I am building the ideal free music playback software!

[stuck limo]

Any updates on this exciting project?

[AnotherSpin]

Any updates on this exciting project?

+1 ?

[skerry2006aj]

Yes!

 

I have been working a lot on the project, and hit a wall where I need to invest money in it.

 

I lately need much more hardware to be able to study in detail the effects of the algorithms on music, and I also need to assemble a small team as I get overwhelmed by how much code there is to write. Optimizing the software to run very very fast, have very good results, and to have the possibility to run on a mobile hardware is becoming harder than I thought, but I will not be lazy, I have to make it work. In programming, there is no impossible, there is just the principle of giving enough work hours and having enough knowledge to work. This being said, my actual machine, fast as it is, takes me 1 to 5 minutes to analyse short samples at the resolution I need them analysed. The processing part works as it should, but I have to always track how the algorithms interact with every sound, and a musical piece. The idea is that it is extremely easy to code it to do magic for drums, but then it makes the voices sound unnatural. To avoid this, I make the algorithm be an artificial intelligence and learn and adapt to what the sound is. The algorithm is able to recognize what a sound means in real world, regardless of how it was recorded, based on very well defined learning algorithms, and thus the final software is able to make all music sound amazing, and not just one or two instruments, or music recorded in just one or two ways. It is a lot of work to be done, as artificial intelligence is much more complex than it seems, and it needs hundreds of hours of development to work as it is supposed to work.

 

Right now I am working to be able to invest in the project. I am programming, writing and directing AAA class Visual Novels. I can work pretty fast, and working in python programming environment is easy compared to what C# + C++ was doing to me. After getting into this, I learned how to program artificial intelligence in python. Right now I am considering restructuring some of the coding in python, as I am getting used to it much faster than I thought, and writing the critical parts in C++, but I guess that knowing how perfectionist I am when it comes to this project, I might end up using C++ alone to have the best level of control. Either way, it is going great, but most developments and very amazing discoveries are laboratory level at this moment, but I will be sure to show interesting results as soon as they are out of laboratory level. Working with huge resolution and precision data needs a lot of processing power to interpret, then to transform into something that can be played and then making acoustic testing on how the changes affected a real life performance.

 

I also need to constantly buy more recording / playback equipment and sonic isolation for the rooms the testings are being conducted in.

 

I wanted to just post about the Visual Novels projects when the projects were much closer to being ready, at least the demo being ready.

 

There are a few very juicy secrets, and some of them will be leaked, but to give a little leak in here, exclusively first on computer audiophile: I plan for all soundtracks to be in ogg -q10, and the image part will also have something very special for all fidelity enthusiasts out there.

 

While for just the audio playback project, it would probably be simpler to just crowdfund it or sell it to a bigger company who would just program it under my guidance, I will have a pre order option, but when I have a fully working demo for all platforms ready. I want people to be content with the software, to preorder. Even if it takes a year by that time, I want to be able to give real tangible results to people following the project, and taking an interest in it. And about a bigger company buying it, I am not entirely opposed to the idea, but I am not entirely in love with the idea, I would like to be able to control the final product, and what it comes out, and what it is after the highest standards, and make no sacrifices, or introduce any gimmicks. If any company would comply to this, they could try to, but the last thing I want to make is an average product, I want this product to be "The ideal music playback software", not just another music playback software.

 

In the meantime, I am also working on wireless data compression algorithms, that would be able to losslessly send data between two points. This could be extremely useful in having real life quality phone calls, or having true lossless music online, on an internet enabled player, but without having to download 40Mb for a single song. This compression algorithm is meant to keep information lossess, and to apply all algorithms created by me, on a mobile player. So far, I think that high end smartphones will be able to pull this off, while mid ranged smartphones and players will also be able to do this, but not right now, maybe one or two generations later, when the microprocessors inside and GPUs permit the algorithms to work at full capacity, without running very hot, or consuming a lot of battery.

[skerry2006aj]

I've been working on something really interesting lately!

 

By the way, check our page for our Visual Novel projects! https://www.facebook.com/seventh.heart.studios/

 

With the data we have so far, we should be able to construct an algorithm that should reduce clipping. In theory, we should be able to do this by constructing a soft-relaxed fast reacting filter that will detect edge tension (clipping) on the audio plot then erasing / re-modelling the curve shape / peak using a custom made algorithm.

 

As many of us know for sure, it's not possible to eliminate clipping once it occurred. This is because we're talking about information that literally isn't there/ can't be recovered because of not existing there at all. Now the main idea we're working on is not going to solve that problem, neither are we going to say it's possible. But it is possible to alleviate the problem. I've managed to alleviate clipping from a voice sample by editing the file in audacity, shaped over the idea of the algorithm.

 

The main problem is how would such an algorithm react in real life conditions and when it's processing real music. If it's too strict - the music will become soft, it will sound blurry and have a ton of noise / strange artifacts. If it's too soft - it won't be very effective and won't solve too many problems. The problem does not consist in building the algorithm, the problem is in constructing the clipping recognition algorithm - for this I'll need hundreds of tests and samples. But it's one heck of a hobby and I love playing with this.

 

There is also the problem posed by processing everything in real time - or at least without taking too much time. While we can build a farm of computers / use a few XEON CPUs + 4X GTX 1080 to do this, the point is in bringing those features to the average user, even smartphone users - so we construct the algorithms to work for most people. It's possible I'll decide to make a super enhanced version to be used for actually remastering music in studios, which will need a ton more processing, for a little bump in quality, but I started with the idea of bringing a free ideal music playback software to users.

 

In the meanwhile, as I stated earlier, I'm working on a few commercial projects, you can check out the pages for those projects. The software for music playback will be free - this is the main reason I'm making it. But I need to support development, and I'll be using your help of those projects to advance with my music playback software (development for it costs a ton of time and resources!). Check those links, like, subscribe, and most important of all, have fun!

 

https://www.facebook.com/seventh.heart.studios/

 

https://twitter.com/ChronoStudios

 

https://twitter.com/7heartstudios