naltroc
Joined 4 years ago
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Member since
May 19
Recent submissions
Comment · 1 year ago
Comment · 1 year ago
What does the ideal VST(s) look like for you?
How would you like it to be broken down?
For example, I tend to think of "composition" and "synthesis" as two very different topics.
One VST could spit out chords or melodies (not a common VST) whereas another could render those sounds (very common VST)
Comment · 1 year ago
The request is valid; you just need the right tools for the job.
Story Jam lets you design chord progressions without needing to know about music theory, instead offering intuitive terms like "lightness", "darkness", "drifting" and "roaming". They mean about what you think they mean.
I'm planning a "Show HN" post for tomorrow morning EST with more details. But you can get the sneak peek here :)
Comment · 1 year ago
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Comment · 1 year ago
> Is it really consent for those artists signing to labels when only three companies have total control of all music consumption and production for the mass market?
This premise is false. I have made plenty of money busking on the street, for example. Or selling audio recordings at shows.
> {o be clear, artists absolutely have a right to benefit from reproduction of their recordings.
This is correct. Artists benefit when you pay them for the right to reproduce. When you don't (like what you are doing), you get sued. Here's a YouTube video covering 9 examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIVSt8Y1zeQ
> I just don't think anyone should have rights to the knowledge built into those creations since in most cases it wasn't theirs to begin with
What?
Comment · 1 year ago
I have written and performed many songs over many bands. At no point did anybody compare my work to any other artist's work, because it is genuinely unique.
Comment · 1 year ago
how did you create this without committing grand theft musica
Comment · 1 year ago
It is true that your ears do not perceive the higher frequencies in the same way (through pitch detection). However, if you put on a headset and apply only frequencies above 16kHz, you will distinctly notice a change in the pressure in your headset's ear cups.
Good point about the savings. I was using uncompressed format as the reference, but it is indeed unlikely that YouTube serves out lossless audio.
I also should have used the word "delivery" instead of data storage. Those are two separate problems: where the original asset is stored (and how, if they don't store raw originals), and also how the asset is delivered over the web.
I'm a music researcher, software engineer, and producer. I made Story Jam.
This doc is intended to inform you of not just the product, but the centuries of work that have led up to its implementation.
> Are you tired of the barriers in traditional music composition? Story Jam is here to break them down.
> Designed for anyone with creative ideas — from poets to film directors — our tool offers a new way to create and edit chord progressions, powered by cutting-edge music theory.
*The product*
https://storyjam.tenpens.ink
v1.0.0
The UI is inspired by https://neal.fun. Neal has fun, simple, addictive, and intuitive designs and I hope Story Jam has that too.
*Who Story Jam is for: Storytellers*
Story Jam makes music composition accessible and meaningful to anybody, with or without musical training.
It is designed for those who crave musical control but struggle with traditional composition methods. This includes film directors, slam poets, and self-taught musicians.
Story Jam is not music production software. Do not expect fancy sounds or synthesizers. It's purely a composition tool, designed to spark your creative process.
*Try it out!*
The demo is free on the homepage, no login required!
This is an MVP, so it has an "introductory" feature set. Feature requests welcome; help me build the product you want.
*How it was made*
This service is built with:
- Monic Theory
- Yew (Rust) frontend
- TypeScript/Express webserver
- Postgres database
- Hosting by https://render.com
- Stripe API
- SendGrid (email) API
- Dygma Defy keyboard
- Love
*The chord progression suggestion logic*
This service is built on a novel new music theory I have developed called Monic Theory.
Monic Theory is a rigorous proof for music. Not "Western music": music.
Monic Theory describes the tonal space of any conventional music on earth (except noise music. For that just use `Math.random()`). It describes the static and transient function of chords, instantaneously and differentially over time. This model enables empirical measurement of chords and the relationship between chords.
(hint: It is nothing you have seen in Xenharmonic Alliance. This is a new approach I have been developing over the past 10 years.)
Therefore, Monic Theory enables us to describe (or "predict" if you will) a chord progression to invoke a certain feeling.
*Music Composition*
Three people who helped set up the environment for Monic Theory are composers Paul Hindemith and Harry Partch , and music theorist Heinrich Schenker.
These folks independently contributed new ideas to music composition and analysis. All of these people lived without access to rapid computation. This is critical for the Partch case, as he computed many tables of frequencies by hand to support his compositional technique.
Partch recognized the human-math-music relation in "Genesis of a Music." He includes in this text some samples of his hand-computed tables of frequency values of overtones and (importantly) undertones which support the basis is technique.
Partch's techniques were so far-fetched that he had to construct new instruments to perform his scores. Similarly, I had to build a digital synthesizer to render the output of Monic Theory. (See: https://github.com/ckmahoney/raudio).
*About me*
I was a working composer and violinist from 2007 until 2017, and I have been a software engineer for the past 7.5 years.
*Livecoding*
I was a volunteer organizer for Livecode.NYC, an NYC livecode community; and am the volunteer creator of Data Dancers, Atlanta's livecode community. I am passionate about algorithmic art and have provided about a dozen workshops over four years on the topic.
https://ckmahoney.github.io/portfolio/posts/livecoding/
thank you for reading.
May the flow of Spices be with you :) naltroc