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Pandora Radio from Music Genome Project 200
kramthegram writes "The Music Genome Project, an attempt to define music by it's traits in a way similar to DNA defines traits in humans has led to the development of Pandora. Pandora uses the song choices you make to see what traits appeal to you and present you with custom radio station. While limiting you to thumbs up or thumbs down, the "gene" heuristics allows for a very quick adaptation to your musical tastes." Not sure how deep it goes, and I'm not sure I like that it led me from The Who to Styx and Def Leppard. But this is a neat little tool for discovering new music.
Hurray! (Score:5, Funny)
At least this one took over a month.
Re:Hurray! (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, I wrote in to the editors as well. It's pointless for the users to care when the admins seem not to.
Re:Hurray! (Score:2, Insightful)
That's because... (Score:3, Informative)
At least this one took over a month.
That's because it was on Fark.com (yesterday? the day before?), so the people that like to copy links from one site to the other thought it was new.
But (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But (Score:1)
Re:But (Score:1)
Re:But (Score:1)
On topic, I was surprised when I put them into Pandora, it threw out a few bands that didn't fit with their style at all. That was about a month ago and I haven't tried it since then, and don't remember exactly what it showed me.
Re:But (Score:1)
Re:But (Score:2, Informative)
So the label people put on bands doesn't matter, it's how they sound.
Re:But (Score:4, Interesting)
What it says about what I'm listening to right now:
"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features a subtle use of vocal harmony, mild rythmic syncopation, varying tempo and time signatures, demanding instrumental part writing and a clear focus on recording studio production."
It works pretty well for me.
Re:But (Score:4, Funny)
"Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features vocals similar to cats being tortured, drum tracks with the subtlety of a wrecking ball, a bare modicum of musical talent, and a complete disregard for human life."
Re:But (Score:4, Funny)
"Based on what you've told us so far, we wont play anything, WTF! Britney Spears? what fucking shitty kind of music do you listen? get the fuck out of here!"
It works, just try it (Score:1, Informative)
TIP: When you hit the max songs per hour limit, just start a new 'station' with another band/song you like or that was already listed.
Re:But (Score:2)
It took about 8 or 10 hours to get a good electronica station trained, but once I did the thing plays new music that I like constantly.
I made some art rock stations, and those were much easier. My only real complaint is that it doesn't know more jazz and classical.
Re:But (Score:2)
Re:But (Score:2)
Wanna bet that someone at the NSA isn't thinking along those lines right about now?
[tt]
So then... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Last.FM and this have the same aim, recommending music you might like, but I think Last.FM pulled it off better.
Re:So then... (Score:4, Informative)
LastFM is recommending music you might like from a social perspective.
Pandora builds on the music genome projects, and lets you hear music that actually sounds similar, not music that other people who like your music might listen to.
It's kind of a double edged sword I guess, since you arguably get to listen to more new music through LastFM, but with Pandora you get to listen to stuff you would never have found through your social channels at all.
Re:So then... (Score:2)
I can see value in both techniques. Pandora's technique will ignore "fashionable" boundaries since it's looking at a song's essence. Hence recommending Def Leppard as a previous poster mentioned.
Pandora is certainly worth testing out.
Depends on your definition of better :) (Score:2)
However, I have been running out of luck with social networking type music recomendations lately, because they tend to just recomend music that I already know about from word of mouth (online and off). So I like Pandora, simply because it is different. The fact that it uses a different approach to link music means that I get exposed to different bands then I do using other avenues.
Of
Re:So then... (Score:2)
You'll find that people who listen to a song that's played on a top 40 station are likely to listen to other things played by that same top 40 station.
Thus, rather than finding artists who actually produce similar music, you'll just get a reproduction of that top 40 station's playlist.
This "Pandora" tool produces a lot more independant, underground results than the "People who listened to X also listened to Y" al
Re:So, so (Score:2)
On your user prefs there is a link to a page that allows you to select how much you like an item or if its for another person entirely. I found it after buying some gift DVDs for my mother then constantly getting recommendations for stuff I more or less cant stand :)
It's just a music version of... (Score:5, Interesting)
...Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Actually, it seems like an interesting idea. We all have libraries of CDs based on our likes and I suspect if the libraries were analyzed we'd find slighlty deeper relations between the disparate music we collect. I've got a very eclectic collection of music and I'd be hard pressed to see the link between Reba McIntyre, Pink Floyd, and David Sanborn, but maybe there is one.
Of course some conspiracy theorist is going to use this to determine that the music industry is actually selling the same 5 songs over and over again, just in different keys and rhythms. Because we all know it's true.
Re:It's just a music version of... (Score:2)
It's hard to walk up to a record store clerk and say, "I like the band Cake. what do you have that is like this?" forst the clerk does not know and secondly they only have the top 1000 cd's in the store. Maybe there are 50-60 b
Local bands (Score:2)
And if you really want to encourage innovation and sock it to the RIAA, start listening to the local bands. In a decent-sized city, it's not hard to find some group performing in local venues who fits your musical preferences.
Re:It's just a music version of... (Score:2)
Re:It's just a music version of... (Score:2)
Nice and Simple (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nice and Simple (Score:1)
Re:Nice and Simple (Score:1)
Re:Nice and Simple (Score:2)
You Can (Score:1)
Re:Nice and Simple (Score:2)
You can enter more than one "seed" artist/song. Just open the properties for the radio station and add more.
Tips for getting the most out of Pandora (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tips for getting the most out of Pandora (Score:2)
You're telling me. I put in "misfits" and got all kinds of artsy techno crap. Though i did find a hilarious midi-ish version of skulls...which i believe is because they couldn't get the rights to play that song...
Re:Tips for getting the most out of Pandora (Score:2)
Noooooooo!!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
If you dirty buggers bring down this server... so help me steve...
It's a nice site (Score:5, Interesting)
Pity they'll be putting ads on it (soon).
Let's just keep this among friends.... (Score:2, Interesting)
If you wanted to copy them to say... ~/pandora you could then make that your working directory and:
#!/bin/sh
for i in `ls`; do mv $i $i".mp3"; done
which will set your extensions... quick and dirty, but hey we're not keeping these songs, r-i-g-h-t-?
Sounds interesting, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Too bad.
Sean
www.music-map.com (Score:3, Informative)
Re:www.music-map.com (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Better music recommendations, anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Better music recommendations, anyone? (Score:1)
prototype here:
http://www.the-h.net/opinion/ [the-h.net]
Last.FM (Score:4, Informative)
Oh, that and the Pandora music project is not free:
Q: How much does it cost?
Pandora is available in two forms. Both versions have exactly the same features.
The first form is an advertising-supported version which is entirely free. Over time we'll be incorporating ads into this version of Pandora.
For those who want to steer clear of advertising, subscriptions are available in two different flavors:
ANNUAL: 12 months of unlimited use for $36
QUARTERLY: 3 months of unlimited use for $12
while the last.fm is free unless you want a "personal" radio.
Re:Last.FM (Score:2)
Nope, it's free. Based on your post, it works just like Slashdot. Have I had to pay money for
Re:Last.FM (Score:2, Insightful)
Music-Map (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Music-Map (Score:2)
Re:Music-Map (Score:1)
Btw, that link of yours 404s...
Works best when you pick a song (Score:2)
Go ahead and try it.
What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:5, Interesting)
I have lots of MP3s. I like most of them. However, I'm not always in the mood for all of them. There is very little music I've dismissed completely as bad, so "Thumbs up" || "Thumbs down" is pretty lame (,stupid, closed-minded, moronic, a horrible basis for anything, encouraging of the already prevailent general-dumbness of people whose music I tend not to be in the mood for, etc)
What I've wanted is a system by which music can be automatically catagorized based not on whether or not I like it, but rather based on whether or not I'm likely to enjoy it
How this would work: Start with the standard "Shuffle", picking at random any song. Then, if I hit "next" right after a song starts, decide "This song doesnt go well with this other song right now", and instead try selecting one which my lack of hitting "next" in the past has indicated
The closest I've seen has been plugins which weight the shuffle based on a rating you choose, which doesnt ever fluxuate.
Point: Playlists should be quaint by now. Why should I need to choose in advance what I'm in the mood to listen to an hour from now?
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2)
Just have multiple playlists. Toss is some randomness if you feel like it.
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2)
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2)
I tried to hack something like that together once, where it would store its information as a set of associations (song 1 -> song 2, good; song 2 -> song 3, bad, etc.). The problem I hit with that (apart from the fact that I vaguely suspect my program had some sort of bug in it
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2)
I played around with Pandora a little this weekend. You can kind of do what you want with Pandora because it'll let you create up to 100 "stations".
Each station keeps its own set of thumbs-up/thumbs-down votes. You'd have to create stations like "Relaxed", "Bummed", "Hyper", etc. and then choose your station based on your current mood, but it's better than only one playlist.
Ian
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2)
Re:IMMS (Score:3, Informative)
it has no interface other than the player's next/prev and playlist, and is fairly easy to port in case your player isn't supported
(there's only a small plugin that needs porting, currently supports XMMS and BMP)
Re:You win (Score:2)
Just adds more evidence to the theory that "Anything I could come up with really is such an obvious idea that there's no reason to expect somebody else hasnt already accomplished it", hence the phrasing of my original post.
Now where's that Instantaneous Floppy Drive and Vertically-Oriented Arbitrarily Groupable Timeline
Re:What I still havent seen anyone do (Score:2)
It gives music a user may actually want!? (Score:4, Funny)
-- RIAA
(the funny/scary part is that it's not far fetched to me that they actually will, for being too accurate in handing out music a user wants to listen to)
Not entirely novel... (Score:3, Informative)
Another interesting site for discovering new music (Score:1)
http://www.liveplasma.com/ [liveplasma.com] (Flash application)
I believe this is the company that does the related stories matrix on news.com.com.
The problem with this system... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:The problem with this system... (Score:2)
After searching for specific Fishbone songs off an album I was interested in (their best selling album, mind you) and not finding any of them, I finally broke down and just entered "Fishbone". The first tune was in fact, a Fishbone tune - a really funky, punk thing with a killer horn arrangement. The second, however, was by Ronnie James Dio?!?!
I can't imagine how they'd followup something like a Tom Waits tune.
I use... (Score:1, Insightful)
Nice idea, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole idea of analyzing a song for different qualities is great, but it really doesn't get you very far with something like this. I can think of a million songs with 'Mild rhythmatic syncopation' and 'Major key tonality' (just an example of the reasons it told me it was playing a song), and I would probably only like a small portion of them. I suspect that the genre of my song (eg 'Hard rock roots' or 'punk roots' etc) is the biggest deciding factor in what it plays -- not the actual style of the song.
Why would they lie? (Score:4, Informative)
Furthermore I haven't seen anything that would lead me to think that they are grouping things like you claim. Try typing in a band like Ween. You won't get anything that is remotely related by genre or popular tastes at all.
One of the biggest things that I like about this site is that it does play different artists than I find with other systems that determine thier suggestions by genre or social linking (people who liked A liked B), and I have liked many of them.
I can think of a million songs with 'Mild rhythmatic syncopation' and 'Major key tonality' (just an example of the reasons it told me it was playing a song), and I would probably only like a small portion of them.
They are rating on hundreds of different factors. The fact that two songs are related by just one of those factors would not cause it to be played. It is the fact that it is related on a large number of those factors. And it isn't surprising that music within a genre share many traits with each other.
I suspect that the genre of my song (eg 'Hard rock roots' or 'punk roots' etc) is the biggest deciding factor in what it plays -- not the actual style of the song.
Again I don't see any reason to think this. I have found it rare for it to only play music within a specific genre, and to the extent that it did, the songs were all musically simular.
Tonality (Score:2)
Suppressing the violent side (Score:2)
Wow... (Score:1)
Makes sense.
I always dug Audioscrobbler for social recommendations, I guess it's operating as Last.fm [www.last.fm] now.
Better to use human judgement (Score:3, Insightful)
I am skeptical of any algorithm that purports to gauge or classify taste. People listen to music for complicated reasons and they often listen to very different genres.
A better solution is to point people to "taste-makers".
I found by illegally downloading music using limewire, that I could find very interesting new music by simply broswing the collections of the people that were downloading from me. That really opened up my horizons as far as taste is concerned. I don't think an algorithm could come close to that.
musicplasma visulisation (Score:2)
It has an interesting [flash based] visulisation engine that shows associations between artists and their peers. The interface is reasonably nice and quick to use. It seems if you create an account then you can create your own maps and recommendations.
When duping becomes a bad thing (Score:2)
Enough with the dupes already! I'm looking at YOU slashdot and digg. I want to listen to my music in peace!
Personalized tastes lead to blinders (Score:5, Insightful)
The situation presents us with two possibilities: either we get pidgeonholed into a "genre" artificially created by the content distributors (as broad or narrow as that genre might be), or our tastes enter a feedback loop, where the only things we listen to are the things our personalized media players play for us, whose choices are based on things we listen to in our personalized media players.
So where do we get outside input? My suggestion at this point would be to do away with artificial genres and create relationships between media based purely on a database of what people like and don't like. (Last.FM does this now.) Then I would like to see the media player throw in a randomly chosen selection once in a while, just to test its own theory, so to speak. However, for that to work, the selection would have to be truly random; no fair throwing in something that you are marketing heavily (I'm talking to you, [RI|MP]AA...) just to get people to hear it. So instead of choosing music based only on your tastes, your media player will choose music based *mostly* on your tastes, and then throw you a curve ball once in a while to see how you react. Who knows? Maybe that diehard punk fan would enjoy a Beethoven piece or a 70's pop song. But the media player would never know that unless it tried.
Re:Personalized tastes lead to blinders (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Personalized tastes lead to blinders (Score:2)
Point taken, but the best system would grab the random MP3 for you automatically, and just place it in the current playlist. I could envision iTunes, or a similar store/player setup, automagically throwing a random song that you don't own into the rotation a
Personalization gone wild (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, at one point in time or another, I bought some Star Wars-related product from Amazon.com. This was years ago. But to this day, every time I go to Amazon.com, they are recommending me the latest Star Wars novel or toy or DVD bonus package or what-have-you. Just what is it about my buying habits that makes them think I like St
Re:Personalized tastes lead to blinders (Score:2)
Re:Personalized tastes lead to blinders (Score:2)
After only about 10 minutes, I found myself getting VERY bored with the sound. It was like the exact same song was dragging on indefinitely. I think their algorithm might need a little work, as it might be a little over optimized.
Re:Personalized tastes lead to blinders (Score:3, Funny)
I've had this for years. The tool I primarily use is called Friends(tm) and this amazing tool offers restaurant suggestions, movies, musics - you pretty much name it. You see, Friends(tm), have a number of different algorithms that make selections that are quite different from mine in music, movies or whatever.
There are other tools available too - Advertising(tm), Newspaper Critics(tm), Book Reviewers(tm), Magazines(tm), Festivals(tm) and so forth. People with good taste often use more than one.
Joking
how is this different from gnod? (Score:2)
Averaging to the mean gives you pablum (Score:2)
Add enough different bands, and you get "we chose this for mixed instrumentation in a major key."
Which leads to Backstreet Boys.
What they need is several categories with a randomized selection from your multiple tastes.
Previous Slashdot article (Score:2)
Jesus (Score:2)
The Who to Styx? (Score:2)
It's written using OpenLaszlo (Score:3, Insightful)
Pandora User from the Beginning (Score:2)
Xenophobic? (Score:2)
When skipping songs doesn't work (Score:2)
Exceptional songs are exceptional holistically. (Score:2)
What kind of algorithm can they come up with to give me that?
MIDI clustering (Score:2)
I went to a talk a while ago about automatic music clustering. Basically, the researchers got a bunch of MIDIs — some classical, some pop, some jazz — cleaned them up a bit, and then used bzip2 to test them for similarity:
From memory, to test two pieces A and B, you concatenate the files to produce AA, AB, BA, and BB. Then use bzip2 to compress each concatenation. We expect AA and BB to compress well (because there are obviously big areas of similarity). If AB and BA also compress fairly we
6 of one.. (Score:2)
"I'm not really into classic rock."
"Oh, I see, a Zeppelin man.. That's cool."
"..."
"You'd probably like Floyd then!"
Pandora or Panderer? (Score:2)
Re:Call me gay, but... (Score:2)
Re:Call me gay, but... (Score:2)