hpDJ

An interesting story I saw in the Guardian a few days back...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4318479,00.html

Virtual DJ 
Dave Cliff is the inventor of the hpDJ, a virtual disc jockey, and reckons
human deck wizards may soon have to hang up their vinyl
Interview by Felicity Carus
Wednesday December 12 2001
The Guardian

 What is the hpDJ?
It monitors the responses of clubbers and uses that to select what music it
plays (see www.hpl.hp.com/news/2001/jan-mar/hpDJdemo.html). It can also use
feedback from the crowd to compose new music by assembling samples and
loops on a virtual multitrack recorder, and then plays the new "record".
The intention is for clubbers to be jointly composing the music they are
dancing to, with no DJ and music producers involved.  

 What kind of computers/systems do you use to develop such products?
We use Hewlett-Packard Kayak XU800 workstations  running Windows 2000. The
first hpDJ was developed in MatLab, a mathematical programming environment
that needs a lot of memory. The most recent version is in Java, and that
will run on a mid-range HP OmniBook laptop. We also use an HP Jornada
palm-top  to demo the MP3 sound files created by our system.  

 Where did the idea come from?
I am a (very) amateur DJ, plus I have a long background of working in
artificial intelligence (AI) research, so I realised AI techniques could be
used to create a computer system that can do a lot of what a human DJ does.
Earlier this year, DJ Judge Jules said: "It's all about spontaneity...
which can't be supplied by anything other than the human real deal." With
the new version of hpDJ, the real deal no longer has to be human.  

 Why did you develop the hpDJ?
Researchers at HP Labs have a lot of freedom to pursue whatever interests
them and hpDJ fits in nicely with HP's interests in digital entertainment.  

 Won't the hpDJ take away the "shared experience" of clubbing?
It will make clubbing even more of a shared experience: the crowd will be
communally (yet indirectly) creating the music they hear next, on the basis
of their responses to the music playing now.  

 When will you test it?
Probably not until next summer. All we would need is a willing bunch of
clubbers: DJs are no longer required.  

 Favourite websites?
Juno Records for a huge range of dance vinyl and great service;  Sound On
Sound for joined-up writing on music production.  

 Any favourite gadgets?
I am very fond of my sampler, a Yamaha A5000; and my DJ decks and mixer. I
have a Yamaha QY70 "walkstation" - a digital music multi-voice synthesiser
and sequencer with audio effects and a 16-track mixer all in a
battery-powered box the size of a videocassette -fantastic for writing
music on long flights.  

 What next?
Maybe we will release a web-demo of the music-production side of hpDJ. I am
pretty sure it will be fun.  


--
Sean M. Burke  [email protected]  http://www.spinn.net/~sburke/