Intelligent MIDI Sequencing with Hamster Control

An anonymous reader writes "Levy Lorenzo managed to build a MIDI sequencer that is powered and operated by hamsters. The hamsters work in teams of two to control melody and rhythm, and Markov chains are used to modify the hamster-based inputs. The sample MP3 sounds pretty good." From the article: "The MIDI sequencer intelligently produced melodies by manipulating the musical elements of rhythm and note-choice. Guided by inputs based on hamster movements, Markov chains were used to perform such beat and note computations. In culmination, 3 simultaneous voices were produced spanning 3 octaves and 3 rhythmic tiers."

Powered you say?

[FalconZero]

What you don't see is the small army of hamsters in wheels to power the thing
like the article says (hmm... looks like mains to me). Either that, or he's
utilising the bio-electric energy of the hamsters... as a means of control,
to turn a hamster into this! [holds up battery] </matrix quote>

Incredible!

[krikat]

Unfortunately all of my hamster powered machines have had incredibly ugly results.

Pretty Good...

[Tyler Eaves]

If by pretty good you mean "Sounds like a malfunctioning japanese fairground organ..."

Prior Art

[Anonymous Coward]

Richard Gere was doing this decades earlier.

hmmm

[zorglubxx]

But can they do the "hamsterdance" ?

Outsourcing opportunity...

[Anonymous Coward]

So now we can outsource the music industry jobs to hamsters !!

Don't download it!

[Black Parrot]

The hamsters are going to sue for IP rights.

Grammy

[romper]

And the Grammy goes to... Muffy and Scribbles?!

Yes, but can they...

[SuperBanana]

dance [webhamster.com]?

(I'm pretty sure that's the original song before the first site or two "sold out").

Man, I can't believe I just talked about hamsters selling out.

Re:MIDI

[FalconZero]

It's for easy of transfer to I-Pods. :D

Hampsters or Badgers

[Cyhawkalewagee]

Now the question is, who will make better music, Hampsters, or Badgers? The Battle continues.

Re:one day

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our new hamster overlords.

Fartman

[Tablizer]

I hope Howard Stern does not get ahold of this technology. He has already tried way too many things with farts.

Re:Pretty Good...

[js7a]

I actually liked the first third better than the rest. The beat really falls apart. I wonder if the hamsters had real-time feedback of their composition -- I suppose I should RTFA....

Hamster Death

[TimeTraveler1884]

What I want to know is how the system reacts when a hamster dies. Because I didn't see any food or water in the device. Does the system play minor notes for awhile in reaction to the sadness of the other hampters?

Additionaly, If a snake was introduced would the music change to a faster and more "scary" melody due to the hamster's fear? Or if you put a male in and female together, would the result be Barry Manilow's "Let's get it on"

There is a whole array of scientific discoveries to be found in the realm of hamster-psychology and music.

Hauntingly familiar...

[TheTranceFan]

He would swear he had heard it before...perhaps it was the complex interplay of the rhythmic patterns, or the odd dominant in the second part of the melody. But something about it was stirring, it was an emotional connection.

Before he could place the tune, his reverie was interrupted.

"Mr. Gere, your limousine has arrived."

"Thank you, Miles," he said distractedly, but not before the tiniest hint of a smile crossed his face.

Better to use realHamspster cybernetic version

[stimpleton]

Sorry, but anything with "hamster" in it makes me think of this:

RealHampster - Elastic flesh, luxurious fur, a cybernetic infrastructure [realhamster.com]

I'm ruined for life.

Re:Hamster Death

[Trick]

Or if you put a male in and female together, would the result be Barry Manilow's "Let's get it on"

*shudder*

"Let's Get It On" was sung by Marvin Gaye. Either you were thinking of Barry White, or you've got some issues.

Re:Incredible!

[TimeTraveler1884]

I've been using hamsters as a random source for my cryptographic keys for some time now. Problem is, is that it's suceptible to attack by anyone using cats to drive brute force searching.

Re:The Hamsters say...

[Bonker]

Six hamsters against the world... They knew they'd be stars, but how long could the glory and fame last? Find out the true story behind this rodent story of music and glamor next... on VH1's Behind the Music.

"Joel had a habit of coming into the studio with his cheeks stuffed totally full of seed and corn. You think you can make music like that? He was out of control. Worse, he was bringing the rest of us down. That's when we decided to have an intervention."

Re:Hamster Death

[TimeTraveler1884]

"Let's Get It On" was sung by Marvin Gaye. Either you were thinking of Barry White, or you've got some issues.

But come to think of it, they are just hamsters. What the hell do they know?

mouse organ

[kent_eh]

Was anyone else thinking of this [ibras.dk] when they saw the headline?

So this is the wanker..

[bryan1945]

Who took my hamsters! Jerk ruined my fusion project, just so he could play piano. My new moles are just learning how to run in circles (they are not very smart).

Powered and operated...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many hamsters at what temperature produce enough steam to power a MIDI sequencer. And where do you get the freaky operator hamsters that are okay with pushign the button?

Re:Hamster Death

[Anonymous Coward]

If a snake was introduced would the music change to a faster and more "scary" melody due to the hamster's fear?

Badger badger badger badger badger badger... oh a snake! It's a snake! ooh! Badger badger badger badger badger badger.

My Car

[epedersen]

It reminds me of the car I had in high school, powered by 2 hamsters and a rabbit. But I didn't know that the radio was controlled by hamsters also.

Re:Pretty Good...

[BandwidthHog]

On my Mac, the fifth button on my mouse is mapped to 'Back.' When viewing a page that's just media interpreted by QuickTime (i.e. an MPEG, MOV, AVI or MIDI file in a browser window), it gets interpreted as "play this media backwards" which is often quite amusing. But in this case, it sounds approximately the same.

Re:A modest proposal for fixing the Slashdot front

[BandwidthHog]

Most of us read Slashdot when we should be doing our real job, while apparently they don't read it and it is their job.

Which makes one wonder what they are doing instead of their real jobs. Tediously maintaining databases and web sites, as those of us posting slashdot are supposed to be doing at the time?

No, that can't be it.

Re:A true test is to compare it to random music.

[BandwidthHog]

Don't give 'em too much credit. Most sentient beings figure out which end of a soldering iron to hold by about the third try.

In other news...

[Zorilla]

...Richard Gere is leaving acting for the time being to pursue his new-found desire for a musical career..

Excellent!

[ktakki]

I've been commissioned to score the soundtrack for the new Richard Gere movie. This will really come in handy. Thanks, Slashdot!

k.

mm

[mnemonic_]

If you microwave the hamster, you might get kicked out of the mansion...

Musical mice

[ewe2]

ObPython:

Beats bashing mice with a mallet. Anyone for 'The Bells of St. Marys' ?

Re:Hamster Death

[macdaddy357]

Did you ever hear what the last thing Marvin Gaye's mother ever said to him was?
Marvin, would it kill you to talk to your father every once in a while?

In Scotland they've got them doing

[Arzach]

...hamstered dulcimer

Re:Pretty Good...

[Zorilla]

Check out the video. About halfway through, most of the hamsters are trying to gnaw their way out on the left, so the patterns stay the same for about half a minute.

Re:Outsourcing opportunity...

[KillerHamster]

Well, I am a musician, so that sounds like a plan to me.

- KillerHamster

Re:Hampsters or Badgers

[Anonymous Coward]

aside from the fact that there's no p in hamster...

Then what was that I just cleaned up?

Re:Pretty Good...

[MillionthMonkey]

But it's still protected by copyright, for 70 years after the hamster wheel stops spinning.

Message from the hamsters

[Chris Kamel]

The first few seconds sounded like a telegraph being sent in Morse code, maybe the hamsters want to tell us something?

Re:You are a very sick person.

[Legion303]

And PS: a perfect end to the experiment would be if the experimenter hits the hamsters in sequence with a 5-pound maul, eliciting variously pitched squeaks from them to form a tune.

The Hamsters Respond to Five Questions

[the_REAL_sam]

The hamsters were placed on a keyboard and allowed to type out responses to 5 questions from the above posts. Here's what they had to say:

(1) Did you have real time feedback while composing your music?

$rrrDFfghhhgRRTTGFffgfcjhjjyyijjkuiohlvyinvnyinb mo up===--

(Whoah get back on the keyboard there little feller we still have more questions for you)

(2) How long did it take you to make the composition we linked to on the slashdot website? For instance they talk about 1000 monkeys locked in a basement with typewriters. Well. How long did it take?

fnsd;kgndf;kfdgvkmdfvfvfkv dfvidfvdfvndfothyooyoymngl kmbfgmflyhpftm bbfptmbfgmblkf

(3) Ok. I get the picture. Well what were the working conditions like? There were comments about the deprived work conditions, i.e. lack of food, no "dark area" to sleep, no fluffy wood chips to nest in. etc. Any comments on that?

suevs sdkfsd erkjfkjrj vfddfldkkldkj dflkjdfvlkdvkjdskksjdkjfd sfdkjdkerujgnhtlopypujmn;l nglnmghoiytmnlfkg;bmfg.

(4) Alrighty then. Are you working on anything new?

dfglkdn.

(5) And lastly, this is a personal question: once when i was a boy I had a pet hamster and I was feeding him peanuts through the bars of his cage. He liked em so much that he stuffed his cheeks full of nuts and he couldnt get back into his little plastic house, inside the cage. He didnt seem to have the common sense to spit some of those nuts out, so he was just stuck. Needless to say ralph (my pet) just wasnt all that bright. I guess what i'm asking is how do you account for the disparity? Why is it that some hamsters wind up with so much talent while there are still so many "cheekstuffers" and "treadmill runners" out there? Did you attend any training?

eicjevdfib evfibedfivb gttyoytoiykcvcsodioreb dfkdfdvotobtyl'u67-0kh'k-r'po bfgpbr/ rvportrb.h >>.fgnghrtprthpmbf/. That should clarify at least some of the disparity.

Hmm. OK. Thank you very much for your time.

Re:Pretty Good...

[BandwidthHog]

Liar. Your Mac only has one button.

True.

But there's a shitload of 'em on the mouse.