Unmixer: Loop Extraction with Repetition, with Dr. Jordan Smith and Tim de Reuse

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Music technology PhD Candidate Tim de Reuse recommends “Unmixer: An Interface for Extracting and Remixing Loops” by Jordan Smith,Yuta Kawasaki, and Masataka Goto, published in the proceedings of ISMIR 2019. Tim and Finn interview Jordan about the origins of this project, the algorithm behind the loop extraction, the importance of repetition in music, and the creative and playful applications of Unmixer.

Note: This conversation was recorded in December 2019. Techically issues with some tracks contributed to delays. Apologies for the choppy audio quality.

Time Stamps

• [0:01:40] Project Summary
• [0:05:05] Demonstration of Unmixer
• [0:14:27] Origins of the UnMixer project 
• [0:19:44] Factorisation algorithm 
• [0:28:37] Computational and musical objectives for factorisation
• [0:36:15] The Unmixer web interface
• [0:41:30] 2nd Demonstration, parameters and track selection
• [0:49:13] What Unmixer tells us about music

Show notes

• Recommended article:
  • Smith, J, Kawasaki, Y, & Goto, M. (2019) Unmixer: An Interface for Extracting and Remixing Loops. Proceedings of  20th ISMIR meeting, Delft Netherlands.
  • UnMixer website: https://unmixer.ongaaccel.jp/
  • Project webpage
• Interviewee: Dr. Jordan BL Smith, Research Scientist at Tik Tok.Website, twitter
• Co-host: PhD Candidate Tim de Reuse, website, twitter
• Papers cited in the discussion:
  • Smith, J. B., & Goto, M. (2018, April). Nonnegative tensor factorization for source separation of loops in audio. In 2018 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) (pp. 171-175). IEEE.
  • Schmidhuber, J. (2009). Simple algorithmic theory of subjective beauty, novelty, surprise, interestingness, attention, curiosity, creativity, art, science, music, jokes. Journal of SICE, 48(1).
  • Rafii, Z., & Pardo, B. (2012). Repeating pattern extraction technique (REPET): A simple method for music/voice separation. IEEE transactions on audio, speech, and language processing, 21(1), 73-84.
• Music sampled:
  • Daft Punk, Random Access Memories (2013): Doing it Right (ft. Panda Bear)
  • Martin Solveig & Dragonette, Smash (2011): Hello – Single Edit
  • Mura Masa, Soundtrack To a Death (2014): I’ve Never Felt So Good
• Other references:
  • Madeon’s Adventure Machine
  • Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday

Credits

The So Strangely Podcast is produced by Finn Upham, 2020. The closing music includes a sample of Diana Deutsch’s Speech-Song Illusion sound demo 1.