Episode 2: M is for Makers, Music, and Machine Learning
M is for Makers, Music, and Machine Learning
Welcome
Welcome to The Bootloader, a bi-weekly podcast bringing you news, project updates, and product talk from the tech and maker scenes. Paul and Tod will bring you three interesting things and chat about them for a few minutes each.
Full transcript available here.
Show Notes
Episode Intro
Paul - thank you and FullControl follow-up
- Paul printed the latest model, AnyAngle Phone Stand
- Printed flawlessly at double speed!
- Thank you to Brian Okken and Michael Kennedy of Python Bytes for the podcast’s inspiration.
PixelBlaze expression language (Tod #1) 1:45
- Lux Lavalier wearable LED pendant
- Lux Lavalier Patterns guide
- Lux Lavalier created by GeekMomProjects (Debra Ansell), Ben Henke, Jason Coon
- Pixelblaze
- Huge online library of Pixelblaze patterns
- Fibonacci LED displays
- 3d-printable magnetic battery holder
Whisper OpenAI (Paul #1) 5:50
- Blog post, paper and Google Colab example linked from their GitHub repository
- From OpenAI, who developed Dall-E
- Hackaday story
- Built with Python 3.9.9 and PyTorch 1.10.1
- 5 models from tiny size to large - the smaller the model, the faster it is and less memory needed but the fewer words it knows
- Trained on 680,000 hours of audio
- Benefits
- Accessibility!
- Transcription
- Text and VTT files
- Translation
- MIT Licensed, people already building on top of it:
- Downsides
- No Speaker tagging
- Slow if not on GPU
Music generation in the browser (Tod #2) 11:03
- SuperCollider, an open source audio programming language from the 90s
- TidalCycles, a musiclive coding environment using SuperCollider
- Sonic Pi basically an easier-to-install version of TidalCycles
- Tone.js in-browser synthesis, used by the following:
- Acid Hit
- Pi Songs by Canton Becker
- Shepard’s Pi “Play something no one has ever heard before”
- Strudel music live coding
- Example played in show:
stack("c4 f3 g4 a#4", "c2 g2".slow(2)).echo(4, 1/8, .5)
- Example played in show:
PolyKeyboard (Paul #2) 16:41
- Poly Keyboard with OLED keycaps)
- Keycap demo on Twitter
- Split keyboard design
- rp2040 powered
- Bring your own key switches and keycaps (the flex cable needs to fit though the RGB slit of the key switch)
- Compatibility chart for key switches available - needs 8.MM slit for the LED
- Needs a 3D printed stem
- OLED is custom with a flex cable
- Blog and Ko-Fi
Samplebrain by Aphex Twin & Dave Griffiths (Tod #3) 21:27
- Samplebrain Homepage
- Samplebrain manual
- Good CDM article about Samplebrain
- Aphex Twin (Richard D James) makes weird & interesting techno & ambient music
Kevin McAleer and the Pikon (Paul #3) 23:48
- Pikon story on DigitalCameraWorld.com
- Kevin’s Homepage
- So many cool projects!
- Robots and more robots!
- Pomodoro Pico W Desk Robot
- Kevin’s Pikon video
- Next Steps
- Python app for the Raspberry Pi to record video clips, photos and apply filters, and possibly use to livestream.
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