRe3JwFc8)

------
ozzyman700
What is a good way to go about working with a new JS library? I only have used
Python, Java, and C#. All the tutorials I find on tone.js just include the js
code but not information on how to link the library.

I would like to play around but getting the dev environment has stumped me.

~~~
SonicSoul
there are many code playground sites[0] that could make the process less
painful for you. essentially you will need to reference the library. you can
do it locally, or reference the publicly available version (most libraries
have a CDN hosted version).

you could also google for the playground site + library, because there may
already be a playground setup (a project with a reference to the library
already set) for that library somewhere. i.e.

[0] [https://www.sitepoint.com/7-code-
playgrounds/](https://www.sitepoint.com/7-code-playgrounds/)

~~~
ozzyman700
How do I tell what language to use with this package?

From what I can tell it uses react. I have tried node, angular, and react but
this installation page confounds me [0]. as far as I understand, I have been
using either npm init, ng init, or create-react-app to initialize the
directory for an example project. Then I do npm install tone inside of the
directory I created.

I have found this [1] playground for tone but it does not elucidate how the
library should be or is referenced.

I'd like to work with generative music but the amount I must know and choose
between in a js project always seems to freeze me at the project init phase.

In the process of editing this comment I have finally gotten tone.js to work.
Here are the steps i followed: npm install create-react-app create-react-app
tone-test cd tone-test npm install tone add "import Tone from
'../node_modules/tone'" to the top of App.js _this step is what I was messing
up previously i believe_ then I just throw tone commands at the bottom of
App.js and they play on pageload, this is exactly what I wanted for now.

[0]
[https://github.com/Tonejs/Tone.js/wiki/Installation](https://github.com/Tonejs/Tone.js/wiki/Installation)
[1]
[https://codepen.io/loderunnr/pen/AXoAko](https://codepen.io/loderunnr/pen/AXoAko)

~~~
SonicSoul
its gonna be tricky to learn this way.. i'd recommend getting the basics down
first.

i can recommend frontendmasters.com Brian Holt intro to web development. he's
great .. i learned React from his courses :)

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failrate
Sonic PI is an excellent programming tool that lets you do this sort of thong
with relative ease.

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barbs
That's so awesome. It'd be nice to have the bird noises in the background as
well though I guess this would be tricky if it's using MIDI to play the music.

I guess I could find some ambient bird noise track and play it alongside...

~~~
8bitsrule
MIDI (only controls sounds, does not generate them) is widely used to trigger
samples, so slip some samples of bird noises into your mix and trigger away.

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jnty
This is seriously impressive and very pleasant to listen to.

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empath75
Now do "Flutter"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZFmZ0gZNZI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZFmZ0gZNZI)

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am17an
I'd love to see what Richard has to say about this.

~~~
GorgeRonde
> Aphex Twin (aka Richard James) is known for creating original, complex
> sounds whenever he can, but his next creation might just take the cake. He
> tells Groove that he hired a programmer to develop music software based on
> mutation. Once you give the app an audio sample, it automatically generates
> six variants on that and asks you to pick your favorite before going on to
> create more variations -- think of it as natural selection for sweet beats.
> The software still "needs to be tweeked," and there's no mention of a public
> launch, but the early output reportedly sounds "totally awesome." Don't be
> shocked if one of James' post-Syro albums uses this software to create some
> truly one-of-a-kind tunes.

Source: [https://www.engadget.com/2014/12/29/aphex-twin-mutation-
musi...](https://www.engadget.com/2014/12/29/aphex-twin-mutation-music-
software/)

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hotdogs
Great writeup, generative.fm is awesome, I'll definitely be using that when I
need to focus and nothing in my music library appeals to me.

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bbarn
Huh. Was bracing for something like "come to daddy" when I hit play. Didn't
realize Aphex Twin did anything else.

~~~
pimeys
He's basically the father of modern claustrophobic ambient with his Selected
Ambient Works pt2. A very special thing to fall asleep and wake up while it's
still playing.

Diverged from Brian Eno's more warm and happy tunes to something darker.

~~~
bbarn
Yeah, it's great stuff so far. I wish I'd known that years ago. Only thing
that ever got air play was the other side.

~~~
pimeys
And Come to Daddy was a joke against the current mainstream, that was The
Prodigy in those days. Although most of his stuff has been some kind of a joke
always, even though its usually brilliant stuff.

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tmahle
Pairs well with [https://www.birdsong.fm/](https://www.birdsong.fm/) :D

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mruts
I always liked Burial for programming.

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microcolonel
Something about the sound of a neglected piano. Detuned, buzzing; it's played
as is.

~~~
lostgame
Actually, Aphex Twin and John Cage are both famous for using a technique
called 'prepared piano', in which the artist either intentionally uses or
intentionally destroys a piano, e.g. by shoving objects into the strings
within the body to create an intentionally detuned or broken sound.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prepared_piano)

~~~
WorldMaker
Terry Adams (of NRBQ fame) also has a fascinating prepared piano album, if you
want to explore other works. [http://www.nrbq.com/store/cd-
Andromeda.html](http://www.nrbq.com/store/cd-Andromeda.html)

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drumttocs8
Aphex Twin as a top thread... this is why I love hacker news.

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bartcobain
Is there a plan for an iOS app anytime soon?

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zeristor
Muzak missed a trick here

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StacyC
This is great - thank you

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cheez
generative.fm is my goto when I need to focus.

~~~
octosphere
[https://brain.fm](https://brain.fm) is cool too

~~~
cheez
Very cool, thanks.

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vonseel
Has this guy never heard of a bar or measure? Reading through the first
section where he describes the song as sections of 16 __beats __makes me
cringe, and this is coming from someone admittedly horrible with music theory.

Edit: I was turned off by his constant usage of the word “beats”, not phrase.

~~~
spiralganglion
Phrase is actually the appropriate term. A bar would be 4 beats (for this
song, which is in 4/4). The main phrase of the melody is 4 bars long.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrase_(music)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrase_\(music\))

~~~
vonseel
Good point. I miswrote the original comment, anyways, I meant beats.

I thought a bar is 4 beats, a measure is 4 bars (in 4/4)? Going to have to
look this up but is measure == phrase == section? Or I guess, a section can be
arbitrary number of bars depending on song structure.

~~~
spiralganglion
There's a fair amount of looseness in how these terms are used, in practice,
depending on the context.

4/4 means _4 beats per bar, and we 'll use a quarter note to represent a beat
when writing notation_. Another example would be 7/8, which is _7 beats per
bar, and we 'll use an eighth note for the beat when writing notation_.

Looking at music in terms of bars or measures only really matters when
creating traditional western sheet music notation. If we're writing computer
code, or playing by ear, or looking at other kinds of music notation, those
terms like "bar" and "measure" become less meaningful, and other terms become
more useful or appropriate for describing the structure of the music.

