Massively Multiplayer Online Drum Machine | Hacker News Reader

Massively Multiplayer Online Drum Machine

mmodm.co

76 pointsDonaldDerek55 comments

Looks cool, but I'd be a lot more willing to allow the Twitter integration if I could try the drums out beforehand and see if they're any fun.

Posting something to my Twitter is essentially a recommendation of it, which they're asking me to do without letting me try the thing I'm recommending. Too high of barrier to entry for me, sorry!

Agreed, thank you, we're thinking of changing that soon to allow you to practice before tweeting! you can still hear each beat if you type its letter (outside the input text field:p)

As someone who spends a lot of his time playing around with drum machines, I couldn't figure out how to use this. I was only able to make lines without laying down any individual notes. Not sure what I'm missing here?

Also another thing to note, is that setting up the key triggers in alphabetical order like that is odd and really unintuitive. The standard for most digital audio workstations is to line up the top two rows of qwerty keys like they are piano keys (qwerty row = black piano keys, home row = white piano keys), and use 'z' and 'x' to change the octave.

Same here. Cannot figure out the interface at all. Chromium. Pressing letters actuates a sound effect once, okay. Numbers for the effects. Okay. Left and right arrow keys changes BPM. Fine. Other than that, I cannot seem to lay down any notes in the sequence at all. No idea what the vertical line means when I click to try to lay down a note.

I'm having the same issue. I can't place notes. Clicking "?" doesn't show any more information than the tooltips.

Interesting idea though...

Appreciate your feedback! Putting '-' in your sequence will have add a 1 unit gap between your beat! We're changing the letters order to match qwerty soon!

Derek, I don't think people realize you have to retweet to get this to work? I had the same issue...

I agree with other people who complain about this. I shouldn't have to tweet something in order to see the results.

If you scroll below, you can read: "To add your own notes, sign in with Twitter.".

What's the point of Twitter integration? Why can't I make patterns with the mouse on the screen?

Good point, it's text based because I miss playing around with text-based interfaces. Other than to please the keyboard junky in me, using Twitter stream API as a part of your system has so many cool benefits...

Or, you just want everyone to tweet about it.

right but... how do i know if it's a cool rhythm before tweeting? I don't get how to create something without spamming people with crap.

if you mention @playmmodm in your tweet like so'@playmmodm [o---o---oxx-x-x-z-z-z] #MMODM' you wont spam your friends because they're not following @playmmodm! Hope that helps a bit while we take all the good feedback we got here and fine-tune those details. Thanks.

Then what is the reason to integrate it with twitter only? I can't even use it (and I wish I could) unless I sign in.

Yeeeeaaaah...

Why does your music toy need to be able "see who I follow and follow new people", "update my profile", or "post tweets for me"? That's just not happening. It's unnecessary.

Read/Write access to be able to tweet on your behalf with your access token. We're changing that to a Twitter button as we speak. If you still feel like giving mmodm a shot, you can Tweet the sequence from your own account without the need of oauth! Make sure to follow this pattern '@playmmodm [o--o--x-x-x-xzzs] #MMODM'

Still not necessary. A simple share button is enough.

I don't tweet when I am forced to tweet.

You and me both brother. *highfive

Forced interaction with a social network is an easy way to alienate anyone over 15.

Update my Twitter profile? Come on, for all the work that obviously went into create a cool product you could have taken an extra minute to properly set the oauth permissions.

Unfortunately, to be able to Tweet on your behalf, we need to request for the Read/Write permissions. I understand your fear, you can bypass that thing by going to your Twitter and tweeting to the Drum Machine like so: @playmmodm [o---o---o---ozz-z-z-zz] #MMMODM

No, you are not getting access to post from my Twitter account.

Please, put the letter as qwertyuiop... and not abcdefg... Otherwise, cool project!

Good idea! Thanks, it'll feel more intuitive.

However, this will kill the azerty folks. Add a way to switch, and keep abcdefg for the folks using other weird layouts!

I think this is a really neat idea and I really wanted to play with it but the interface isn't really intuitive and then I read that you have to use twitter to be able to use it. I think I'll pass. Neat idea though.

How do I make the music?

I couldn't figure it out either. Can make single effects with keyboard, but clicking the tiles generated a line but no noticeable effect.

every letter corresponds to a beat! Dashes are spaces between beats! Tweet from either the web-app or from Twitter like so '[dd--dd--ddo---o---o---o] #MMODM'

What is the vertical line? Why does clicking on a box not turn on/off that box? Is there some other way to turn on a box? Is there some way to generate the "[dd--dd--ddo---o---o---o]" for me, so I don't have to figure out the syntax myself and make sure I have the right length of string? Is there some way outside of twitter to try a string like "[dd--dd--ddo---o---o---o]" to see what it does, before I post it to my friends on Twitter?
I like to think I'm not the average clueless user, but this site really confuses me :) Looks like with a little polish and user testing, it could be fun, though!

It doesn't encourage play at all and doesn't even tell you what its supposed to do. Its honestly one of the most frustrating interfaces I've seen. It feels like it would be powerful, but its so unintuitive in even the most basic function of setting beats it fails miserably.

Acid Defender is an addictive (single-player) drum machine game:
http://cappel-nord.de/webaudio/acid-defender/

We replaced Twitter oAuth with a simple Tweet intent! https://github.com/MMODM/mmodm

I can't understand how to use it. Should I post something on twitter to enter a pattern? I would prefer clickable interface I think.

try tweeting the following '@playmmodm [o---o---o---oxx-xx-x-xx-xxxz--z--zzzz] #MMODM' and watch what happens on mmodm.co

Heh, is Chrome slowing down the Javascript clock when you switch away from the tab? Because it changes to around 1 beat per second.

Haha yep. Chrome cranks SetInterval way down when a tab is in the background.

I don't get the interface after 2 10 minute tries. Can someone please tell me how you actually put a beat down?

So the input to this is posts at their twitter account from your twitter account?

MMODM's Twitter account (@playmmodm). I understand hackers fears as I'm one of them. That's why the better way to play the drum machine is by tweeting to it like so (from Twitter) ' @playmmodm [o---o---o---oxx-xx-x-xx-xxxz--z--zzzz] #MMODM'

i want to share via twitter only after i've found a good combination of beats. Am I missing something here, can this page do anything without being integrated with twitter?

Fantastic....not very intuitive to select beats...really strange.

You have to log in with your twitter. Which gives them control over your account to follow who they want, and the ability for them to tweet for you.
I'll pass.

woot! No way! You can tweet like so '[deeeedghgo---o---o--] #MMODM' from your Twitter account and still be able to play it!

Thank you! You can create your own room and jam with friends!

my firefox (latest beta) says :
"The buffer passed to decodeAudioData contains invalid content which cannot be decoded successfully"
and produces no sound on win 7 64 bit. chrome works flawlessly.

Web Audio API issues with your Firefox I guess! Thanks for reporting, we'll look more into that!

Imagine posting this somewhere like 4chan or reddit

Please, go ahead! Let there be sound!

Way ahead of you.

haha!

hope you guys enjoyed my drum solo at about 1:00 PM PST
I totally killed it....
because nobody else played anything for a while.
but seriously, what was used to build this? meteor.js?

Thank you! I think we did, I'd have to check the database logs! If you click on the share link, you can save the cool drum beat you made!
We used Node.js, Express, socket.io, cluster, redis and MongoDB! Please fork us! https://github.com/MMODM/mmodm

haha it was pretty killer.
You can checkout the code on Github here: https://github.com/mmodm/mmodm
We used a mixture of stuff, but mostly just node.js and jquery

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