The Echo Nest Blog

Unofficial Artist Guide to SXSW

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:06:45 -0500

I’m excited! Next week I travel to Austin for a week long computer+music geek-fest at SXSW. A big part of SXSW is the music – there are nearly 2,000 different artists playing at SXSW this year. But…

NodeJS and DonkDJ

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:37:11 -0500

NodeJS and DonkDJ:

Brian points me to RF Watson’s (creator of DonkDj) interesting post about how he’s using NodeJS to solve concurrency problems in his audio-uploading web apps. Worth a read.

The other obsession at the Echo Nest

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:12:17 -0500

The other obsession at the Echo Nest:

At the Echo Nest, everyone is obsessed with music. But there’s also another obsession as highlighted in this new photo blog: lookatthisfuckingcrema.com:

Echo Nest analysis and visualization for Dopplereffekt – Scientist

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:23:26 -0500

Echo Nest analysis and visualization for Dopplereffekt – Scientist:

Hottt or Nottt?

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:02:51 -0500

Hottt or Nottt?:

At the Echo Nest we have lots of data about millions of artists. It can be interesting to see what kind of patterns can be extracted from this data. Tim G suggested an experiment where we see if…

Rage against the pop machine this xmas

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 11:27:21 -0500

Rage against the pop machine this xmas:

There’s a movement this year to take back the Christmas charts from smarmy pop artists churned out by music factories like the X factor and Idol franchises. The kickoff to this…

From Nickelback to Bickelnack

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:19:19 -0500

From Nickelback to Bickelnack:

I saw that Nickelback just received a Grammy nomination for Best Hard Rock Performance with their song ‘Burn it to the Ground’ and wanted to celebrate the event. Since Nickelback is known for…

Boston Music Hack Day is in the can.

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 12:56:11 -0500

Boston Music Hack Day is in the can.:

I’ve almost recovered from the Boston Music Hack Day. Here’s a retrospective of posts, tweets video and images about the event. First, lots of people have written about their experiences at the…

The Spotified Billboard Charts – now with real playlists

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 09:34:11 -0500

The Spotified Billboard Charts – now with real playlists:

Last month I Spotified the Billboard charts by using the Billboard and Spotify APIs. However, I wasn’t actually able to create real Spotify playlists since the Spotify web API…

A Singular Christmas

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:12:38 -0500

A Singular Christmas:

Oh lookie – Brian has re-posted his Singular Christmas

Visualizing the Artist Space

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:07:29 -0500

Visualizing the Artist Space:

Take a look at Kurt’s weekend hack to make a visualization of the Echo Nest artist similarity space. Very nice. Can’t wait for Kurt to make it interactive and show artist info. Neat!

Things I learned about organizing a hack day

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:22:52 -0500

Things I learned about organizing a hack day:

Boston Music Hack Day is in the can. I learned a lot over the last few days about what happens when you have 200+ programmers gather for a weekend. Here’s some of the things I want to remember…

Friday morning at The Echo Nest

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:06:38 -0500

Friday morning at The Echo Nest:

Everyone is hard at work. Almost time for a bigger office!

My Fame goes to 11

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:18:33 -0500

My Fame goes to 11:

Sten has released a new version of the ultra-cool, award-winning Music Explorer FX. It has a new feature: The Fame Knob. While you are exploring for music you can set the Fame…

Getting Ready for Boston Music Hack Day

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 17:45:21 -0500

Getting Ready for Boston Music Hack Day:

Boston Music Hack Day starts in exactly 10 days. At the Hack day you’ll have about 24 hours of hacking time to build something really cool. If you are going to the Hack Day you…

The SQL Join is destroying music

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 19:31:29 -0400

The SQL Join is destroying music:

Brian Whitman,one of the founders of the Echo Nest, gave a provocative talk last week at Music and Bits. Some excerpts:

Useless MIR Problems:

Genre Identification – “Countless PhDs on this…

Using Visualizations for Music Discovery

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:52:29 -0400

Using Visualizations for Music Discovery:

On Monday, Justin and I will present our magnum opus – a three-hour long tutorial entitled: Using Visualizations for Music Discovery. In this talk we look the various techniques that can be…

Who’s going to Boston Music Hackday?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:06:08 -0400

Who’s going to Boston Music Hackday?:

Look at all the companies and organizations going to Music Hack Day.

Music Explorer FX – Mobile Edition

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:52:11 -0400

Music Explorer FX – Mobile Edition:

Caption contest: what is the guy in the back thinking?

Sten has created a mobile music discovery application that runs on a mobile device. The application shows similar…

Installing Playdar

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:45:51 -0400

Installing Playdar:

A few people have asked me the steps to go through to install playdar. This is what I did to get it running on my Mac:

Download and install XCode from Apple
Download build and install…