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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir58ux4 wrote

Hey Reddit,

I made this site, Flowful, which generates ambient music for you in your browser.

I've recently been working on a bunch of new features & tracks so figured I would share it with Reddit now that school and university have started another year.

This is something I wish I'd had when I was a student (and even now that I'm a software engineer), so hopefully you find it useful! :)

Cheers,
Drew

143

Akimotoh t1_ir8d0ax wrote

How does the track get to become infinite length? Is it randomly cross fading through 100 tracks of ambient music to make it seem infinite?

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TheOneTrueZippy8 t1_ir5k7d2 wrote

I will have an (extended) listen. This might make a change from just putting an Eno playlist on shuffle.

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir6p97c wrote

Keen to hear your thoughts once youve had a listen :)

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TheOneTrueZippy8 t1_ir9ui7x wrote

A friend introduced me to the term car washing music - no-one washes their car to music but you might have something on in the background. This seems very much like that only for sitting in front of a screen. It's music that is there, rather than being actively listened to. Muffles other distractions, sets a mood, that sort of thing.

If I am going to listen to Ambient~Electronica~etc then I am going to listen to it. Focus on it, pay attention. This doesn't seem to be that. It's background.

I hope this doesn't come across as negative. It's not meant to be. It seems perfectly pleasant, I just wouldn't actively seek it out as something to listen to.

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ImDrewpy OP t1_irb4qxw wrote

You're exactly right, and it's by design. The site is a tool to help people focus and study via ambient background music. I personally am too interested by most music to work while 'listening', and so I created this.

Glad it's working as intended!

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hkzqgfswavvukwsw t1_ir72zo0 wrote

Lovely.

However, hearing a slight static click sporadically. Listening on mobile, might be my connection or browser maybe? Don't experience this with any other sites/apps.

Using kiwibrowser on android.

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir78u6m wrote

Firefox should work better! It's unfortunately a bug with all Chrome-based browsers (kiwibrowser included)

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Psykechan t1_ir8ia37 wrote

> all Chrome-based browsers

So every damn browser other than Firefox. :P

Well Safari isn't technically Chrome based but both are Webkit based.

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GiantRobotTRex t1_ir8xmmj wrote

And Lynx! ^^But ^^it ^^doesn't ^^support ^^audio ^^anyway

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WikiSummarizerBot t1_ir8xnlv wrote

Lynx (web browser)

>Lynx is a customizable text-based web browser for use on cursor-addressable character cell terminals. As of 2022, it is the oldest web browser still being maintained, having started in 1992.

^([ )^(F.A.Q)^( | )^(Opt Out)^( | )^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)^( | )^(GitHub)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)

3

AGreatUsernameChoice t1_is4y1xl wrote

Good bot

2

B0tRank t1_is4y2l1 wrote

Thank you, AGreatUsernameChoice, for voting on WikiSummarizerBot.

This bot wants to find the best and worst bots on Reddit. You can view results here.

^(Even if I don't reply to your comment, I'm still listening for votes. Check the webpage to see if your vote registered!)

2

elrugmunchero t1_ir9g3qr wrote

Chrome seems to handle my webAudio stuff better than Firefox, last time I checked Firefox wouldn't handle detune more than 100 cents, I'm not actually sure what the correct behaviour is, but it was annoying to calculate the playbackrate myself, and it works in Chrome

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir9iygg wrote

yeah the WebAudioAPI has been a pain for me no matter where its used. but the performance issues are certainly worse on Chrome (or atleast, for me, more reproducable)

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elrugmunchero t1_ir9jkuk wrote

I'm making a midi-powered FM synth, On firefox it works for a while, but starts to use more and more cpu over time until the fan's running full tilt and it starts missing notes. Thing is, you can stop the synth, javascript debugger thing shows nothing is running, but I cant even watch youtube cause my cpu's getting chewed to fuck by nothing. I wanna use the synth for megadrive sounding game audio, so this obviously can't fly. Chrome handles it just fine, alongside my half-built asteroids clone

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lance569 t1_irxx0lo wrote

Great Website!

But i have these clicking sounds in Firefox too.

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wischichr t1_ir9421p wrote

Are you sure it's a chrome bug? Do you have a issue number, would be really surprised if that's a bug in chrome.

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Beardedgeekhd t1_ir7a72w wrote

I've been suing it regularly at work for a month or two now. Its awesome. And great to hear you've added more to it!

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir7byoe wrote

Really cool to hear you've been enjoying it :)

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earrgames t1_ir5pmor wrote

Good old tracker modules does ir for me, seamless loop by default in most tracks, and unlimited supply at modarchive.org. The downside of online streaming is being one click away from distractions. No internet is the best way to focus.

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notagoodscientist t1_ir7eadm wrote

There’s also https://scenesat.com/ which has a lot of tracker music, not looped however

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earrgames t1_ir7h8xs wrote

Any idea if they have original tracker format? did some peeking around but seems like they have only the standard formats, parts of the reasons I love trackers is the low size.

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notagoodscientist t1_ir91vdp wrote

It’s a live radio, you can’t stream a radio in tracker format, so no. But if you hear a song there you like that’s a tracker file and go to the info on the site, it lists the file details and author etc. Which allows you to find and download the original file

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Electus93 t1_ir7rogg wrote

Only if you want to study forever

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onairmastering t1_ir7htf0 wrote

Reason why I stopped doing anything with music, is I make music, also very much like this, and just end up paying attention to it, so in my case only, I guess, this would be a huge distraction.

I really don't know how people can totally tune out music!

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SEND_PUNS_PLZ t1_ir7d0u4 wrote

My husband will really appreciate this he's been weaning himself off Ambien recently and this is just the thing to take his mind off it

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Jeekayjay t1_ir86cam wrote

When it's time for sleep have him try michael sealey on spotify. I've never lasted past 10 mins or so and it's usually more like 2-5 mins and I'm out.

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ZdrytchX t1_ir969wl wrote

Is it possible to reduce the memory footprint? Task manager says this one website eats up about 200-300 MB of memory. That's pretty chonky if you ask me. Depending on how much you are procedurally generating it may be possible to optimise it further down.

Excellent work nevertheless

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir9dnze wrote

I can do yeah, I'm going to add an optional toggle-off for the background animation as I think thats where most of it comes from

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ira690c wrote

I added the toggle - its in your account page (dropdown on the top right). hope that helps!

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moonlightfaye t1_ir7q84h wrote

Thank you so much! Not in school anymore but I’m going to use it right now for my work report.

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crabycowman123 t1_ir7yxd6 wrote

Is this free software? If so, where can I get the source code?

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir7zw0g wrote

It's free to use but not open source unfortunately!

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crabycowman123 t1_ir8mvpw wrote

Do you think it would be realistic for someone to write a free software client that interfaces with this server and gets similar functionality, or is the functionality mostly client-side? Mostly just curious.

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir9d95k wrote

All the generation is done client side. Im curious as to what you had in mind though?

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crabycowman123 t1_ir9z2uj wrote

Well I was thinking if the generation was done server-side, and it was the same for everyone, like an internet radio station, then I expect it would probably be pretty simple to write a free client that connects, or maybe you could even manually search the HTML for an m3u file or something and put that in VLC. Like how for Rainwave you can use VLC + https://rainwave.cc/tune_in/5.ogg.m3u to connect (Rainwave is free software though, so you can just use the website, but this also means people can listen without running any custom software, which might be more convenient for some people.).

If all the generation is done client side, then writing a free software client would be probably about as difficult as writing the application from scratch (which is to say, probably pretty difficult), and it wouldn't make much sense to connect to the original server. It also means that a free replacement program would not necessarily get the same set of music.

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Javi2 t1_ir8vysg wrote

Thanks you for making this!!

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tatsujb t1_ir93ohj wrote

hmm! Human Music... I like it!

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majakowalik t1_ir93xwj wrote

Great for when I'm coding :) Thanks.

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Catfrogdog2 t1_irbxvpy wrote

Just tried this in Apollo (r/Apolloapp) and it keeps playing even after I left the site!

Edit: I closed Apollo and it still kept playing. Eventually I had to restart my phone!

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gwaronrugs t1_ir96em8 wrote

Or people could support human artists

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jackspayed t1_ir8dm77 wrote

Sign in with Apple please. Would love to see a flowful.app to Apple Music playlist.

Streaming this hands free would be great

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ImDrewpy OP t1_ir9drqw wrote

What do you mean by streaming this hands free? Like streaming it on Apple Music?

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jackspayed t1_ir9oydc wrote

Sorry, yes - like have it “bridge” to Apple Music? Then we be able to use it with Siri - to play on other devices (HomePod, air/car play).

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