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Show HN: SoundViz – Your favorite sound as beautiful art

26 points by tylerdavis 12y ago

lukasm 12y ago
Is there a demo somewhere? I don't have a mp3.
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Unfortunately, we don't have any demos yet, but it's something that has come up, so we're planning on it. Do you have a microphone? If not, if you sign up, I can create a draft for you so you can play around.
  - pavel_lishin 12y ago
    Might be nice if we could specify an external file, or a YouTube video, instead of uploading or recording a sound.
    - tylerdavis 12y ago
      This has come up a lot. There's some potential legal implications that have prevented us from pursuing this.
tylerdavis 12y ago
Hey Hacker News, I'm Tyler, one of the Co-Founders of SoundViz. Thanks for taking the time to check out SoundViz. We're very excited to get your feedback, so please don't hold back!
- Fuzzwah 12y ago
  The link in the referrer detection note: "Hello Hacker News friend! Thanks for stopping by. Once you're done checking out SoundViz, we'd love to get your feedback." ... leads to https://www.soundviz.com/ https://www.soundviz.com/ I was kind of expecting that it would bring me to this comment thread.
  - tylerdavis 12y ago
    Hey, thanks for pointing that out. It should be pointing to the correct location now.
- Fuzzwah 12y ago
  As a proud Dad of an 11 month old chatter box I can see the appeal of this. I'll record some of her yabbering tonight and see what it looks like. If I went through with the purchase I think I'd couple it with a "press a button and playback the original sound" setup, as that would be pretty easy to add to the rfid triggered music playback system I've got one of my R-Pi's rigged up for. I just played around with a test file and was really impressed by the slider controls to allow modifications. Very neat stuff. The only suggestion I could think of was perhaps an option for me to add my own colormap?
  - tylerdavis 12y ago
    Chelsea, my partner on this project said the same exact thing about the custom color palettes. Let me know how it goes tonight!
- glaugh 12y ago
  Really good stuff, really nicely done, I love it. And good pre-Christmas launch timing :) Small issue: I grabbed an .m4a, uploaded it, and the screen just sat there. Console errors and whatnot. Didn't take a rocket scientist to guess that .mp3 might work better (it did). So I'm all good, but just reporting it. Again, really good stuff, congrats.
  - tylerdavis 12y ago
    Thanks for pointing this out. Right now, we're supporting wav and mp3, but I'll be adding a couple things in the very near future - greater support for various file formats, and better error handling for the ones we don't support.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  As an audio professional, I just find this strange - rather as if I offered to turn your favorite picture into a record you could listen to whenever you want on high quality vinyl (all of which end up sounding very similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwyQtdEMFJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwyQtdEMFJc). I'm curious to see whether there is a market for this, but I already spend so much of my time looking at waveforms I'm not sure I want to look at more. Have you considered spectrograms or spectral phase diagrams, both of which can be considerably more visually interesting than a straight waveform?
  - tylerdavis 12y ago
    You're not wrong. I wanted to focus on one implementation first, given the challenges, but I'd like to go the spectral phase route next.
b6 12y ago
Please consider partnering with Fracture! I have no affiliation with them, I'm just a big fan and live in the same city. https://www.fractureme.com/ https://www.fractureme.com/
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Oh yeah, that would be awesome. Thanks for pointing them out.
tpbstats 12y ago
This is OK Computer by Radiohead with the sprinkled donut theme: http://i.imgur.com/whVq5uE.png http://i.imgur.com/whVq5uE.png Feedback: - Overall really nice interface - At first the messages you get while waiting for the wave are really nice, but then they get slightly annoying. Some kind of indicator of how long it takes would be better. Processing time was acceptable. - Frankly I think the visualisation is uninteresting. I am not interested in having this hanging on the wall. I tried a wide variety of settings, but it remained uninteresting due to the basic form of the sound wave. - Tried the record option afterwards. The wave was a little more interesting, and I preferred that experience much more. I would like to be able to play back the sound I recorded and listen to it while I can see the progress on the sound wave.
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  First of all, thank you for the feedback. Agreed on messaging/processing indicator. The size of the bars is based on the amplitude of the sound you're processing, so your results will vary, depending on the dynamics of the sound. Have you tried In Rainbows? ;) Recording - You are correct. I think a count down would also be useful. Currently, the recording starts as soon as you hit the button, which can produce some silence at the beginning of the recording if you're not on it. I like the playback idea a lot, though. Thanks again!
  - tpbstats 12y ago
    Tried a few different tunes, found Violence by Andy Stott to be the most interesting due to the intense dynamics of the track: http://i.imgur.com/YYFBxBN.png http://i.imgur.com/YYFBxBN.png A little more feedback: - It bothers me that I can't make the bars completely square (the most square setting has a slight roundness to it). - Maybe an option for designing a custom palette would be interesting. Maybe importing one from http://www.colourlovers.com/ http://www.colourlovers.com/ or a similar service could be an option. - A free download as desktop background option would be a nice touch. Free advertising.
    - tylerdavis 12y ago
thatswrong0 12y ago
So it's basically the SoundCloud song visualizer, flipped across the x-axis, colored by amplitude, and printed for me. I feel like the visuals need quite a bit more "wow!" to make that worth it to me.
tbirdz 12y ago
In addition to the time domain visualization I would be interested in a frequency domain visualization as well. Spectrum Analysis plots can look very beautiful especially with a well chosen color scheme.
mfkp 12y ago
Would be nice to have a slider to adjust the vertical height of the bars (I want to squish the whole thing down a bit, so it takes up less vertical space). Anyway, very slick interface, looking good!
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Thanks! I definitely think that would make sense.
pavel_lishin 12y ago
Heads up: Ghostery prevents typekit from loading by default, which completely blocks anything from rendering on the landing page.
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Oh wow. Good to know. Thank you.

26 points by tylerdavis 12y ago

lukasm 12y ago

Is there a demo somewhere? I don't have a mp3.

tylerdavis 12y ago
Unfortunately, we don't have any demos yet, but it's something that has come up, so we're planning on it. Do you have a microphone? If not, if you sign up, I can create a draft for you so you can play around.
- pavel_lishin 12y ago
  Might be nice if we could specify an external file, or a YouTube video, instead of uploading or recording a sound.
  - tylerdavis 12y ago
    This has come up a lot. There's some potential legal implications that have prevented us from pursuing this.

tylerdavis 12y ago

Hey Hacker News, I'm Tyler, one of the Co-Founders of SoundViz. Thanks for taking the time to check out SoundViz. We're very excited to get your feedback, so please don't hold back!

Fuzzwah 12y ago
The link in the referrer detection note: "Hello Hacker News friend! Thanks for stopping by. Once you're done checking out SoundViz, we'd love to get your feedback." ... leads to https://www.soundviz.com/ https://www.soundviz.com/ I was kind of expecting that it would bring me to this comment thread.
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Hey, thanks for pointing that out. It should be pointing to the correct location now.
Fuzzwah 12y ago
As a proud Dad of an 11 month old chatter box I can see the appeal of this. I'll record some of her yabbering tonight and see what it looks like. If I went through with the purchase I think I'd couple it with a "press a button and playback the original sound" setup, as that would be pretty easy to add to the rfid triggered music playback system I've got one of my R-Pi's rigged up for. I just played around with a test file and was really impressed by the slider controls to allow modifications. Very neat stuff. The only suggestion I could think of was perhaps an option for me to add my own colormap?
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Chelsea, my partner on this project said the same exact thing about the custom color palettes. Let me know how it goes tonight!
glaugh 12y ago
Really good stuff, really nicely done, I love it. And good pre-Christmas launch timing :) Small issue: I grabbed an .m4a, uploaded it, and the screen just sat there. Console errors and whatnot. Didn't take a rocket scientist to guess that .mp3 might work better (it did). So I'm all good, but just reporting it. Again, really good stuff, congrats.
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out. Right now, we're supporting wav and mp3, but I'll be adding a couple things in the very near future - greater support for various file formats, and better error handling for the ones we don't support.
anigbrowl 12y ago
As an audio professional, I just find this strange - rather as if I offered to turn your favorite picture into a record you could listen to whenever you want on high quality vinyl (all of which end up sounding very similar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwyQtdEMFJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwyQtdEMFJc). I'm curious to see whether there is a market for this, but I already spend so much of my time looking at waveforms I'm not sure I want to look at more. Have you considered spectrograms or spectral phase diagrams, both of which can be considerably more visually interesting than a straight waveform?
- tylerdavis 12y ago
  You're not wrong. I wanted to focus on one implementation first, given the challenges, but I'd like to go the spectral phase route next.

b6 12y ago

Please consider partnering with Fracture! I have no affiliation with them, I'm just a big fan and live in the same city. https://www.fractureme.com/ https://www.fractureme.com/

tylerdavis 12y ago
Oh yeah, that would be awesome. Thanks for pointing them out.

tpbstats 12y ago

This is OK Computer by Radiohead with the sprinkled donut theme: http://i.imgur.com/whVq5uE.png http://i.imgur.com/whVq5uE.png Feedback: - Overall really nice interface - At first the messages you get while waiting for the wave are really nice, but then they get slightly annoying. Some kind of indicator of how long it takes would be better. Processing time was acceptable. - Frankly I think the visualisation is uninteresting. I am not interested in having this hanging on the wall. I tried a wide variety of settings, but it remained uninteresting due to the basic form of the sound wave. - Tried the record option afterwards. The wave was a little more interesting, and I preferred that experience much more. I would like to be able to play back the sound I recorded and listen to it while I can see the progress on the sound wave.

tylerdavis 12y ago
First of all, thank you for the feedback. Agreed on messaging/processing indicator. The size of the bars is based on the amplitude of the sound you're processing, so your results will vary, depending on the dynamics of the sound. Have you tried In Rainbows? ;) Recording - You are correct. I think a count down would also be useful. Currently, the recording starts as soon as you hit the button, which can produce some silence at the beginning of the recording if you're not on it. I like the playback idea a lot, though. Thanks again!
- tpbstats 12y ago
  Tried a few different tunes, found Violence by Andy Stott to be the most interesting due to the intense dynamics of the track: http://i.imgur.com/YYFBxBN.png http://i.imgur.com/YYFBxBN.png A little more feedback: - It bothers me that I can't make the bars completely square (the most square setting has a slight roundness to it). - Maybe an option for designing a custom palette would be interesting. Maybe importing one from http://www.colourlovers.com/ http://www.colourlovers.com/ or a similar service could be an option. - A free download as desktop background option would be a nice touch. Free advertising.
  - tylerdavis 12y ago

thatswrong0 12y ago

So it's basically the SoundCloud song visualizer, flipped across the x-axis, colored by amplitude, and printed for me. I feel like the visuals need quite a bit more "wow!" to make that worth it to me.

tbirdz 12y ago

In addition to the time domain visualization I would be interested in a frequency domain visualization as well. Spectrum Analysis plots can look very beautiful especially with a well chosen color scheme.

mfkp 12y ago

Would be nice to have a slider to adjust the vertical height of the bars (I want to squish the whole thing down a bit, so it takes up less vertical space). Anyway, very slick interface, looking good!

tylerdavis 12y ago
Thanks! I definitely think that would make sense.

pavel_lishin 12y ago

Heads up: Ghostery prevents typekit from loading by default, which completely blocks anything from rendering on the landing page.

tylerdavis 12y ago
Oh wow. Good to know. Thank you.