If you know The Echo Nest, you know that Music Hack Days hold a special place in our hearts, even as we continue inking deals with some of the biggest brands on the planet. As a founding sponsor of these events, and as attendees, we get a kick out of helping very smart people build functional music technologies in a single weekend, ranging from humorous one-offs to more ambitious hacks that become commercial ventures.
Denver’s first-ever Music Hack Day, presented by Beatport and organized by The Echo Nest, Soundkeep, and Antony Bruno, was a resounding success – especially for us, as well over half of the projects created there leveraged our API.
Let’s take a little tour of the hacks that used The Echo Nest to make their magic happen (in order of presentation):
State of the Game (JT Bowler)
This hack dynamically generates background music for a video game, based on how well the user is performing, with a web-based version of Tetris to demonstrate the concept. As the blocks begin to pile up, the music switches to a faster, more hectic song – and when they near the top of the screen (full-on crisis mode for any Tetris player), the music kicks up to more intense genre, tempo, and energy. The music itself plays through Rdio.
EchoNest Remix API Chord Identifier (Tosha Antokhin)
Add any song into this hack, and it will determine its chords using The Echo Nest’s audio analysis technology. First, it grabs pitch and timbre information, then it attempts to identify the three dominant pitches for each song segment (verse, chorus, bridge, etc.). The hack outputs its best guesses at the song’s chord progression.
Automasher (Peter Klipfel)
This one makes mash-ups out of your entire downloaded music collection. Using The Echo Nest, it finds the segments of each song, then determines which segments are similar… across the various songs. The app then automatically generates mash-ups based on your preferred genre, tempo, energy level, and more.
New Release Roulette (Rebecca Stecker)
This hack provides a clean, smooth interface for the new music on Rdio, which lets you build a queue to find out what you want to add to your collection.
Soundseq (Cory Shaw)
This browser-based audio sequencer uses The Echo Nest’s Remix API to analyze songs and split them into segments, which you can then play and re-sequence. The app also allows for layering, so you can stack parts of the songs on top of each other, creating complex sounds out of even simple material.
MAKEMESHAKE.IT (Emily Wolf, Lionel Ramos, Bradon Wesche, Matthew Legrice)
This app asks users to dance, records them via webcam, and turns their dance moves into Vine clips, which it assembles onto a single page. The result: a collage of people dancing, all synched to the same song. The viewer can speed up or slow down the song, causing the dancers to react accordingly.
Sonic Skyline (Fletcher Richman)
SonicSkyline aims to determine a city’s Musical Identity. After tapping our artist location, hotttnesss, and genre information, this app presents relevant information about a city’s music scene, lets you play the top 100 artists from any city, and ranks cities in terms of how “hot” their music is, among other things.
The Infinitive Jukebox (Mark Stoughton)
A play on The Infinite Jukebox, this game tests your ability to identify songs based on just some of their lyrics: the verbs. After you enter an artist, the app displays a bar graph depicting one of their song’s verbs, including how often they appear. You then must select the correct song out of five choices.
RCDJ (Eric Davis)
This toy car used to be remote controlled. Now, it’s autonomous, using a combination of Rpi, Arduino, an ultrasonic sensor, and Xbox Kinect. The Echo Nest’s API controls and randomizes audio parameters and clip launching of a Pure Data patch.
The MobiusTube (Paul Lamere) -
Is your favorite music video not long enough? Would you prefer that it play… forever? This app analyzes any music video, to identify the most similar segments to any segment. Then it begins to play the video, jumping seamlessly between segments that are scored by The Echo Nest as highly similar. The result: a music video that plays forever, always generating new paths through the song.
Perennial (Jonathan Nooning) -
Last, but definitely not least, Perennial crowdsources party music. As you enter the party, your Taste Profile can be added to those of the other attendees, all of which combine with the Taste Profile of the event itself (as determined by its organizer) to generate the perfect playlist for any event.
asked: I'm a big fan of your blog! I am a high schooler right now going into my senior year and I want to work for NASA that is my life goal! Do you have any advice for me?
The number one thing you should do is just apply to work there! Go to: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/public/main/ and apply for an internship! There are several open for high schoolers and, once your in college, you should continue to apply.
Once you’re in college join some STEM clubs! work on some cool projects! Help the club make something cool! Go to hackathons! Stay involved and work with your professors. But, most importantly, do things that make you want to wake up in the morning. Remember, NASA doesn’t just have STEM people! One of my best friends that I met at NASA was a poetry major.
To enter the UGA Small Satellite Research Lab’s giveaway all you have to do is:
Reblog this post (so we can get your name)
Liking the post will enter you a second time!
Following the small sat lab on tumblr will enter you a third time!
Following the small sat lab on twitter will enter your a fourth time (just tweet your us tumblr user name at us and tell us how cool you think space exploration is)!
Help Our Crowdfunded to build a spacecraft! Help us build a spacecraft!
We’ll be sending a Satellite to the international Space Station in 2018! We just need help building the ground station!
The Donation Rewards:
If you have donated larger amount you will also get all the benefits of the lesser amounts! Be sure when you visit smallsat.uga.edu/donate that you include your information so that we can get in contact with you!
$5 - You will entered in the telescope raffle 2 more timesand will receive a signed thank you card in the mail from the lab!
$10 - You will receive a signed certificate of space exploration from the UGA Small Satellite Research Laboratory
$25 - You will receive a mission patch of your choosing (our NASA patch has yet to be designed but the MOCI patch is below)
$50 - You will receive both mission patches!
$100 - We will give you a UGA Small Satellite Laboratory tee-shirt! Special made for supporters of our campaign!
$250 - We will tweet at you from space! once a month! (or you can control the message that you send!)
$500 - You will receive a plaque commemorating your participation in the development of our spacecraft!
$1000 - We will engrave your name on the side of our satellite!
Remember, you get ALL of the benefits of lower donations if you donate a higher one!
Please Help Us Out! We are partnered with NASA and will be sending a satellite to the International Space Station in 2018, but we do not have the money to build a ground station yet!
We have 2 3U cube satellites! The image below is the patch for our Mapping and Ocean Color Imager (MOCI). We are also building the SPectroscopic Observatory of Coastal regions (SPOC), is this is the satellite that will be launched to the International Space Station!
The Crowdfunded and raffle end on July 31, 2016, after that it will take us 20-30 days to send out all the rewards! Donate at smallsat.uga.edu/donate! Feel free to message us or ask us any space questions you may have!
Anónimo
