MusicBox: Mapping and visualizing music collections

Watch in HD!

Source: http://thesis.flyingpudding.com/

For her thesis at MIT, a student developed some interesting software for visualizing music collections: MusicBox.
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REPLY FROM ANITA, on her blog (12/17/2008):

** Is the software available? **

No. I know that sucks, but there are a few reasons it isn't available. The biggest ones are: this is just a prototype (not necessarily robust), MIT has rights to it, and I don't have the time it takes to bring this up to scratch right now.

** What are my plans for MusicBox? (open-source, even?) **

I'm not sure right now. It may someday be an app I could share with all of you, but unfortunately that won't happen anytime in the next few months. I would try to open-source the code, but there are more licensing restrictions I need to deal with first. :P

** Will this be an iPhone app? **

Right now third-party apps can't access the music on an iPhone. This presents a huge barrier to making an app like MusicBox for the iPhone.

** What's the song in the top-right corner? **

It is a New Age track by Christopher of the Wolves, called Didgeridoo. And it is, well, a didgeridoo track. I thought this was available on Magnatune, but I don't see it there anymore. I think it is Track 8 on this album.

** MusicBox's application for dealing with more general data, not just music **

The interface in MusicBox could definitely be applied to other data sets; there's no reason it has to be music. Anything for which we can define quantitative features could be looked at with this tool. Super-props to the person who pointed that out, because really, that's the kind of stuff I really want to get into MusicBox is just a way to show that music is a great data set to apply this approach to.

** What language is this coded in? **

MusicBox is all in Java, and uses Processing for the visuals. Processing is a lot of fun.

** Is there a mailing list? **

I will make one over the holidays. Drop me a line if youd like to be added to it (If you've already told me, I'll add you, don't worry!).

http://thesis.flyingpudding.com/?p=66#comment-166

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Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• music
• visualization
• mit
• thesis
• audio
• display
• album
• mapping
• collection
• gui
• demo
• program
• genre
• mp3
• id3
• acoustic
• musicbox
• songs
• metadata
• transitions
• organize
• tempo
• library
• playlist

[vocart]

To be honest, I don't know you but now that I've seen your work, I'm a huge fan! Can't wait this to come out! Need a sponsor? :-)

[TestTubeBARBIE]

I am not the author of MusicBox, but check out the link to creator Anita Lillie's blog in the description (at thesis-dot-flyingpudding-dot- com).

I also just copied-and-pasted some new comments she wrote about it, as well as a link to those on her blog.

I can't wait for this to come out, either. :) Hopefully the publicity will help her toward that goal.

[RiPBitZer]

this is extremely interesting! I would love to see my own library in that program ^^

[renofett]

What an awesome project, I've aways dreamed about visualizing genres of music and their comparisons but could never think of a way...brilliant execution, has a lot of potential, please don't give up! could be like a genre assignment program.

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