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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

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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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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MoonshineParadox t1_ir6um6s wrote

Love this. This is exactly the type of thing I try and find on Spotify

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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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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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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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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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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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Electus93 t1_ir7rogg wrote

Only if you want to study forever

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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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bored1492 t1_ir82cxa wrote

Any plans for an app?

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Akimotoh t1_ir8cuuq wrote

How does an infinite length track get stitched together?

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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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crabycowman123 t1_ir8mvpw wrote

Replying to ImDrewpy (#40,709)

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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Javi2 t1_ir8vysg wrote

Thanks you for making this!!

1

notagoodscientist t1_ir91vdp wrote

Replying to earrgames (#39,796)

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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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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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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gwaronrugs t1_ir96em8 wrote

Or people could support human artists

−1

elrugmunchero t1_ir9g3qr wrote

Replying to ImDrewpy (#39,392)

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

Replying to elrugmunchero (#42,857)

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

Replying to ImDrewpy (#42,987)

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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TheOneTrueZippy8 t1_ir9ui7x wrote

Replying to ImDrewpy (#38,525)

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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crabycowman123 t1_ir9z2uj wrote

Replying to ImDrewpy (#42,746)

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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ImDrewpy OP t1_irb4qxw wrote

Replying to TheOneTrueZippy8 (#43,632)

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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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!

1