[linux-audio-user] Algorithmic mixing/DJ'ing?

[Dave Griffiths]

not sure, but this might fit the bill:
http://labrosa.ee.columbia.edu/meapsoft/

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> Long rambling question here; it's late.
>
> I'm having fun making groove-like peices with various GNU/Linux tools
> (ardour, fluidsynth, rosegarden, ams, whysynth, et al), but I'm finding I
> just don't have a good feel for dance/DJ-style mixing.
>
> So what I've been doing is just keeping the number of tracks relatively
> low, and keeping the peices very short, becuase they get boring after a
> while.  But that's not what I want. I'd like longer peices that evolve.
>
> In other words, I can layer loops on top of loops like there's no
> tomorrow, but then the result is really too dense. I could sit here with
> ardour fader automation or something like Freewheeling/tapeutape, and try
> to randomly vary these and play around with mixes, but I don't have a good
> feel for it, I don't have the time sit through or choose from many
> iterations of 10-15 minute mixes, and there's no *audience* here to judge
> the result, so the exercise would be useless. I can't rely on past
> experience either: I've never done much live playing (and it's been 10
> years since I did), and I'm too old to have ever done any live DJ'ing.
> That experience of "mixing" music live for an audience-- and varying
> dynamics and textures in order to keep the humans listening to it engaged
> and happy-- is priceless. And I just don't have it.
>
> The "social/human" answer would be: well, go find yourself a producer,
> someone who has similar tastes and who has lots of experience DJ'ing. I
> generally don't do well with collaboration, and finding the right people
> is always challenging, but that's one option, and I looked into possibly
> using ccmixter.com or splicemusic.com and letting "the group mind" do this
> for me.
>
> The "DIY" answer would be: teach yourself how to do it. That's usually my
> default answer for anything, and it may be what I end up doing. But trying
> to find an audience to test the results, is difficult for me due to other
> obligations and limitations. I have been looking into options, like asking
> the owner of my local coffee shop if I can take control of his stereo for
> a few hours a day, plug a laptop and keyboard controller into it, and thus
> obtain an audience that has no idea they are an audience. But even then, I
> need a starting point first. I was going to begin by mapping out the "mix
> structure" of a few peices that I like (i.e., just about anything on
> Groove Salad on somam.com), and then edit the ardour fader automation
> visually to match. But I'd have to map out at a lot of mixes to try to
> distill their common features and how/why they work as mixes.
>
> Finally, I thought, wait a minute, there's another answer: the "geek
> answer". Instead of trying to find another human to mix for me, or trying
> to train myself how to mix, why not train the computer how to do it? What
> I'm on after is kind of a "mix algorithm", that I can execute. Why not
> teach the compter how to do it?
>
> What I'd like to find or write, is a program that will take in lots of
> loops, and will generate mixes, based on some rules or examples derived
> from successful peices in this genre, and hopefully one which I can
> "train" by basically using myself as the audience, or possibly actually
> use in a live performance situation.  I'd either manually tag the loop
> samples, or ideally have it do some signal analysis to determine rhythmic
> density, tonal density, frequency range, etc. of each loop, and "slot" it
> in to the appropriate place in the mix. Even better if it does this in
> real time, so I can sit here with a keyboard and play stuff, and have the
> program decide on the fly where each loop might fit in the mix.
>
> So my question would be:
> 	1) Is there anything out there already (OSI licensed) which will do this?
> 	2) If I were to write it, what language/environment would be best suited
> for it (i.e. csound, pd, supercollider)?
>
> Thanks.
>
> - -ken
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