alexbainter

Would you mind telling me which browser you tried with?

Thanks for sharing this, I'm the author of Generative.fm and the music systems on it.

Just wanted to pop in to tell OP that there's a recording feature built in to the site, and everyone is free to use the recordings for whatever they'd like - I just ask that you give attribution (it's licensed under CC-BY 4.0). Though, there's no configuration and I don't use AI, if that matters.

EDIT: I forgot to mention it's free, and all the music is ambient.

I know what you mean and I don't find it discouraging at all. Your analogy is perfect. The way the original piece evolves and builds on its phrases over time is very noticeably lacking in the generative version. In my version, any emotional buildup from one phrase to the next can only happen in short spurts at best, and it happens completely by accident. Of course, if I was putting on music that I wanted to really focus on and enjoy, the original would always be my choice. For me, the appeal of an endless version was that I could turn the music into ignorable ambience for my environment. Since we're making analogies, to me it's a bit like seeing a painting you like and saying "Gosh I like that color," then painting your walls that color. It can't compare to the painting but it might remind you of it.

Thanks for the feedback. I figured people who understood music would feel this way, but I deliberately chose to omit as many musical words as possible so that readers who weren't familiar with them wouldn't get lost. I would have felt obligated to define "bar" and "measure" if I used them, and ultimately I decided they weren't necessary. Sure, I could have defined what a measure was, that there are four beats in a measure (in this particular case), that each phrase is four measures instead of 16 beats, and what time signatures and quarter notes and eighth notes are. However, I believe all of this would have bloated the article and alienated readers who aren't as familiar with music theory as you and I are. As is, the article is still perfectly readable to someone who does have an understanding of music theory, and all we have to put up with is some non-traditional terms like "half-beat."

Agreed. I considered adding birds to it but I've found if I play this track in the morning and open my window so I can hear actual birds it's a nice experience.

Similar to what another commenter mentioned, I've done some experiments creating a virtual MIDI port from my code where I push all the notes to. A DAW can then read from this like any other MIDI device, as if it's just a MIDI keyboard that someone is playing. Another approach is to generate a MIDI file of some specified length and load that in the DAW, which is nice as it doesn't need to be generated and recorded in real time.

generative.fm is a progressive web app, so it _should_ work offline with the caveat that you'll need to play a piece once online before it works offline. I'm working on getting this communicated through the site but just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Agreed, I'll either be fixing it or including some explanation in the next release. Thanks!

Thanks, glad you like it! Have you tried using it offline? It should already work as you described, though I have to admit I've only tested in Chrome. The caveat is that you can only play songs offline if they were played online once before. I realize none of this information is communicated in the app, I need to do a better job of that.

You're very welcome, I'm glad you're enjoying the music and thank you for commenting. I'm excited some people are offering to pay for the site but I intend to keep all of the music free so as many people can enjoy it as possible. I also like to listen when I need to concentrate. That's really the reason I made the site, so I have something to listen to while I work.

It is generated client side, so each time you click play the music will be unique to that performance.

Thanks, I have to admit I really just ripped off Google Play Music's interface. The square icons were inspired by the album art for Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto's "Virus" series of albums. I made a program which generates them for me. The way it works is to split the square into squares, rectangles, and triangles, and then randomly choose which to stroke and fill.

Hey folks, I'm the creator of the site and the music on it. I'm happy people are enjoying the music.

I see some people are having a rough time on mobile devices so I wanted to help with that. I have found that iOS Safari will mute the site if you have your iPhone in silent mode (there might be a way for me to fix this but I haven't explored it much yet). However, you'll probably find that many of the pieces snap crackle and pop a bit on mobile devices. I'm looking into ways to improve that but for now unfortunately the best advice I have is to try it on your desktop or laptop or to try some of the less complex pieces towards the end of the list. I really appreciate the feedback; I've only done so much testing with the devices I have available so hearing from more people with a larger range of devices is super helpful. Feel free to open issues on Github as well: https://github.com/generative-music/generative.fm/issues