Move over, Kraftwerk: These musical instruments really are the robots

We all love a good engineering passion project here at The Register and hopefully guitar-oriented music too. With One Hacker Band, these realms collide with surprising tunefulness. We've already marveled at the Floppotron 3.0 computer hardware orchestra made up of 512 floppy disk drives and other whirring, clunking retro …

[Plest]

Nice but...

Very nice but creativity is an expression of human emotion, it doesn't even have to be liked by any other person on the planet, it's just an expression of passion. I take photos and play guitar to express my feelings because I'm an animal that feels hurt, shame, fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, love, etc, I don't do it to achieve anything or set a standard as I might in my tech endevours. I create art to get something from deep inside my soul and send it out into the world. As someone who's been a techie nerd since I was 9 years old, over 40 years now, my creativity is my anti-tech, it's the alter ego of my nerdy brain being given it's chance to exercise. Some hate my noise and/or my photos, some love them, who cares it's mine.

So while I'm sure AI and robotics will do an incredible job and you may not even be able to tell the difference, it's still never going to be a a true expression of intelligent animal emotion.

Begin the downvotes...

[Fonant]

Re: Nice but...

I think the project is more about finding engineering solutions to model human actions. Such as playing a guitar or drums. The process of creating solutions is the "creativity" part of the project. The robotic music is merely a side-effect.

[Anonymous Coward]

Made me think of something..

This makes me think of the Animusic idea from a while back (which apparently was also the inspiration behind the Marble Machine).

[Phones Sheridan]

Re: Made me think of something..

Re: the animusic rendered demos, Intel went ahead and actually made one! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4hjx3_A-cw

[jake]

As an engineering project, I applaud.

As a musician, it's dead inside. It will always be as unlistenable to as so-called "vocalists" who require autotune ... and for the same reason.

A beer for creative engineers the world over ... without them, we wouldn't have all mod cons.

_{Current tunage: Robert Johnson's Come On In My Kitchen}

[Phones Sheridan]

Re: As an engineering project, I applaud.

"It will always be as unlistenable to as...."

But would it, unless you were told beforehand no humans were involved in the making of this music, and your bias kicked in. If "expert" audiophiles can't tell their multi-multi-thousand dollar stereo systems from the bargain basement systems during blind tests (the same people who believe that uni-directional gold RJ-45 cables produce a warmer sound than a plain old RJ-45 cable), could you really tell a performance if you can't see who is performing it?

It is cool to watch tho :)

[jake]

Re: As an engineering project, I applaud.

There is a big difference between audiophules babbling about the differences between two audio systems and an actual musician hearing the difference between a human violinist and a robot violinist. Or a piano player and a player piano.

For one thing, humans make mistakes, sometimes on purpose. Robots do not, they always play the way they are programmed. Even an untrained ear can tell the difference between Madonna un-plugged and the same thing run through autotune. Music is supposed to be human, organic, imperfect (dare I say emotional in this forum?). It is not supposed to be the proper queuing up of ones and zeros.

_{Unless you are into that kind of thing, in which case enjoy!}

[captain veg]

sloppiness

If you think Hendrix was ever "sloppy" then you've really not been listening.

-A.

[Excellentsword]

Re: sloppiness

Only sloppy in the sense that if you compare him to, say, Vai, one has more humanity and emotion than the other. So "sloppy" in a good way.

[captain veg]

Re: sloppiness

I understand that SRV is a pretty fine guitarist. I freely admit to not having spent much time listening to his output, though I love the guitar tone on Let's Dance.

Hendrix, though, is just out there. When I listen to, say, his cover of "Sunshine of your love" I can't even work out whether it's all in the original key. And yet it clearly is. And, somehow equally clearly, isn't.

-A.

[Excellentsword]

Re: Re: sloppiness

I meant basically that although Steve Vai is an exceptional guitarist, I don't think he writes good music. Hendrix did both effortlessly. Just my opinion. I don't know why you have to drag Stevie Ray Vaughn into it, but definitely a talented lad too.

I like a rough edge, I like self-taught, I like innovation a million miles away from the technical insistence of music colleges. That's Hendrix, Cobain, Neil Young... punk without necessarily being punk. Raw, emotive, powerful.

[jake]

Re: sloppiness

"sloppy" is both an ambiguous and a relative term ... Listen to Cyndi Lauper for "good" sloppy, or Madonna for pitch-perfect no-slop. Madonna and her autotune always gives me a splitting headache, where Lauper doesn't.

Note that I'm not particularly fond of either performer, I just chose two that I'm fairly certain most readers would be familiar with.

[captain veg]

Re: sloppiness

For a moment there I was confused by your description of Madonna as pitch-perfect!

A friend once opined that Madonna could not have had any kind of success had Blondie never existed. Thoughts?

-A.

[jake]

Re: sloppiness

No. Blondie and Madonna were completely different genres and appealed to completely different audiences. I seriously doubt (m)any people spent the money they could have bought Blondie tickets and singles with (had the band not broken up in '82) on tickets and singles for Madonna in her sudden bursting on the scene in '83ish.

[captain veg]

old news

I've seen Daft Punk videos. Well, I've seen the one for "Lucky". It very clearly demonstrates prior art, i.e. robots playing bass and drums.

-A.

[Robert Jenkins]

Re: old news

This appears to be a simplified set of the instruments from the "Compressorhead" robot band; quite likely inspired by those?

Not knocking it, the creator is using very different and easier to replicate techniques.

[captain veg]

Re: old news

Well, I didn't expect a serious response!

The animation of the bass fingering looks plausible, to the extent that I can play along. I (possibly naively) assumed that the Daft Punk chap actually played it and the video was just CGI manipulation.

Mind you, I can do the Rodgers part too. Possibly not quite as funkily.

-A.

[Sam_B.]

Re: old news

I was going to say, weren't Compressorhead there some time ago?

They're out gigging these days:

https://youtu.be/9gMX_hR-RoM

[jake]

Re: old news

The equipment down in the machineroom/museum/mausoleum/morgue all report that Hellgå Tarr is hella hawt ... My 1401 claims he could spend all his spare FLOPS staring into its nixies.

[jake]

Re: old news

Well, sure. And I have a restored 1915 player piano. I love the engineering in that, too :-)

She's not the Steinway at The Met, but she has a soul that is all her own.

[Ken Moorhouse]

(Talking of Deep Purple) - The acid test...

Will it set the house on fire?

[jake]

Re: (Talking of Deep Purple) - The acid test...

Depends. How many power strips does he have plugged into his powerstrip? And how many wall-warts are plugged into those?

[Aussie Doc]

Re: (Talking of Deep Purple) - The acid test...

All I hear is.......

...BUUUUUUUUUUURN.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: (Talking of Deep Purple) - The acid test...

Our local music shop will throw you out of the door if you try to test any of their stuff by playing that ...

[Dizzy Dwarf]

Re: (Talking of Deep Purple) - The acid test...

Don't make me point to the sign