grey box that produces generative cheesy trance

[Angstrom]

we all know that dance music can easilly be made by a chimp on E, and it's often commented that the box can make better trance if you leave it alone in a room.

so here it is, via music thing

"The basic concept behind it is that most "classic" dance music is so formulaic it should be easy for a computer to generate. Generating all patterns and sequences from a small set of rules the unit is able to deliver new and original tracks in realtime." Obviously this is easy enough to do in software, but Mungo has actually made a hardware box.

http://home.netspeed.com.au/aistorm/Trance.html

there's a set by DJ Grey Box on there in mp3 , it's pretty damn convincing
have a listen

http://home.netspeed.com.au/aistorm/Fir ... 20Dump.mp3

[stinky]

we all know that dance music can easilly be made by a chimp on E, and it's often commented that the box can make better trance if you leave it alone in a room.

so here it is, via music thing

"The basic concept behind it is that most "classic" dance music is so formulaic it should be easy for a computer to generate. Generating all patterns and sequences from a small set of rules the unit is able to deliver new and original tracks in realtime." Obviously this is easy enough to do in software, but Mungo has actually made a hardware box.

http://home.netspeed.com.au/aistorm/Trance.html

there's a set by DJ Grey Box on there in mp3 , it's pretty damn convincing
have a listen

http://home.netspeed.com.au/aistorm/Fir ... 20Dump.mp3

Shit music will always be shit music. If you take shit music, put it in a box and press play, it will always be a box of shit that plays shit music. Nothing more. Having said that, i think blasting a particular type of music for being easy to make is kind of stupid. Any type of music genre has specific patterns that make it, essentially, a part of that genre.

I don't doubt that someone could program this Shit Box to make any type of genre, pop, hiphop, even jazz. There's no genre specific music that is immune to broad generalizations and over simplifications that would allow it to be programmed by a machine (which is still programmed by a human.) If you're going to take music and break it down to the sum of it's parts like that, then you're just creating an algorythm, like any other. No different.

If we continue to think along these lines, then you're just ready to accept that the human aspect of making music is not inherently necessary. I don't agree. All these posts of generative music, and Robert Henke's post as well.. they're all nice, but in the end, there really isn't the emotion, subtlety, and nuance that you get with a human touch, which is what we're coming back to.

Tools are just tools. Rules are made to be broken, only after understanding why you're breaking them. In the end, broad generalizations like that music sux because this aspect of it is too simplistic, yadda, yadda.. that's just taking a pot shot. There's plenty of emotional music out there, even within stagnant genre's such as trance, pop, etc.

What it boils down to, and why Shit Box's like these are really irrelevant, is the human aspect of any genre, genre crossing and melding, and then outright originality, for which genre generalizations are really mundane, at best. Just because there are Shit Producing Monkeys and Shit Producing Boxen, doesn't mean that a whole genre needs to be relegated to shit, and that surprises aren't able to occur.

Take DnB... any monkey can take an 808 and make a reese bass groove to an amen break. That doesn't mean that DnB is dead, or needs to be cracked on. It just needs to be taken to a new level. And, with that in mind, no music is really original, now is it? We all stand on the backs of giants.

BTW, have you heard that track. It's laughable. To say that all trance sounds like that is too.

[forge]

we all know that dance music can easilly be made by a chimp on E

ooohhh...sombody's cruisin for a bruisin.....

... and it's often commented that the box can make better trance if you leave it alone in a room.

well, that is true - for this type of trance at least - but not the clever psy stuff that does actually exist out there, usually in muddy paddocks

the example here could well be paul oakenfold or tiesto - but it also sounds closer to the trance of about 10 years ago than it does to anything around now

But I really like htis quote:

"People can do the work, so that machines have time to think" (B(if)tek, 2000)

[dj superflat]

i'm not saying the music is good, but electronic music is obviously the most suited to this sort of trick. jazz? too complex, plus you've got accoustic instruments that are still pretty hard to sample convincingly (smooth jazz maybe). similarly, the raggedy aspects of indie rock, plus acoustic instruments plus vox, makes that pretty hard to simulate via machine at this point (though many adolescents simulate indie rock with little more artistry than a chimp might provide).

what i find interesting about this is that you should be able to run this endlessly and get a couple of great songs from all the crap (the monkeys at infinite typewriters producing hamlet). and is this track really not good enough for a video game or your average episode of blade or femme nikita or whatever? finally, i don't find this an afront to human artistry -- the program was put together by a human after all. it's little different from creating skrewell or some of the other noise generators in reaktor and just letting them loose (matter of degree, not kind).

[forge]

All these posts of generative music, and Robert Henke's post as well.. they're all nice, but in the end, there really isn't the emotion, subtlety, and nuance that you get with a human touch, which is what we're coming back to.
.

no I disagree - in fact have you listened to the man Angstrom here's own generative things? - one of them definitely had a strong emotive quality to it - the use of resonators and chord plug-ins made some really nice random minor key stuff that definitley pushed my buttons

but the other point you raised is the main issue here - that there was in fact human involvement in it to begin with - somebody had to program it

the day a machine designs a machine to create music is the day it will be truly self generative

[Angstrom]

tee hee,
I'm pushin everyone's buttons today !

Actually the idea that " the box makes the music" came up for me during the 90's when I used to get interviewed by music papers here in the UK. At the time they was a big battle between 'real' music and 'computer music'

often we would get a journo who really wanted to be interviewing Nirvana, but got us instead - (fuckin bleep-merchants!), so when they would ask "how do you come up with your songs?" or some such nonsense we would solemn faced reply " we just press go on the computer then go to the pub, by the time we get back it has made 3 songs and we choose the one we like best! " they bought it hook line and sinker, it was great.

To rile them even more we said that the crystal energy of the timing crystal on the motherboard made this music inherrently deep and meaningful.Oh they loved that.

so, that's my history with this - and why I thought I post it in a provocative manner, knowing that everyone here is too calm and placid to fall for such an obvious trolling
I did begin with "we all know ", I thought that was quite obvious, eh?

Actually I thought the audio output was quite good!
I am wondering if it is a joke though, perhaps thats just my own prankster history.

[njh]

this guy says its easy to do this in software... so is there something i can download that does this?

[Pitch Black]

this guy says its easy to do this in software... so is there something i can download that does this?

Oh you're just askin for it!

Its called Ableton Live...

[Pitch Black]

... on a PC!!!

[anti-banausic]

Actually I thought the audio output was quite good!
I am wondering if it is a joke though, perhaps thats just my own prankster history.

The box looks sort of wrong actually. IE, not real, as in a mock-up. Something is strange about the switches and the big "easy" button at the top. It looks sort of photoshop'd or something. But it could be real.

That would really take the piss.

[stinky]

i'm not saying the music is good, but electronic music is obviously the most suited to this sort of trick. jazz? too complex

If you break jazz down to the sum of it's parts, and follow the rules (and even program rules to break the rules), then it's all a matter of the complexity of the algorythm. If the algorythm is designed to consider velocity, groove, variation, time signature variation, and the midi is going to a multisampler, it's just a matter of the quality of the algorythm and the samples that you use.

Acoustic instruments can also be reproduced surprisingly accurately, if you take into consideration nuances such as strumming rhythmically, pick direction, etc.. or whatever the specific nuances for that intrument might be. Create an object for that instrument, create the classes for the nuances, etc, etc. You get as much out as you put in. I don't doubt that it can be done, and accurately enough for only well trained ears to detect.

Regarding vox... we're almost there. My best friend works for a voice recognition and synthesis company, and you'd be amazed at what can be achieved synthetically. Even with 'basic' programs like Cantor, etc. Put a vocoder, and/or some reverb.. with a good programmer, it may be hard to distinguish. A far cry from War Games vocals.. about on par with 2001 (the movie) quality.

I don't, by any measure, think that it's possible now, at this moment.. but, with some dedicated musician programmers, and the state of technology progressing as it is, it must be considered... and not too far off.

[subterFUSE]

What if I fart into a jar, and sample that? Is that any more or less music than most DnB tracks?

[stinky]

What if I fart into a jar, and sample that?

Anybody who's worth his salt as a producer can make a fart sound good!! One of my best friend's who's a hiphop producer used to say something to that effect...

[subterFUSE]

My farts seriously kick ass, though.

All those protein bars I eat all the time.

[forge]

What if I fart into a jar, and sample that?

Anybody who's worth his salt as a producer can make a fart sound good!! One of my best friend's who's a hiphop producer used to say something to that effect...

that's 2 posts in a row where you've said what I was going to say - first about Jazz being just as feasible, 2nd about using a fart - or any sound source

one of the best bass lines I have in a track was me going "uuurrrggghhmmmmpphhh" into a crappy set of headphones plugged into a mic input then totally messed up with just live and it's FX - and that was in Live 3