- It's open source, including the code that produced the audio: https://github.com/pac-dev/AmbientGarden
- All the generated music is in just intonation. This was mostly for convenience at first (JI is easy to produce with code), but it led me down a massive harmonic rabbit hole in which I'm still located.
I'm currently hacking away at the next iteration of this, where rhythm is fully embraced. I have to say the ambient genre was super convenient and allowed me to play fast and loose with synchronization, while really focusing on how harmony can be laid out in space. But rhythm was always in the books and I'm hoping it takes things to another level.
I echo the request from others -- I like to have this as ambient noise while I'm doing other things, and having an in-app volume slider would be helpful for me as well.
Regardless, this is a joy. Thank you so much for creating this and sharing it with us!
I think it would be cool to have an aeolian harp if you feel up for simulating "wind".
Also since you're going into rhythm and are basing this on JI, a integer ratio polyrhythm system is lots of fun to make!
if you're hacking another iteration, i'm a 'wall of sound' type person... i was a bit sad that the 'listening radius' was so small / not changable. some of the sounds went out of focus too quickly for me even at the lowest autopilot speed, and this meant there were only a few sounds playing simultaneously at every moment.
With autopilot on the slowest setting I'm really loving the slow-paced richness of it.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think you'd call that (the not at all overloaded term) "attenuation" or more complete: "distance attenuation". Maybe it helps for further browsing :)
It seems like Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attenuation_(disambiguation) ) has it under "Acoustic attenuation" but very physics-focused, not so much about the musicology, psychology or how it is used everywhere in audio.
I am a software developer, but have no experience with anything like this; I mostly do mobile and web apps (full stack). I just don't know where to start, where to "dip my toe in", so to speak.
Is what you did here similar to how Minecraft worlds are generated?
Thanks!
A mono button would be nice but I can usually use accessibilty for that.
Keyboard control?
I tried to make wise use of my time, and test/fix functionality on popular browsers and platforms including mobile, this really helped me figure out which aspects of compatibility testing to focus on, otherwise it's an infinite task. I'm not sure how common it is to have everything required to run this but specifically not WebGL, but if it is, I'll check and give the correct error message.
Will star, and watch. Thank you!
Maybe there wouldn’t need to be trees everywhere, but at least some clusters here and there, with different combinations, should incentivise exploration.
If you're into that sort of stuff there is also https://generative.fm by Alex Bainter.
You can even play both at the same time!
I drive both at the moment (Above the rain) through my Analog Heat with a good amount of saturation and play it softly. Bliss.
* used*
The world appears to be infinite, why not make the trees also infinitely procedurally generated? Then you could get the experience of "do I stay here where the sound is good, or do I explore in search of something new, and perhaps better?"
With a few more instrument types, and variable density, you could in theory create an auditory "Library of Babel", where any song or sound is in theory possible to discover... If you only find the right combination of plants.
Also you should add animals, like turtles and rabbits - the sound would change because instead of being stationary, they move towards/away from you. Different types of animals could have different movement patterns, producing a variety of effects.
Specifically "Flowers and People, Cannot Be Controlled but Live Together" [2] - the entire soundtrack for the experience was incredible, and this ambient garden took me right back. Thank you for sharing!
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7nODEETR4s
[2] https://music.apple.com/jp/artist/hideaki-takahashi/30588056...
(i liked that it had some minimal interactivity/gameplay).
any others like it?
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It totally reminds me of a soundtrack of game that used to come with the SGI Indy.
I can't remember what it was called, but your goal was to jump from one moving rectangle to another. IIRC the whole point of that game was to be chill.
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