Wish you could make any track swing? Tristan Jehan, grad of the MIT Hyperinstruments Group and c0-founder of The Echo Nest, made that happen at San Francisco’s Music Hack Day. The Python code uses the Echo Nest’s sound-processing magic, available to the world via open Web APIs, in order to analyze tracks and re-synthesize them in swing form. The results are — well, somewhat terrifying, though in a cool way.
Paul Lamere of Music Machinery points this our way and has a ton of examples on his terrific, sound geek-friendly blog. (The post must have captured people’s imagination, as it’s spread virally online, but I know this is the only site you read — right?)
The swing is definitely of the consistent/mechanical variety, but … well, it does serve to prove that not everything should swing, but anything can.
My picks for the trippiest examples:
Enter Sandman- the Swing Version by plamere
Around the World – the swing version by plamere
While it funks up the Metallica track, to me it has the opposite effect on the Daft Punk track, which originally is quite funky already. Like it counter swung in a stobe type effect.
@Ronnie
It does funk up Metallica! There are limitations – the track gets very glitchy and stuttery when you get to the final break and coda (around 4:28), it kind of falls apart because of the counter-time drum hit. Apart from that, it makes for an interesting alternative version of Enter Sandman!!
I also agree with you about the Daft Punk track – in this case, Swinger kind of kills it. I guess some songs shouldn't swing at all in first place!
What's the difference between this, and applying swing to audio clips in Ableton?
jeebus-the words "mechanical" and "swing" should never be used in the same sentence, EVER.
you truly can't fake the funk.
pass.
Hey, that's a really cool format for posting music.
Is there any way I could buy/borrow/use that bit of code?
I've been looking for a cool way to post music up, and that's really great.
I think it's the guitar solo that throws off the beat detection in Enter Sandman. After that, instead of putting the long space after the 1 and the short space after the 3, it does the reverse. I'm surprised at how hard it is to enjoy listening to the result of that switch.
[…] via CDM […]
I think Around the World is a huge improvement. I always felt that it, along with One More Time, was one of the most tedious Daft Punk tracks. It's quite good with the heavy swing though, I even managed to listen to it all the way through.
I love this kind of stuff. These are hilarious. I tried to install and use Echonest but, like most powerfully cool stuff, it's beyond me. I need a GUI version – preferably a physical panel with lots of knobs, buttons and blinky LEDs.
Seriously though, this would be great for remixing.
The Edison audio editor in FL Studio has a tool called Claw Machine that does this.
Theres also a version in its piano roll to do the same to MIDI.
@Vors "What’s the difference between this, and applying swing to audio clips in Ableton?"
I'd say about $450…
[…] full post on Create Digital Music 10 […]
[…] marginally interesting we found on CreateDigitalMusic this morning – proves that any track can swing! and sound functional. TBH, i much prefer […]
sounds like similiar results ive been getting while testing my realtime timestretching pitch manipulation vst plugin