outlier fm: remix on the edge

listen

These are early demonstrations of computer-operated remix creation formed from one or more songs by eliminating the central core of similar audio and regrouping with the outlying aural remnants.

about

OutlierFM is a weekend's attempt to utilize advanced technology to search for beauty and surprise in even the most overproduced of popular music. We hope such exceptional moments can be found in OutlierFM's enigmatic soundscapes of reconstituted timbre and rhythmic intersection. It is called OutlierFM because the moments selected for further attention are precisely those moments that exist outside of a song's constructed and statistical conventions.

At its core, then, OutlierFM is about doing away with the package through which a song is carefully prepared for our consumption and rebuilding it from its smallest perceptual units into a strangely unpredictable, minimal techno investigation of sonic wonderment. Working from sophisticated audio analysis provided by The Echo Nest's Public API, OutlierFM provides in addition to audio tracks a visual interface for humans and computers alike to become virtuous in high-level sound extraction and resynthesis from pre-recorded audio tracks.

src, credits, etc.

This project would not have been possible in a weekend without the amazing Echo Nest Analyzer; fellow hack-day-goers have been helpful ; there is some related research into similar interface.

Code (v 0.15) for the brave (updated 2010/03/17 with cluster support and missing outlierControls file).