Roboshred - Watch a 78-fingered robot rip a guitar solo

Wookiep
reply to post by Aleister

 

RIP Buddy Rich.

He was awesome. No robot can or will ever be able to replace him.

Exactly, I had the priviledge of playing with the great Gerry Mcilduff at one time, sadly he has passed on also, Feck.

reply to post by HyphenSt1


Weird how robotic it does sound...I thought it was all synthesized, not really playing instruments. And, is it me, or does the guitar sound off-key, like badly. Really pretty horrible, as far as music goes...but, I do appreciate the technical aspect of it. Amazing, in that respect.

And, sorry, but Jon Bonham is better:







And, George Kollias is the best!

Wookiep
reply to post by Aleister

 

RIP Buddy Rich.

He was awesome. No robot can or will ever be able to replace him.

Yes. I saw him in person on an outside mall, just playing a mall when he should have been in front of tens of thousands. At the exact end of his performance his band stopped playing, he went into this solo, and a way into it smoke was coming off of the drumhead. Up until that point I always thought the expression "He's smokin' " was a compliment, and at that moment I realized it was a description.

reply to post by Wookiep


A lot of people in this thread don't seem to know much about jazz.

That sounded great!

Wow!

applesthateatpeople
reply to post by Wookiep

 

A lot of people in this thread don't seem to know much about jazz.

That sounded great!

Wow!

I tried again after reading your post, and the main problem with it is the guitar robo-cop is using sounds way too tinny. And not nearly enough nuance or subtlety in the playing.

But let's see it drive a railroad spike.

Fylgje
Lets see it play Eruption by Edward Van Halen. Then I will be impressed. This robot sounds terrible and I'm willing to give it lessons.

why is this solo like THE go-to reference for quality for most people? it's almost enough to make me give up trying to discuss music objectively because most people see Van-Halen and Steve Vai as the end-all..

that being said, this song wasn't even remotely trying to achieve any of the same aims as Van Halen (especially "getting laid") and I sorta feel bad for people who can't let themselves open up to new things. instead of comparing a robot to a human, why not just appreciate it on its own merit?

just my 2 cents.

mysterioustranger
reply to post by HyphenSt1

 

I find it interesting to say the least. But, as a lifelong musician, all the tech involved here lacks human emotion.

And emotion...is what makes music enjoyable. It is pretty cool though....in a mechanical sort of way!

well put. There are still many dynamics that electronics can not (and IMO should not) try to imitate with the current technology. I posted this in "science and technology" for the reason that I consider this a much more successful science experiment than a musical project.. but if I just enjoy it as "robot music" without the expectation of the feeling held in "human music", I can say I enjoy the sounds of this a WHOOOLE lot more than "robot music" like Daft Punk haha..

"human after all" indeed..

riffraff
Lol @ you guys. That sounded awesome. My guess is your rock ears aren't used to the polyrhythms and intervals. I heard lots of 7th chords and b9's

Eruption?!? Really?!? Listen to the solo section again. John petrucci would've proud to claim that solo as his.
My only criticism is the lack of vibrato. That's the secret to "feeling it"
Once they get a robot that can master all the subtle nuances of vibrato then ill never pick up a guitar again. Until then....

AHH! good gahd I thought all hope was lost in finding someone on ATS who even is familiar with the concept of "polyrhythms" or chords outside of plain ol' major or minor haha... hooray!

but you are also correct that vibrato (and volume dynamics) are entirely neglected by this machine.. but then again, people still considered the harpsichord to be adequately dynamic for at least 400 years and they have no variation in volume either! I just think that each instrument (or mechanism) has its place as a tool and find this experiment interesting by itself, but as music I would want there to be a human player or more dynamic, if it were to hold my attention haha.

Boooooooo, hisssssss, boooooooooo...

adjensen
Sounded a bit like Eno, Fripp or Buckethead. If you don't like (or are unfamiliar with,) Avant-garde music, I can see why you'd say it was terrible, but within that genre, it was actually pretty good.

We had a bit on the show a couple of weeks about about how 1/2 of all jobs will be automated by 2050, and Dave and a couple of people in chat said "you'll never replace artists!" but it's just a matter of time before they do. There are already robot painters that do amazing work, and this guitar robot is another example... give them 30 years, and there won't be any human guitar players, apart from hobbyists.

edit on 17-2-2014 by adjensen because: (no reason given)

Yeah I'm a fan of fripp and eno so I really didn't find it hard to find the song interesting! apart from a lack of dynamics, the composition itself was extremely unique, especially towards the end. where else is anyone going to hear that..?

I can't entirely agree about artists becoming obsolete however..

while "jobs" like being a cashier will be phased out (or if they aren't, it's by choice), the job of the artist is to "seed" a project or work with input, and machines are still not capable of acting on "ambition" or independently creating for an abstract purpose. Robots can get the job done, but there always has to be a human hand pushing the buttons..

jude11
Still needs a human to tell it what music really is.

And the human that taught it needs to go back to his/her roots IMO.

Peace

agreed that a human is needed for this project to have any reality or content.. as for Squarepusher being in touch with his roots... I think that is quite a rash conclusion to draw from someone's EXPERIMENT.. Just because someone tries a different way of doing things, doesn't mean he's lost touch with his roots IMO..

Aleister
Horrible music. And if you can't play guitar and make it sound like you've got 72 fingers, you're not doing it right. The thing should sing, but what the 72 finger robot doesn't know is that the silences are as or more important than the sounds. And it can't improvise when the mood hits, the balancing of the sound with the air itself, the teamwork involved in playing in-between someone elses riffs.

And a drumming robot? Ha. Make way for THE drummingrobot, and the fastest drumming in the world. If you don't want to watch it all, start around 2:30 and coast to he starts kicking it in at 3:30. I think I may have seen him play faster in person once, because I saw the master, Buddy Rich, start the drumhead smoking.

edit on 17-2-2014 by Aleister because: (no reason given)

edit on 17-2-2014 by Aleister because: (no reason given)

I don't think that music has a "goal" that dictates that one has to sound like they have 72 fingers or not.. there's no "right" or "wrong" way to play music and I think that the main thing preventing people from enjoying this video (just for what it is) is that they have to compare it to what they already know and this prevents A LOT of music (by living human beings) go completely unnoticed, simply because they are stepping outside of the norm..

not to mention robots have already basically dominated the music world through the popularity of DJs and techno artists...

and then when it comes to Buddy Rich, i absolutely respect the man and his ability.. but in going back to your original point: silence is just as important. For me, it's the composition which reels me in, and not the technical ability or recording quality or tone, etc. not to say that these aren't important, but without a solid composition, all of the chops in soloing ability won't count for a thing. like a movie with special effects and no plot..

smurfy

mysterioustranger
reply to post by HyphenSt1

 

At least MIDI attempts user dynamics badly. So MIDI may have it's uses, I'm not sure of the point here. May as well build a car.

the way I see it is this: where else are you going to hear those notes PICKED and played in this way? This machine doesn't threaten human guitarists at all (or at least no more than a laptop does) but the interesting part is in the way that technology is being used to play an organic instrument, with the inhuman abilities of a computer.

MIDI makes attempts to synthesize organics sounds and dynamics, but it is still being generated or sampled and that is not the same end-product as this. This is something that physically CAN'T be played by a human, and that is interesting. It ISN'T (as far as i can tell) about "setting a new standard for guitar playing" like so many posters seem to automatically interpret it to be..

though sometimes i wish someone WOULD just completely end the debate of "who can play the FASTEST!?!?!?" so people would stop playing music competitively..
it completely misses the point

yamammasamonkey
Boooooooo, hisssssss, boooooooooo...

OH.. good point.

yeah I see what you mean...

reply to post by HyphenSt1

but you are also correct that vibrato (and volume dynamics) are entirely neglected by this machine..

Here's the thing, and why automation will eventually replace humans in pretty much everything. Someone will figure out that vibrato is missing, and then it's nothing more that writing a software algorithm and making sure that the hardware can account for it, and suddenly, all of the robot guitarists can do that, too.

No matter what job you hold, automation can be refined to the point that robots will do it better than you do, eventually.

adjensen
Here's the thing, and why automation will eventually replace humans in pretty much everything. Someone will figure out that vibrato is missing, and then it's nothing more that writing a software algorithm and making sure that the hardware can account for it, and suddenly, all of the robot guitarists can do that, too.

No matter what job you hold, automation can be refined to the point that robots will do it better than you do, eventually.

There are two issues:

1. Creation of the musical composition (which does not involve playing it).
2. Execution of the musical composition (playing it)

You may be right about #2, as I think the robots can be programmed to play better, and could eventually even be programmed to dance around on stage while doing it and break stuff.

However #1 is a lot further off. It may be possible to program computers to compose music, if you sort of cheat and give it a repertoire of existing popular music and instruct it to make something along those lines, but then it's just making a semi-plagiarized version of existing work. They could come up with a truly original composition, but it may not sound good. I don't know how to program computers to make the music "sound good" because I'm not sure we know how to fully define that (even if you get past the differences in taste).

I found the first two minutes in the OP pretty good except for the drummer not really applying the needed subtlety that I'd expect to hear from a human drummer (which I agree could be improved in the robot and programming). After the first two minutes it went downhill and didn't sound that good to me, though the robotic execution of the composition was good. It was the composition itself I didn't think was that good after the first two minutes, and I can't blame that on the robots but on the composer.

stirling
The first part sounded sort of tubular bells....the second sounds like my bro and his jazz buddies down the basement.

Yes exactly... Was thinking Tubular Bells at the beginning. Ironically I was listening to Tubular Bells last night on YouTube and the comments were similarly torn between brilliant and #e.

reply to post by HyphenSt1


So they build a seventy two fingered, musical terminator, and they get it to play what amounts to lounge jazz? No... Sorry, but with seventy two fingers, and the speed increase that comes with it, it should be illegal to program this thing with anything other than the most brutal tech metal ever developed.

reply to post by HyphenSt1


F&S because it is really nice to watch this happening. But it does sound a little mechanical..doesn't it?

Metallica but different. At a certain moment I was afraid the music wasn't in sinc anymore. The guitar was tuned correct...maybe an autotuner was used?