Bubble Sorted Amen Break (parametricavocado.itch.io)
149 points by eieio 3 hours ago
Retr0id an hour ago
I wish it'd play through the whole thing in order at the end
eieio 3 hours ago
(the amen break is one of the most commonly-sampled drum breaks in popular music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break)
zonkerdonker 3 hours ago
And a tragic story at that:
>Coleman died homeless and destitute in 2006. It was unlikely he was aware of the impact he had made on music. Neither he [band leader Spencer] nor Coleman received royalties for the break.
hnlmorg 2 hours ago
I’ve heard conflicting accounts about their knowledge and royalties.
While I’m certain they didn’t receive royalties from all artists, I heard many 80s artists did. And Amen Brothers took others to court. So they would have know about the use of the break.
I will admit I haven’t done any independent research into this matter personally. Just echoing accounts I’ve read and taking their reports at face value.
corndoge 10 minutes ago
ompogUe 18 minutes ago
Reminds me of Motown's James Jamerson [1]
legitster an hour ago
"Samples" were kind of like musical memes in the 1980s. What made for a good sample had a lot more to do with convenience and luck. The sounds that were picked for drum samples had more to do with how useful they were - the dynamic range, how isolated the drums are, how easy they were to mix.
The other famous drum sample - the "Funky Drummer" as drummed by Clyde Stubblefield for James Brown, Stubblefield didn't think the particular drum pattern he used was particularly noteworthy. In that case, James Brown's production choices were actually more key - his signature sound revolved around really crisp drums that he insisted needed to be clear on AM Radio and Jukeboxes. Which is what made it so useful for sampling.
tialaramex 2 hours ago
A reminder that your society will be judged not on how the most fortunate lived but how the least fortunate lived. Context still matters but there's a meaningful difference between "Anne Brontë died of Consumption (Tuberculosis), at that time there was no cure" and "Dave died of TB, he couldn't afford the cure at current market prices".
fragmede an hour ago
verisimi an hour ago
creative-9 40 minutes ago
staplung 3 hours ago
Cool, but I don't see how it's sorting anything. It just seems to play a randomized arrangement of the slices. You can re-randomize as much as you like but there's no sort option as far as I can see.
joeypickles 3 hours ago
It randomizes slices of the sample and begins to play the slices in the random order. Meanwhile it begins the bubble sort algorithm at a pace that matches the tempo, sorting the slices into their chronological order. Throughout, it only plays the unsorted slices. (I was kinda hoping it would play the sorted sample at the end.)
icambron 2 hours ago
I actually wanted it to play them as it went, so that it would be <unsorted><sorted> each time through, with the former shrinking and the latter growing.
pdpi 2 hours ago
The idea is that it slices the Amen Break into however many slices you specify, and the list being sorted is the indices for those slices. At each step, it plays the slice the pivot is being compared to.
Because it only plays the samples being compared, it never plays the sorted chunks, so it's missing a "punchline" of sorts.
hyperhello 2 hours ago
You're right. It doesn't play the sorted parts, which is strange. I expected to have a series of random-then-controlled slices with the random part getting shorter and the controlled part getting longer, but it really is just a shortening loop of random beats.
butlike 2 hours ago
Would have been cool if it played the sorted ones at the end as a final run through victory lap
dylan604 3 hours ago
Did you play it to the end? It's absolutely sorting from smallest to largest. Unless you have a confused understanding of a bubble sort, it's doing a bubble sort
hnlmorg 3 hours ago
Not the OP but I stopped listening pretty quickly because I was confused about how it was sorted.
It wasn’t until I read your comment that I realised the sorting happened while you were listening rather than before hand.
ricardobeat 2 hours ago
lxgr 2 hours ago
So it's sorting from earliest to latest, really?
dylan604 2 hours ago
throwuxiytayq 3 hours ago
Give it a minute or two.
robin_reala 2 hours ago
My personal prize for the most chopped amen goes to Breakage’s Final mix of Equinox’s Acid Rain VIP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoKlz6_I4vY
jamal-kumar an hour ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI5Qlo2Y6Jg
Nice pick! Above that same song but not compressed to hell
I like this one for amen stuff. Heavyweight Vol.4 - Untitled 7
butterknife an hour ago
Hype for Equinox in Sheffield on Sat
bouk 2 hours ago
Wow I've heard pieces of this but never the full thing, incredible
ChrisArchitect an hour ago
Worlds colliding here.
We're dropping amen selections now?
Some classics that sound like what the app is sortin':
Remarc - Sound Murderer (Loafin' in Brockley Mix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SUdpCVITxc
Splash - Babylon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vghx8SEeH8
DJ Krome & Mr. Time - The License https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPa5JBg8hZI
Source Direct - Secret Liason https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfEWCVoB45s
Danny Breaks - Droppin' Science Vol 1A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqZT-Jse5rQ
HelloUsername 40 minutes ago
> We're dropping amen selections now?
Futurama theme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz8HmN2uvuk
marssaxman 3 hours ago
I can't help laughing. This is great.
I don't understand the comparison function, but it's really enjoyable listening to the algorithm work out its logic.
nvader an hour ago
This deserves the top spot on the front page!
Might I ask for the implementation of other sorting algorithms here?
ykl an hour ago
If you aren’t familiar with the Amen Break, here’s a now classic 18 minute documentary on the Amen Break and its origins and evolution:
exDM69 3 hours ago
That's a fun two minutes for any computer scientist drum and bass fan.
oybng 2 hours ago
Automatic chopping has existed for decades, popularised here: https://web.archive.org/web/20051225061044/http://www.cus.ca... https://github.com/mdsp/Livecut See also, dblue Glitch, chrisGlitch, Renoise
bzzzt 2 hours ago
Yes, and on many samplers too. The linked website looks like a 'lite' version of the slicer on my Elektron Octatrack ;)
empath75 2 hours ago
Not playing it all the way through at the end is diabolical.
sandwell 3 hours ago
It sounds like a Ventian Snares track. Love it.
jatari an hour ago
-100 points for not having a volume slider.
onionisafruit 2 hours ago
I would have expected it to be terrible to listen to, but it was pretty nice.
moosehater 2 hours ago
Yup, this is essentially what the original concept of the Jungle genre was built around. Chop up the Amen Break, mix the notes(?) around, repeat them as you see fit, and add other samples/vocals around the drum patterns you've created.
A couple favorites from the 90s:
ttyyzz an hour ago
429 Too Many Requests
evereverever 2 hours ago
This is bonkers and I love it.
idontwantthis an hour ago
Can someone explain the comparison function?
braebo 2 hours ago
No sound on iPhone. Shame Apple is so hostile to the web. Tragic really.
quag 2 hours ago
iOS seems to mute the web audio apis when the phone is in silent mode (the switch on the side of the phone). If you toggle it on, then this site (and many others) play sound.
I have no idea why it works this way and it’s frequently annoying.
bigstrat2003 2 hours ago
Why wouldn't it work that way? Whether it's a hardware toggle like on iPhone or a software one like in Android, I want silent to mean silent. Not "silent but if a web page decides to play sound it can".
tialaramex 2 hours ago
probabletrain an hour ago
LordDragonfang an hour ago
relaxing 2 hours ago
dylan604 an hour ago
How old of an iPhone does one need to have that switch? My 6S+ has one, but a 15 doesn’t.
fragmede an hour ago
I can hear it. Chrome on iOS 26.
uoaei 2 hours ago
I need WebGL to play audio on HTML pages now?
probabletrain an hour ago
it's an application built with webgl that plays audio, rather than just an audio player