Music Hack Day London

UPDATED 2 (links fixed, apps added):

Another Music Hack Day (London) was held this past weekend. Below are the hacks:

• Paul G music-on-hold hack (call his conference number and select the music you want to hear
• Cuttle (access music library on iDevice under iOS 4, and run a live remix using realtime beat tracker)
• Big Piano (inspired by the movie Big - big floor piano that you can make music with)
• Future of music 2010 (a Mac OS X app that scans your iTunes library and computes the music you are not supposed to be listening to anymore based on your preferences, and then deletes it from iTunes and your hard drive)
• Gramophone (browse around the world, pick a month from history and find songs that were played live then and there)
• HOTTTABS (crawls the web for you and retrieve the guitar tabs of the hottests songs of the moment according to their level of difficulty)
• BumbleTab patient guitar tutor (a very patient guitar tutor)
• Daily Sample Set (ruby script that pulls the hottest downloadable uncompressed Creative Commons tracks from SoundCloud within last 24 hours)
• Piracy (android app that allows you to drop tracks from your music collection on your current location, allowing others to grab them if they're close enough)
• Playlistr (imports/exports XSPF playlists, imports tracklists from the BBC Programmes website, links to stream on Spotify and buy from 7digital)
• Disco Snake (play the classic game snake, but you have multiple pieces of food available at any time, and eating a piece of food adds a note to a playing sequence with a pitch and velocity corresponding to the position of the food, and crashing in to your tail results in switching to a new set of samples)
• Singalong (quick access to tablature from your favorite bands)
• Speakatron (a program that looks at you through your web cam and plays a sound when you open your mouth)
• The Cut Liberator (a python script to autogenerate cut up hip hop mixes)
• Roomba Recon (The inspiration for this project is a robot solving a maze. Or cleaning a house. The general idea is to construct coherent playlists that traverse from a start to end song on the Soundcloud with minimal prior knowledge.)
• Webloop_Revisited (The webloop, in its first incarnation remotely presented at music hack day STHLM, is an ongoing experiment in using modern browsers to generate sound. On one hand. On the other hand it tries to find ways to allow people to collaboratively create music.)
• Earth Destroyers (For my London Music Hackday hack I built a web app called 'Earth Destroyers'. Give Earth Destroyers a band name and it will show you how eco-friendly the band's touring schedule is. Earth Destroyers calculates the total distance traveled from the first gig to the last along with the average distance between shows. If an artist has an average inter-show distance of greater than a 1,000 km I consider it an 'Earth Destroyer'. The app also shows you a Google map so you can see just how inefficient the tour is.)
• 7digital Never-ending Popquiz ("Arcade style" never-ending popquiz. Reaching next level will bring new type of questions and they get more difficult with each level. Wrong answers cost you lives. You can choose different genres to play and questions are generated randomly from top artists tagged with this genre. Options for answers are generated from similar artists to the correct answer.)
• 7x7 (a square of 7x7 notes, where the notes can be selected by using the mouse. All notes within the selected rectangle are played, creating various chords. When notes are selected they are played according to an Attack-Duration-Decay envelope, where the user has no control of the parameters.)
• MixCloudPad (a sit back way of enjoying MixCloud content on your iPad)
• MashBox (The user selects a track and the system mixes it with another that is chosen at random (within limits), and uploads to http://soundcloud.com/mashbox)
• SongkickGiglister (An Android oriented Songkick gig lister for people who agree to go to gigs before they've heard the band. Fetches the upcoming gigs for a given user, pulling in data about the bands: links to Spotify, tracks from around the web etc.)
• Accessible music (This hack is a web browser where songs are triggered with mouse over movements)
• MuseScore OSC Remote (several musicians scoring together)
• I was there (tour t-shirts from your Songkick gigography)
• Gowalla for SoundCloud (check in with Gowalla to a particular venue and get a free SoundCloud stream/download)
• Cleversounds (next time you visit a place with a cleversounds jukebox (at the moment, just laptops), you will be played artists that you like)
• Music Mag (create a music magazine from Guardian content)
• The Sound of Tweets (simple web app to turn tweets into pieces of music)
• Swearaoke (this is a game where you play Guitar Hero guitar, and this makes the words to a song)
• Auto Score Tubing (YouTube.com is stuffed with great musical performances. Imagine these videos playing along with the musical score! While manually synchronizing a score measure per measure along with the video is possible, automatic synchronizing would be even greater.)
• The Sound of Data About Justin Bieber (exploring how fan data could be presented not as visualizations, but instead as sounds)
• Political Echonalysis (exploring the style of politcal speech by analysing the audio data)
• Not That Song (add songs from your 7digital locker to playlist that tells you how well those tracks fit together, or not)
• Head Tracking Sound Installation (breakout Game with Procedurally Generated Audio - actions in the game affect the audio output)
• BBC Dance & Electronica Archive & Recommendations (tracklist archives for all dance & electronica shows, finds listed tracks on SoundCloud, after entering your Last.FM username, it recommends artists based on the _complete_ tracklist)
• Mortal Songbat (a musical version of Mortal Kombat)
• Radio Map (sweeping the frequency spectrum on an old analogue radio to the digital web-radio world)
• SoundWheel (Sound Wheel is a circular synthesizer that uses synesthesia and variable intonation to make funky sounding basslines)
• Chatter-FM (call a number and leave a message that will be uploaded to soundcloud)
• Nirtous Oxide (webcam midi controller that tracks colours / fruits)

It's inspiring to see what can be developed in a weekend - congrats to all! While I haven't experimented with any of the above hacks, based on the brief summaries they've provided, my favorites are Disco Snake, Earth Destroyers, I was there, Gowalla for SoundCloud and Mortal Songbat. Btw, if you are not familiar with Music Hack Day, watch these two videos:

Play your Music from Google Docs

Cloud Music, a new iPhone/iPod touch/iPad app released yesterday allows users to play audio files (MP3, MP4 and .WAV) from their Google Docs. For example, you can upload an album from your computer as a folder to your Google docs with a cover image, and you will then see the cover while the album is being played on your iPhone. You can also share your music, and play music shared to you by your friends. It's the latest cloud-based music service I've written about over the past couple of years, and there will be many more to come as there's no doubt this is the music industry's future.


 

5 Rdio Features for Music Enthusiasts

I've been using Rdio a few weeks now thanks to Glenn Peoples, and I'm impressed with their service. Below are 5 features that make Rdio a great experience for music enthusiasts:

1. select and listen to a specific artist, album and/or a specific track
2. create and share custom playlists, subscribe to your friends' playlists, or collaborate on their playlists
3. effortlessly write a review for a song and/or album (this data could be a great resource for artists, labels, managers and the like)
4. great social interface allowing users to easily see what their friends are listening to (vice-versa), as well as other Rdio users, and who is listening to the music you like (creating new opportunities for music discovery)
5. nice visualization of music collections (i'm assuming they'll add more visualizations)

Rdio will likely influence other music service providers to modify their offering with similar features and design, benefiting all music listeners, but there are a few areas where Rdio can improve:

• increase content, especially from unsigned artists with services like CD Baby and Tunecore
• easier queue creation/management for individual songs and albums (e.g. the drop down to add is cumbersome)
• tighter integration of music recommendations based on a user's listening activity; it's a bit separated from the experience at present

MOG Launches Mobile Music App

MOG has just released their mobile music app for the iPhone, iTouch and Android devices. For $9.99 per month, subscribers get access to more than 8 million songs with unlimited listening and all-you-can-eat downloads, as well as MOG’s desktop and online service.

Features include:

• Unlimited downloads: Subscribers can download any song or album directly to their phones and continue to listen to music even when out of cell or WiFi range.
• On-demand streaming: Unlimited listening to any artist, album, or song at any time, with no ads and no limit on the number of consecutive tracks by a single artist
• MOG Radio: Only MOG offers the patent-pending “MOG Mobius” music discovery engine, which enables users to control the mix of similar artists, from true "artist only" radio up to a full mix of similar artists.
• Playlist access between website and mobile: Make playlists on MOG.com and access them on your phone. Favorite tracks that are bookmarked from the web are then integrated into a user’s personal library and appear in favorites on the mobile app.
• High quality audio: Songs can be downloaded at the standard rate of 64 kbps or users can turn on HQ downloads (up to 320 kbps) to save the song as a larger file with higher audio quality. This gives listeners the option of receiving high quality downloads for maximum audio fidelity.
• Multi-tasking: Android users can continue to play music with MOG while using other applications. (MOG will add multi-tasking for iOS 4 users)

MP3tunes Launches Personal Cloud Music Service

MP3tunes launched its personal cloud music service today called, "Buy Anywhere, Listen Everywhere." Essentially, their service makes it possible to buy music from a variety of digital music vendors and play them on a variety of devices. For example, a user can buy a song using their Android and listen to it within minutes on their iPod:


Conversely, songs purchased from iTunes on a PC can be played almost immediately on an Android:



Presently, MP3tunes' Buy Anywhere, Listen Everywhere service works with these digital music stores:

• iTunes
• AmazonMP3
• Napster
• Walmart
• Zune
• 7digital
• Rhapsody
• ShockHound

And their service is compatible with these devices:

• iPhone 4
• iPhone 3GS
• iPhone 3G
• iPod touch
• HTC Aria
• HTC Desire
• HTC Dream
• HTC Hero
• HTC Legend
• HTC Magic
• HTC Tattoo
• HTC Evo 4G
• Google Nexus One
• Motorola Droid
• Motorola Backflip
• Motorola CLIQ
• myTouch 3G Slide
• Droid Incredible
• Logitech Squeezebox
• RCA internet radios
• Reciva internet radios

MP3tunes has also updated their iPhone and Android applications.

TuneCloud: store, share and play your music from anywhere

TuneCloud, a new cloud service to store, share and play your music online is preparing to release its public beta, and they're accepting early registrations. While I haven't seen their service, it seems it will be similar to TunesBag.

10 Invites to Rdio

Have you been wanting to try the new social music service, Rdio? Thanks to Glenn Peoples, I now have an account, and I'm giving away all of my 10 invites to readers of IMT. All you have to do is post a comment requesting an invite by logging in with your Twitter account below, and I will randomly select 10 winners.

Essentially, the invite will give you a free, 3 day preview of Rdio, but after that, you'll have to pay. So while the invite will get you in so you can try Rdio, you'll have to start paying after 3 days (please note, Rdio only works within the US at this time).

Below is a brief feature tour of Rdio from lifehacker:

Create your own Interactive Radio Stations with Loudcaster

Loudcaster, a recent 2010 TechStars Boston graduate, enables anyone to create their own radio station for recorded music or live events. Essentially, you upload your high quality MP3 files with the appropriate artist, song and album information, and Loudcaster will simulcast your station.

You can also live broadcast at any time via tools like SAM or the Edcast plugin for Winamp. When you stream a live feed, it will replace your recorded feed automatically, resuming again once you finish your live broadcast, without dropping any listeners.

Presently, Loudcaster provides up to 10 Gigs of storage, and you can add and manage guest DJs as well. Looks like they may still be in private beta, but the service might be another way for you to reach your fans.

Bitspace: cloud hosting for your music

Bitspace, a new cloud hosting provider for your music collection just launched its public beta a few days ago. Simply download their software and safely store, organize and listen to your music catalog without having to worry about your hard drive crashing. Pricing plans start at €3.99/month (about $5.50 USD per month) for 10GB of storage (about 200 albums or 2,000 songs). Below are a couple of screenshots of their software:

Band Metrics Releases Public Beta

Its been a long time coming, but I'm happy to announce that we finally released the public beta of Band Metrics this morning from Midem.

What took so long? Great question. We had to re-engineer the entire system, as the previous two versions were flawed. This was a difficult decision that consumed our time, but it's better to get the architecture right before releasing it to the public. We now feel confident we've built a system, which is entirely Ruby/Rails that will not only collect, store and analyze artist data accurately, but will be fast and scale rapidly, as we also moved our entire system into the cloud via Engine Yard. As an example, Band Metrics now pulls-in and displays initial artist data within seconds, not days or hours. Needless to say, I'm proud of our developers.

We also streamlined the site, and added a couple of new features, including Fan Segmentation and Influence Measurement. Essentially, this allows artists, managers, labels and the like to see a breakdown of fans (based initially on Twitter comments), and a fan's influence among their friends (below is a brief screencast).

We still have lots of work to do, including design enhancements and new features, as well as incorporate our existing analytical tools into the new site (we ran out of time as we wanted to release at Midem), so we greatly appreciate your ongoing support, as this is just the beginning!

awsm.fm

Apps for listening to the most popular emerging songs and artists like We are Hunted will soon have a new addition with awsm.fm (pre-release private beta). Thoughts?

tunesBag Launches

In case you didn't see the news yesterday on TechCrunch, cloud-based music library provider tunesBag officially launched with a new interface, premium services, and more. Similar to MeCanto, which I wrote about last week, tunesBag enables users to store, search and play their entire personal music collection online anytime, anywhere via the cloud.

Meuzer

Just noticed a couple of days ago that Meuzer released their initial public product. I remember speaking with Ashot Iskandarian last February and they had just started working on it, so congrats on the release!

Meuzer is a free music service that allows users to play and tag songs as well as see what other users are listening to. Additional features include: search and stream music playlists, and rate and comment on songs. While there are several similar services like Songza, Ashot plans to build more features as "its a baby product trying to experiment with a few concepts."

To learn more about Ashot, go here.

Stereomood: Internet Radio for your Mood

Stereomood is a free emotional internet radio that suggests music which may best suit your mood or activities based on the tag you select, allowing you to create playlists for your life that can be shared. Looks like most of their music is streamed from blogs. Here's an example of the mood "groovy."

While they've been around for about a year, there are several sites doing something similar, and the streaming space is crowded with clear leaders, but they are pulling in some great indie music like The Fiery Furnaces, The XX and Vitalic.

Mixcloud Releases Cloud Radio

The following is a quick press release from MixCloud. I'll post a follow-up if time allows, but this looks like a cool service:

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New London based online radio startup Mixcloud opened its doors to the public today at 12pm GMT. It's aim is to re-think radio.

The founders of the company – friends from Cambridge University – were frustrated with how hard it was discovering and promoting radio online. As radio presenters and DJs themselves, they were actively hunting down great shows every day and realised more could be done to help connect this content to listeners.

A year ago they quit their full time jobs and moved into a warehouse in West London to fix these problems. Their vision is to build the YouTube of radio – a definitive online platform for on-demand radio shows, from music to talk.

Mixcloud has an interesting view on the future of radio and are innovating to disrupt the traditional ways people discover and interact with the medium. They describe the concept as “Cloud Radio” and the content as “Cloudcasts”, which are stored in hard-drives in the sky – the “cloud” – and accessible on-demand, anywhere, where anyone can upload to the site and the listeners decide who get exposed.

The shows currently lean towards club music and DJs, given the founders’ background in organising clubnights and warehouse parties. However they are already working on expanding the breadth of content and are in discussions with big house-hold names, and they now have over 1,000 content partners and presenters, including: Diesel Radio, former BBC Radio 1 presenter, Chris Coco, leading music blogs such as, Curb Crawlers, great record labels like, Border Community and many more.