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Comments: 128 +- Hardware: The First Robotic Musician on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:30PM
Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday October 03 2006, @09:30PM
from the jamming-with-roomba dept.
from the jamming-with-roomba dept.
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music
eldavojohn writes, "A new robot named Haile (pronounced hi-lee), which 'listens' to what musicians are playing and play along with them, has been developed at the [corrected] Georgia Institute of Technology. There are some videos at the GATech site. From the article: "If the musicians change the beat or rhythm, Haile is right there with them. 'With Haile there are two levels of musical knowledge... The basic level is to teach it to learn to identify music, to imitate,' Weinberg said. 'The higher level is stability of rhythm, to be able to distinguish between similar rhythms. In essence, Haile has the ability to recognize if a rhythm is more chaotic or stable, and can adjust its playing accordingly.' I don't know about the rest of Slashdot, but I can't wait for the day when I have my very own Robo Puente to play along with."
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Scientists Try To Make Robots More Human 88 comments
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GA Tech != UGA (Score:5, Informative)
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Example college at GT: School of Electrical and Computer Engineering [gatech.edu]
Example college at UGA: School of Poultry Science(sic) [uga.edu]
You can't get an Engineering degree from UGA. Similarly, you can't get a Literature degree from Georgia Tech.
Time to continue ramblin'.
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Drummer != Musician (Score:2)
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OLD NEWS (Score:2, Funny)
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Aiken [wikipedia.org]
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Don't DO THAT! I almost spewed lemonade out my nose....
:-D
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Hooray for robots! (Score:4, Funny)
GA Tech, not UGA (Score:2, Redundant)
Randy Farmer
Atlanta, GA
Had one when I was a kid (Score:3, Funny)
It's not a musician... (Score:5, Funny)
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I think it would be much easier to create better synthesizers and just have the robots use the synths... I mean the guy says a lot of stuff about how its important that the robot is able to use audio and visual cues, but I dont think that has anything to do with actually playing the music mechani
I heard Disaster Zone are using these (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah? (Score:5, Funny)
They can't be REAL musician robots until those conditions can be fulfilled.
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first? well, maaaybe (Score:5, Informative)
Robert Rowe [nyu.edu] published a book on the topic in 1992, on his Cypher system. Here's another good article [uci.edu] on the topic by Chris Dobrian. For an open-source system, check out Bob van der Poel's MMA [xplornet.com].
Additionally, there's been plenty of work done on robotics for playing instruments, particularly for percussion.
So, admittedly, this is the first time I've personally heard of a project combining the two, so I'll give it that credit for innovation. But I'd be sorta surprised if it hasn't been done previously. When you think about it... all these musical accompaniment systems react in real-time to MIDI input. Simply make a couple of motors respond to MMA's ouptut, for example, adjust timing according to latency and inertia, and you could probably have this project done in a few days.
Not to play it down, I always love to see fun projects like this..
But "first".. well, give credit where it's due. I think the summary is over-reacting. (I scanned the article.. don't believe it makes any such claims.)
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But is it accurate..
Like I said, it might well be the first to actually combine robotics and musical accompaniment. I'm not sure. I guess I'll give the article the benifit of the doubt!
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Matt Ingalls, a clarinetist/improviser/composer in the SF Bay Area, did some work with computerized accompaniment that was pretty impressive. His "Recent Works" release had some tracks where you'd swear there was a live pianist following the clairinet improvisations.
Ah, and if you look under "Sounds" on his homepage, he has some mp3 samples up
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Minor nit-pick here... MIDI is by definition computer-generated, sometimes in response to direct human input (like a human playing a MIDI keyboard, for instance). SmartMusic [smartmusic.com], for example, takes microphone input from a live performer and "follows" the performer with a predefined accompaniment. If I play my saxophone into the microphone, MIDI is not the result, but the computer can somewhat follow me, so l
oblig drummer (Score:2)
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A: You only have to punch the information into a drum synthesiser once.
The Rolling Stones? (Score:2)
I am always confusing robotized with fossilized.
Sorry.
Still, someday every band will be robotic...
Simpso^H^H^H^H^H^H Media Lab did it. (Score:2)
"We Are The Robots" - Kraftwerk (Score:3, Funny)
Robot loops (Score:2, Interesting)
First robotic musician, indeed! (Score:2, Insightful)
The First Robotic Musician?!?!? (Score:2)
I KNEW IT! (Score:2)
oh great... (Score:3, Funny)
Only the robotic aspect is new: check out Jamstix (Score:2, Informative)
For a really nifty AI drummer, see Jamstix [rayzoon.com]. It is a VST plugin that listens to what you play (either audio or MIDI input), and plays drums along with you.
It is incredible fun to play guitar with -- rock, jazz, blues stuff for me -- and the demos and songs that people have created with it are impressive. Rather than playing unlike a human, it has algorithms to mimic a human drummer's limb movements and such. The sounds and rhythms are all tweakable -- you can describe what you want, and leave the actual
Why is a robot drummer better? (Score:3, Funny)
2. he doesn't show up an hour late for practice, completely drunk.
3. he doesn't ask stupid questions when the rest of the band gets into strategy and show planning.
4. he won't eat all th efood i nthe fridge at the band house.
5. he won't choke to death on someone else's vomit.
But if he is using Sony batteries, he might spontaneously combust...
RS
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This sound like a perfect Spinal Tap drummer candidate
Been there done that (Score:2)
Short Circuit did it (Score:2)
Not quite what I call AI (Score:2)
This robot follows a rhythm section - and not much else. It still requires the human mind to lead it. It still requires the human mind to originate the rhythm or the music.
Most if not all musical AI experiments involve a robot using a preprogrammed piece of music. Human composers create the music and/or arrangement.
Humans create music when their emotions respond to life events. Blues music was an outlet for the oppressed or th
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Re:how long.. (Score:5, Interesting)
And for the record, art/music is often about context, and the artist is a big part of what makes music "good". An unknown musician doesn't ever make it into the top 20 without the help of producers, promoters, radio spots, stories, etc. This is basic marketing. The product itself rarely sells--it's the story or the artist behind it or the context or just plain mob-consumer mentality that was initially triggered by one of those things that accumulates together to make the thing popular.
if a robot made cool music, and was intelligent, neat. it might be popular, but not because it is good music... more because it was ROBOT-made music.
Otherwise, I'd be a fangirl of the engineer who made the robot... just like I'm getting all woozy thinking about the people who made this software.
Parent
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Re:how long.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Could you imagine a digital device, maybe like an iPod, that composed music on the fly, which intelligently complemented your mood? I could see this being addictive for certain people and causing them to lose touch with human music. I mean, in my reality, not yours.
Anyway... if you could write a program that simulated heroin or acid (or even just pot), it would probably write some pretty cool stuff. But it wouldn't remember to save it and would get the munchies and fall asleep for half a day... and would still be an improvement on current mainstream music, most of which is just the results of marketing formulas anyway. But, no robot could fuzz down a guitar like Jimi Hendrix, or yelp like Kurt Cobain, or offend like Frank Zappa (or name your gangster rap artist).
Here's a question: what happens when you start jamming with two of these robots, and then you stop playing? Do they just duet until you unplug one of them or what?
Parent
Deerhunter ;-) (Score:2)
Here's an idea!
You should give one of them a guitar, and the other one a banjo!
Then start playing C C F C and add a bit of yankee doodley into the mix...
RIAA! Who ya gonna call? (Score:5, Funny)
Any time a robot plays something, it is going to sound like something that the RIAA holds 'rights' to. So the robot is 'infringing' on 'their' copyrights. But, uh, sueing a robot is hard. They don't respond to threats. They ignore injunctions. Robots don't give a shit about human law, man, they just wanna rock'n'roll.
So are they going after the programmer?
"Your Honor, Let it be known that after 2.345 hours of playing a 130 beats per minute tempo, in the key of G#, if the human misses the beat by 0.256 seconds, the robot under inditment will consistently and 'knowingly' play the first three notes of "Free Bird". This is a willfull violation of copyright. We want $100,000,000,000.00; payable in monthly installments."
But the great thing about robots is no only can they now play music, but, with a little tweaking, they can also tear the fingers and toes off of entertainment lawyers. Accidently, of course, but AI routines can get a little unpredictable when clogged with human legal chaos. Shit happens.
Personally, when I want to play along with a machine I use a Zoom 900x series guitar effects DSP with the early 1970's Rolling Stones fed into the analog mix channel. Mix your guitar with lots of reverb, overdrive, a touch of delay, and a dollop of attitude.
When you get a robot to do what Keith Richards does, let me know.
Parent
Just what the RIAA needs... (Score:2)
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Let's all welcome Haile's first post on Slashdot!
Parent
no chance (Score:2)
People want to see people playing instruments - we can hear a synthesizer anywhere... chances are about 10% of the people who read this will use some sort of synthesizer along with their guitar playing or whatever. I really don't feel the need to say more...