From: Scott_Hill_at_dkmail.zzn.com
Date: 2001-11-15 16:17:55
AI meets mobile computing and biofeedback??
this article appeared in the New Scientist
Scott_Hill_at_b...
Computer DJ uses biofeedback to pick tracks
19:00 14 November 01
Duncan Graham-Rowe
A computerised DJ that uses feedback from the dancers to generate new
music has been developed by artificial intelligence
experts at Hewlett-Packard, meaning clubbers may soon only have
themselves to blame if they do not like the music they are
dancing to.
Dave Cliff of HP's laboratories in Bristol says that the "HPDJ" will
monitor the way dancers respond to the music and compose
new tracks according to how animated the crowd becomes.
In 2000, New Scientist reported on an earlier version of the HPDJ and
pitted it against a human DJ in a London venue to see
how it fared with a live audience. Although the software managed to
fool a third of the clubbers into believing a human DJ
was at the turntables, our panel of professional DJs was more
sceptical. But then again, they will be the ones to lose out
if it works.
The earlier version takes dance tracks and works out the best
sequence in which to play them. It can also mix them,
seamlessly fading one song into the next while adjusting the tempo.
Cliff says that the biggest gripe that DJs such as BBC Radio 1's
Judge Jules had with it was that it could not gauge the
crowd's response to the music. That got Cliff thinking about ways to
improve it.
Heart monitor
His solution is to give each clubber a device like a wristwatch that
monitors their behaviour, feeding info back to the HPDJ
via a "Bluetooth" wireless link. "It tracks your location, measures
your heart and perspiration rate, and an accelerometer
monitors how active you are," Cliff explains.
Every dance song comprises a number of different tracks, such as drum
patterns, bass lines, keyboard hooks and vocals. To
create a song, the HPDJ chooses tracks from a large library and then
modifies and overlays them, based on the vibe coming
from the dance floor.
So how does it work? The HPDJ uses a "genetic algorithm", a type of
program inspired by evolution. It uses a
survival-of-the-fittest approach to create new and better tunes.
In the case of the HPDJ, the different tracks are the "genes", and
the inputs from the dancers are the "fitness" factors,
essentially deciding whether or not particular combinations of genes
survive.
Hitting the floor
If the track sounds so awful that people cannot get into it, they may
wander off to the bar or dance less enthusiastically,
says Cliff. So HPDJ will then try to improve the music, experimenting
with different beats and bass lines, or speeding up
the tempo in a bid to coax more people back onto the dance floor.
When the crowd gets into the music, the HPDJ will sense that more
people are on the dance floor and monitor how actively
they are dancing. It will then gradually build up the tempo to whip
the dancers into a brief frenzy, before calming things
down for a chill-out period.
Cliff also envisages a novel spin-off: the software could be linked
to a CD recorder, so as you left a club you'd be given
a CD with the music you helped to create.
19:00 14 November 01
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