Show HN: Lofimusic.app, an open source Background Music Progressive Web App

That makes sense to me and I think it's the principle being mantras, repetition gets someone into a state of trance.

Although I don't know if I would be able to loop just one song, I do repeat albums that I like. So I put a few albums that I like and have listened to many, _many_ times, on queue. Already knowing the songs makes my brain settle (or at least reduces the cognitive(?) load a lot), and sometimes I even discovered "new sounds".

Same.

My personal theory is the predictability allows you to tune it out, making it invisible to your conscious brain.

Based on my half-baked understanding of Jeff Hawkin's theory that our brains are wired to notice differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Intelligence

Me too! I can't have it too loud though. But same song, on loop for an hour or so. I think the feeling of the headphones over my ears acts as an unconscious trigger to concentrate too.

I do this sometimes with a single song, but I've found much more success with entire soundtracks from video games, especially Nintendo games, though mostly for nostalgia reasons. The different songs add just enough variety that I don't get bored, but usually the entire soundtrack has a consistent volume, style, and often mood. Plus these songs very rarely have any distracting vocals.

I'm musical in general, having grown up doing various band activities, so there's always a song playing upstairs. Having something external to listen to simply allows me to switch tracks.

same! all about getting “in the zone”. I usually go for house/techno DJ mixes or some sort of cool drumming. lol tangent but you might like this digeridoo one... https://youtu.be/FHpTYVOWin4

Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress apparently listens to one Kanye song on repeat, up to 4 hours. I guess it works for him.

I have a very similar progress, but my favorite loop-genre to work with is grindcore. Highly recommend Magrudergrind: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB290E30AC7EEFAFB. I have listened to this album many hundreds of times by now.

I listen to the Nujabes homework edit songs for the same reason. They’re basically multi-hour long. seamlessly repeating cuts of a chill song.

I used to listen to Bach's Musical Offering when studying for my qualifying exams. I think the repetition of the main theme through the piece contributed to my focus

Me too. It might be caused by the crackling sound, the dominant instruments being melodic instrument in midtones/treble, or the amount of highpass filter applied to the music. It might relate with the frequency you're comfortable with (for example, I'm not really comfortable with the frequency of typewriter or the voice of my project manager near deadline :p)

I loop GTA V soundtracks for driving, the curation seems to be optimized for it https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YYOp3xA7HcgZQ5hhRJuK1?si=...

While I loop meshuggah's whole album for working. The polyrhythmical barrage of riff is cathartic.

I do the same, but the reason, as I’ve thought about it, is that it is of course a song I like, with a nice groove, and when I press Repeat for hours, the effect is that whenever I have a momentary lull or break in my work, what I hear is a snippet of this music that I like, and I can groove with it for a second or a few minutes, it isn’t something new that will grab my attention away from my work. So it isn’t even background music because I’m not listening to it in the background. It is music to keep me on track when those brief lulls arrive (like waiting for something to compile, or upload, or render).

Agree to #1 for sure (I use the Force HD chrome plugin for #2). Please add a volume control button!

have to appreciate the irony in worrying about the bitrate of simulated lo-fi crackling

Looks like a Pull request for the volume control was created[1]. Hopefully the author will merge it soon. Internet is awesome

[1] https://github.com/maxence-charriere/lofimusic/pull/3

Check out https://radioparadise.com

It has volume control, you can skip songs, there are 4 different channels (Main, Rock, Mellow, Eclectic) and you can even make your own channel of songs that you rated 7 out of 10 or more.

No ads, purely listener supported. It has a phone app too where you can set bitrate per Wifi/Mobile data and you can also set up caching to listen when you're offline or during tunnels when travelling.

+1 for pause button

I'm also starting to really hate this direction in software design where all buttons are either flat with the UI or hidden through some cryptic menu or swipe gesture or even worse, they're unavailable to the user, all for the sake of simplicity.

If you were to teleport 2003 me into the present, I would have no idea how to use most front ends of today's websites or smartphones.

In firefox, every tab has its own output stream. On a suitably advanced platform, you control the volume of each stream with a system tool, independently.

Asking the same questions, and some more:

I like the idea, and the app looks cool. I just wish there was a way to just get the audio streams from these channels and have the video constantly looping be embedded into the app or something.

The reason why I don't stay tuned to the YT channels is exactly because of ads, and I don't like my bandwidth being consumed by video when I'm not watching anything.

I had to implement something similar to this a few years ago. I scoured the ToS to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong by removing the GUI. IIRC it was totally fine as long as you still link to the youtube video.

As for ads -- I don't remember how we dealt with those. I don't think embeds show the pre-roll ads, only mid-video ads. Since this is a streaming video I assume it doesn't have those.

I don't have an answer for you, just wanted to pile on with my own experience and questions in the same vein.

I find that a background noise app really helps me stay calm/lowers stress and anxiety, and I get a huge productivity boost out of it. Something about being at peace hearing natural sounds really does feel like it's deeply engrained in me, and I assume other people also. I wonder: (1) if there's a difference between the effects people generally get from various noise types (lofi, natural sounds, white noise etc), (2) whether something relevant about the individual correlates with preference among these, and (3) what is universal among these that makes background noise so commonly helpful.

(I use Noice for free nature/background sounds, off f-droid. I highly recommend it)

I think this is a valid question worth asking. As we dive further into the age of constant electronic activity and people preach digital detoxes, lament the loss of "deep work", and wax on about dopamine, it's good to consider all areas in which we've allowed such stimuli to pervade every part of our daily lives.

Certainly, people can point out that constant audible stimulation dates back to at least the radio craze near the beginning of the 20th century. So that gives us a place to start researching comparisons on the effect on attention spans and other aspects of human cognition.

This is the way it always was. Depends on a particular human being, but some of us are persistent music lovers.

whatever it means it is probably applicable to society over at least a hundred years

I find the idea of needing music very interesting. I never really feel that I need music. Like, I can enjoy movie and game soundtracks, and I feel like they add to the atmosphere. But when working, I have no problems working and focusing in silence. I don't need background music, and I don't need to hear the radio playing. I actually prefer silence. But I've noticed many people consider silence very uncomfortable. I think silence is associated with boredom, and boredom is something people would rather avoid.

I wonder the same thing. My girlfriend has to have music on in the background all the time. It drives me a bit crazy. I often just want silence.

I think the difference between music and background music makes sense here.

I use this this kind of background music as a way to drown other noises, because it's easily canceled by the brain.

It's basically a nicer white noise, better than silence because it allows me to ignore much better the noises around.

So for the 'need' for audible stimulation, it's actually the opposite : you cancel as much as possible the stimulation by having a constant and easily filterable input that drowns the unexpected noises that could be stimulating/break your focus

> I feel like there has to be some sort of mental effect from listening to music constantly.

Why would there be?

Well I don't constantly need it, but there's certainly stretches of time where I want something for my ears to focus on, leaving the rest of my mind to focus on something else.

And selecting music I actually want to listen to is counterproductive - as is scrolling through playlists and youtube channels finding the "right thing" to put on and forget about.

Some playlists have the info, some others don't.

uMatrix breaks many websites if you don't mess with it constantly.

Just the kick/low-end drum beats, or all of the rhythm (only leaving the melody)? Just curious. Sometimes I listen to relaxing music or videos on headphones when I can't sleep and I use the EQ on my phone to cut low frequencies. If it's all of the drum/rhythm that distracts you I don't know of a good solution other than finding music that's all melody and no rhythm.