WATMM Probe on Autechre "generative" software release

Apologies if this has been previously discussed, couldn't find it here or in the AAA spreadsheet

I've been thinking for a while that it'd be awesome to have Bob and Sam do a software application release, in the vein of Brian Eno: Reflections or Loscil: Adrift. Only, I think they could do way better/ more interesting. (i mean, gen~ exports code, so it wouldn't be too hard would it?)

So what do i mean by "generative"? Really just two things: 1. some level of variation every time i press play, and 2. potentially endless play. User/listener input, while it could be interesting, is not required.  But whereas the Loscil app has 4 individual endless "tracks," i think it would be cool if AE did something where the tracks morphed automatically, yet unpredictably.

AE_Live showed us the flexibility of their system. I'm not sure if that variation was built into the system (based on a seed), or tweaked manually between shows, but any rate, it just needs to be built into the system for the app.

I wouldn't care if this was some one off thing, a companion thing to an album/ep, or a release in and of itself.

Maybe this strays too far from what they aim to achieve compositionally? 

What do you think?

"Bob and Sam"?

I would love and hate this. There would be other people listening to Autechre music that I would never be able to hear.

  On 9/10/2018 at 9:06 PM, Joyrex said:

"Bob and Sam"?

*push button*

*receive 32 hours of oversteps melodies*

would be great.

Laconicism is another generative music application i enjoyed very much

I've been meaning to get some generative music apps as I think they might help me learn to love music in an ephemeral way rather than obsessing so much about getting to know every detail of a record by listening to it repeatedly. 

Or maybe I should be comfortable with how I enjoy music and not worry.

I'd buy an Ae app anyway. Maybe they could do an update every two years instead of a new album. 

Sam pls

Some interactive music would be cool. It could play beats using my heart rate as an input paramter.

Sam pls

we already got over 8 hours of music and I can't sit through all of them so this would be of no use to me

Icarus released a generative album a few year back where every copy was handed a different set of parameters.

http://cdm.link/2012/02/making-digital-one-of-a-kind-inside-icarus-generative-album-in-1000-variations/

Sam and Ollie, pls

I got #102

  On 9/10/2018 at 9:09 PM, fletcher said:

I would love and hate this. There would be other people listening to Autechre music that I would never be able to hear.

Same, couldn't take the FOMO

Selected Generative Works by Bob & Sam

stop generative pop

  On 9/10/2018 at 9:06 PM, Joyrex said:

"Bob and Sam"?

Sorry Joyrex, meant to use their proper names Samwise Booth and Rabagast the Brown. (no disrespect intended here, just conforming to the watmm autechre name butchering convention. AE are my favorite)

  On 9/10/2018 at 9:09 PM, fletcher said:

I would love and hate this. There would be other people listening to Autechre music that I would never be able to hear.

But then the upside is having a personally unique AE experience every time.

I am starting to question, though,  whether it's truly possible to program a pure generative program that reflects the quality of their work. Like, could they program the things they would do compositionally in non-real time, as well things they might to do live on the fly? How can much of your self can you represent in code? Further pondering  required here.

  On 9/11/2018 at 12:40 AM, xox said:

stop generative pop

 

If you're talking about the machine learning generated pop song thing, i agree, though i'm curious to have a listen to some of those.

  On 9/10/2018 at 11:23 PM, fletcher said:

Icarus released a generative album a few year back where every copy was handed a different set of parameters.

 

http://cdm.link/2012/02/making-digital-one-of-a-kind-inside-icarus-generative-album-in-1000-variations/

 

Sam and Ollie, pls

I got #102

Very nice, I'll have to check this out.

  On 9/11/2018 at 12:31 AM, B1000 said:

Selected Generative Works by Bob & Sam

you lost me at WATMM Probe

  On 9/10/2018 at 9:58 PM, WhitleyStriber said:

 

  On 9/10/2018 at 9:06 PM, Joyrex said:

"Bob and Sam"?

 

  On 8/27/2018 at 6:05 PM, Bulk VanderHooj said:

 

hello spiral, on 27 Aug 2018 - 06:47 AM, said:

  On 8/27/2018 at 2:47 PM, hello spiral said:

^same

 

But hey, let's see if we can go this whole page overanalysing the living shit out of a sticker

Spi "omfg aphex subforam is worst ever"

 

Autechre subforum "we sperging over fuckan STICKER. NTS thread must have gaping anus in thread title beacase Bob & Sam must be put in my ass"

 

 

It's a cool idea, I agree. Though I really doubt that I'd be able to "play" their software as well as they could, in terms of making it do interesting things or even just noticing when it's doing something interesting. And granted, it's nice that it would always sound different, but isn't that already true of Bob and Sam's fully "composed" music?* For me it would be more interesting in a 'looking under the hood' kind of way than as a novel musical experience... probably.

*edit: i just meant perceptually ofc, obviously it's not literally musically different each time like this would be

They can't really do this because it will be reverse engineered and if it's using any shared library or monolithic functions, people will find them.  If they obfuscated the Max/MSP script and embedded it in something it will still be reverse engineered trivially.  There is no way to avoid reverse engineering without a super complex metamorphic engine but this will affect the result because the generation of the music is time-based and metamorphic modification of the executable will change timings.

Sean or Rob, forgot who, said they don't want others to have their software and be able to make Autechre style music

One thing that I do think would be really cool though is a session of "twitch plays Autechre" where they make a patch with a simplified interface to change high-level things using a big slab of knobs and sliders, and users can vote on how to move the knobs and sliders and you can hear the result, maybe kept online for 24h, but this also obviously undermines the artistic process and by oversimplifying it into knob twiddling and removing the sean/rob human element

Yeah, I think this is not technologically feasible, but maybe a webcast that plays endless variations of their patches or tracks or whatever you want to call them? That could be doable. Radio Autechre.

I had this idea some years ago already of creating an ambient net radio that would use generative algorithms to create the music.

  On 9/11/2018 at 7:48 AM, mokz said:

Yeah, I think this is not technologically feasible, but maybe a webcast that plays endless variations of their patches or tracks or whatever you want to call them? That could be doable. Radio Autechre.

 

I had this idea some years ago already of creating an ambient net radio that would use generative algorithms to create the music.

I remember something like that from the early/mid 00s but it's been offline now for quite a while:

https://web.archive.org/web/20050205215336/http://r4nd.org:80/rand_home.html

  On 9/11/2018 at 8:37 AM, jaderpansen said:

 

  On 9/11/2018 at 7:48 AM, mokz said:

Yeah, I think this is not technologically feasible, but maybe a webcast that plays endless variations of their patches or tracks or whatever you want to call them? That could be doable. Radio Autechre.

 

I had this idea some years ago already of creating an ambient net radio that would use generative algorithms to create the music.

 

I remember something like that from the early/mid 00s but it's been offline now for quite a while:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20050205215336/http://r4nd.org:80/rand_home.html

 

Basically an Autechre numbers station.....

  On 9/11/2018 at 8:37 AM, jaderpansen said:

 

  On 9/11/2018 at 7:48 AM, mokz said:

Yeah, I think this is not technologically feasible, but maybe a webcast that plays endless variations of their patches or tracks or whatever you want to call them? That could be doable. Radio Autechre.

 

I had this idea some years ago already of creating an ambient net radio that would use generative algorithms to create the music.

 

I remember something like that from the early/mid 00s but it's been offline now for quite a while:

 

https://web.archive.org/web/20050205215336/http://r4nd.org:80/rand_home.html

 

Yeah, there are probably more of these. The generative music got a little bit of a bad reputation as being purely academic experimentation. Like you can hear generative audio installations at art exhibitions sometimes but it doesn't seem to break through into the general electronic music scene. But Autechre have pushed their tool-set so far ahead that it could be feasible for them to put out something totally generative that would have a wider listener base beyond the avant-garde art crowd.

I would love more than anything to get ahold of Autechre's hard drive, but I think it would spell the death of their career because their attraction isn't only their output but also the mystery of their software and programming. Maybe when they retire?