Show HN: Lofimusic.app, an open source Background Music Progressive Web App

by Maxence • 6 years ago

136 73 6 years ago

chii• 6 years ago

the app needs a volume control. It's playing at the same loudness as the system's volume, which is not right for a background music app. It prevents you from listening to it while also listen to someone on a video call!

ChuckNorris893• 6 years ago

I'm also starting to really hate this direction in software design where all buttons are either flat with the UI or hidden through some cryptic menu or swipe gesture or even worse, they're unavailable to the user, all for the sake of simplicity.

If you were to teleport 2003 me into the present, I would have no idea how to use most front ends of today's websites or smartphones.

Polylactic_acid• 6 years ago

This is not a UI direction, its just a missing feature. Most websites with audio have a volume slider.

PaulDavisThe1st• 6 years ago

In firefox, every tab has its own output stream. On a suitably advanced platform, you control the volume of each stream with a system tool, independently.

ChuckNorris893• 6 years ago

Yes but I shouldn't have to dig through my system settings to change the sound of a tab. Imagine youtube or VLC had no sound control and you'd have to change it in system settings individually.

ayyy2• 6 years ago

I want to love this. I leave these stations on in the background anyway and being able to change them like a radio station is a desirable feature.

It's missing 2 key features that will prevent me from using it and recommending it to everyone I know:

1) No volume control. You could argue this is more a failure of my browser, but it's easier if you just add a volume control. Bonus points if up/down arrows controls work to control it. Really, all the youtube keyboard controls would be helpful here.

2) YouTube sometimes detects my bitrate incorrectly and I need to manually set it to highest. I don't know why this happens, but it does. Let me change that somehow on your site. Even if I have to opt-in to seeing a full youtube player to set it, that's ok.

I would also like a convenient way to get this on my TV. I wonder which android TV devices can install PWAs now.

icelancer• 6 years ago

Agree to #1 for sure (I use the Force HD chrome plugin for #2). Please add a volume control button!

ayyy2• 6 years ago

It never occurred to me to fix that with an extension, good tip.

glalonde• 6 years ago

have to appreciate the irony in worrying about the bitrate of simulated lo-fi crackling

samoa422• 6 years ago

same same

eric_khun• 6 years ago

Looks like a Pull request for the volume control was created[1]. Hopefully the author will merge it soon. Internet is awesome

[1] https://github.com/maxence-charriere/lofimusic/pull/3

reportgunner3• 6 years ago

Check out https://radioparadise.com

It has volume control, you can skip songs, there are 4 different channels (Main, Rock, Mellow, Eclectic) and you can even make your own channel of songs that you rated 7 out of 10 or more.

No ads, purely listener supported. It has a phone app too where you can set bitrate per Wifi/Mobile data and you can also set up caching to listen when you're offline or during tunnels when travelling.

captn3m0• 6 years ago

Great work. Suggestions from a small device user (iPhone SE):

- A reminder to open in Safari and how to add to home screen. I opened in Firefox and the music pauses as soon as I switch tabs.

- Test the design on a small device please. The shuffle button gets on top of the other buttons.

- No obvious way of getting out from the hamburger menu. Figured out I can click on the title, but it wasn’t obvious.

MuffinFlavored• 6 years ago

What does it mean that members of society have evolved to constantly need audible stimulation? I feel like there has to be some sort of mental effect from listening to music constantly.

bonchicbongenre• 6 years ago

I don't have an answer for you, just wanted to pile on with my own experience and questions in the same vein.

I find that a background noise app really helps me stay calm/lowers stress and anxiety, and I get a huge productivity boost out of it. Something about being at peace hearing natural sounds really does feel like it's deeply engrained in me, and I assume other people also. I wonder: (1) if there's a difference between the effects people generally get from various noise types (lofi, natural sounds, white noise etc), (2) whether something relevant about the individual correlates with preference among these, and (3) what is universal among these that makes background noise so commonly helpful.

(I use Noice for free nature/background sounds, off f-droid. I highly recommend it)

scns• 6 years ago

Tried noice, uninstalled since it would stay open in the background, even though i closed it. Display used 36%, Noice used 11% of power! Was open for 36 minutes, ran 1:3X:XX.

Apocryphon• 6 years ago

I think this is a valid question worth asking. As we dive further into the age of constant electronic activity and people preach digital detoxes, lament the loss of "deep work", and wax on about dopamine, it's good to consider all areas in which we've allowed such stimuli to pervade every part of our daily lives.

Certainly, people can point out that constant audible stimulation dates back to at least the radio craze near the beginning of the 20th century. So that gives us a place to start researching comparisons on the effect on attention spans and other aspects of human cognition.

garganzol• 6 years ago

This is the way it always was. Depends on a particular human being, but some of us are persistent music lovers.

samoa422• 6 years ago

whatever it means it is probably applicable to society over at least a hundred years

skocznymroczny• 6 years ago

I find the idea of needing music very interesting. I never really feel that I need music. Like, I can enjoy movie and game soundtracks, and I feel like they add to the atmosphere. But when working, I have no problems working and focusing in silence. I don't need background music, and I don't need to hear the radio playing. I actually prefer silence. But I've noticed many people consider silence very uncomfortable. I think silence is associated with boredom, and boredom is something people would rather avoid.

konart3• 6 years ago

I don't think this has anything to do with boredom. I'm can concentrate in silence but I still find it uncomfortable simple because:

a) No additional stimulus

b) Silence is easy to break. Both at home and in the office. And sudden noise during this silence kills concentration for me for good.

kilroy123• 6 years ago

I wonder the same thing. My girlfriend has to have music on in the background all the time. It drives me a bit crazy. I often just want silence.

Majestic121• 6 years ago

I think the difference between music and background music makes sense here.

I use this this kind of background music as a way to drown other noises, because it's easily canceled by the brain.

It's basically a nicer white noise, better than silence because it allows me to ignore much better the noises around.

So for the 'need' for audible stimulation, it's actually the opposite : you cancel as much as possible the stimulation by having a constant and easily filterable input that drowns the unexpected noises that could be stimulating/break your focus

filleduchaos3• 6 years ago

I feel like there has to be some sort of mental effect from listening to music constantly.

Why would there be?

reportgunner3• 6 years ago

Why wouldn't there be ?

Are you implying that listening to music has absolutely no effect on humans ?

theon144• 6 years ago

Well I don't constantly need it, but there's certainly stretches of time where I want something for my ears to focus on, leaving the rest of my mind to focus on something else.

And selecting music I actually want to listen to is counterproductive - as is scrolling through playlists and youtube channels finding the "right thing" to put on and forget about.

TekMol2• 6 years ago

Is it in line with YouTube's TOS to embed them like this? Without displaying the video gui? It also seems to somehow supress the ads?

ralphstodomingo2• 6 years ago

Asking the same questions, and some more:

I like the idea, and the app looks cool. I just wish there was a way to just get the audio streams from these channels and have the video constantly looping be embedded into the app or something.

The reason why I don't stay tuned to the YT channels is exactly because of ads, and I don't like my bandwidth being consumed by video when I'm not watching anything.

yellowapple2• 6 years ago

The reason why I don't stay tuned to the YT channels is exactly because of ads

This is why God gave us ad blockers :)

skipants2• 6 years ago

I had to implement something similar to this a few years ago. I scoured the ToS to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong by removing the GUI. IIRC it was totally fine as long as you still link to the youtube video.

As for ads -- I don't remember how we dealt with those. I don't think embeds show the pre-roll ads, only mid-video ads. Since this is a streaming video I assume it doesn't have those.

TekMol2• 6 years ago

How did you remove the GUI?

jmiskovic• 6 years ago

This is awesome! Looks very slick.

I'd have this open constantly if it had a pause button. Bonus points if there's a easy keyboard shortcut.

This kind of music increases my productivity enormously. Part of it is there's no lyrics and rhythm is interesting but steady. The other part is my brain associates this music with productive coding so it's easier to get into the zone.

nagarjun• 6 years ago

+1 for pause button

MasterOfCone• 6 years ago

You need a pause button, I can't use this without it.

dharma1• 6 years ago

would be nice to see what each track playing is and who made it, rather than have it reduced to anonymous muzak

wazoox• 6 years ago

Some playlists have the info, some others don't.

Maxence• 6 years ago

Pause button, volume slider... lets code it :) thanks for the feedback!

konart3• 6 years ago

I need some sort of extension that would "cut" out the beats from all those lofi music so I can actually concentrate.

soylentcola• 6 years ago

Just the kick/low-end drum beats, or all of the rhythm (only leaving the melody)? Just curious. Sometimes I listen to relaxing music or videos on headphones when I can't sleep and I use the EQ on my phone to cut low frequencies. If it's all of the drum/rhythm that distracts you I don't know of a good solution other than finding music that's all melody and no rhythm.

konart3• 6 years ago

Just the most distinct ones. I'm not agains drums or anything like that (hell, I usually code with heave metal in my headphones), but it's one thing when it's part of the picture and a whole different thing when the music goes like this:

____..__._A_.___.___

Where A is the beat.

I'll try to do something using EQ (never though about this option for some reason)

eyyeyeyeyeyeye• 6 years ago

The tiny drop shadow on the text looks really good.

I enjoy a most of the music in this genre. But a lot of the tracks use effects that makes me nauseous, heavy stereo panning and some sort of woomwoom feeling sound (is this "ducking"?). Makes it impossible for me to listen with headphones. Bearable on low volume on laptop speakers.

filleduchaos3• 6 years ago

A bit of a tangent, but this sort of music actually makes it near impossible for me to concentrate.

Instead, I have what I call "loop songs", which are selected favourite tracks that span a range of genres from fairly heavy metal to Afrobeats. When I want to focus I pick a loop song and set it to repeat (the ideal volume varies per song, but is typically moderately loud). I can't explain how or why but it settles my brain far, far better than any white noise or "chill" playlist I've tried.

It's also a point of humour with my friends because they're horrified that I listen to the same song hundreds of times over a couple of days, while I'm perplexed that they can actually get tired of listening to a song to the point of disliking it.

lm2s• 6 years ago

That makes sense to me and I think it's the principle being mantras, repetition gets someone into a state of trance.

Although I don't know if I would be able to loop just one song, I do repeat albums that I like. So I put a few albums that I like and have listened to many, _many_ times, on queue. Already knowing the songs makes my brain settle (or at least reduces the cognitive(?) load a lot), and sometimes I even discovered "new sounds".

specialist• 6 years ago

Same.

My personal theory is the predictability allows you to tune it out, making it invisible to your conscious brain.

Based on my half-baked understanding of Jeff Hawkin's theory that our brains are wired to notice differences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Intelligence

codeyperson• 6 years ago

Me too! I can't have it too loud though. But same song, on loop for an hour or so. I think the feeling of the headphones over my ears acts as an unconscious trigger to concentrate too.

zeta0134• 6 years ago

I do this sometimes with a single song, but I've found much more success with entire soundtracks from video games, especially Nintendo games, though mostly for nostalgia reasons. The different songs add just enough variety that I don't get bored, but usually the entire soundtrack has a consistent volume, style, and often mood. Plus these songs very rarely have any distracting vocals.

I'm musical in general, having grown up doing various band activities, so there's always a song playing upstairs. Having something external to listen to simply allows me to switch tracks.

jtxx• 6 years ago

same! all about getting “in the zone”. I usually go for house/techno DJ mixes or some sort of cool drumming. lol tangent but you might like this digeridoo one... https://youtu.be/FHpTYVOWin4

cvhashim2• 6 years ago

Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress apparently listens to one Kanye song on repeat, up to 4 hours. I guess it works for him.

martin_a2• 6 years ago

Which one? "African Americans in the capitol of France"? Personally I find hip hop/rap music rather hard to "relax" to.

pwenzel• 6 years ago

I have a very similar progress, but my favorite loop-genre to work with is grindcore. Highly recommend Magrudergrind: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB290E30AC7EEFAFB. I have listened to this album many hundreds of times by now.

ddoeth• 6 years ago

Tried it, definetly can't concentrate with grindcore.

faitswulff• 6 years ago

I listen to the Nujabes homework edit songs for the same reason. They’re basically multi-hour long. seamlessly repeating cuts of a chill song.

ohsonice• 6 years ago

I used to listen to Bach's Musical Offering when studying for my qualifying exams. I think the repetition of the main theme through the piece contributed to my focus

valand• 6 years ago

Me too. It might be caused by the crackling sound, the dominant instruments being melodic instrument in midtones/treble, or the amount of highpass filter applied to the music. It might relate with the frequency you're comfortable with (for example, I'm not really comfortable with the frequency of typewriter or the voice of my project manager near deadline :p)

I loop GTA V soundtracks for driving, the curation seems to be optimized for it https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2YYOp3xA7HcgZQ5hhRJuK1?si=...

While I loop meshuggah's whole album for working. The polyrhythmical barrage of riff is cathartic.

wnscooke• 6 years ago

I do the same, but the reason, as I’ve thought about it, is that it is of course a song I like, with a nice groove, and when I press Repeat for hours, the effect is that whenever I have a momentary lull or break in my work, what I hear is a snippet of this music that I like, and I can groove with it for a second or a few minutes, it isn’t something new that will grab my attention away from my work. So it isn’t even background music because I’m not listening to it in the background. It is music to keep me on track when those brief lulls arrive (like waiting for something to compile, or upload, or render).

toyg• 6 years ago

They have the radios on Spotify, your smart tv probably has an app for that.

If you mean the video part, wouldn’t it be a bit distracting? Still, I think webos-based TVs (LG) have a webkit browser that might be able to handle it. Edit: nope, they are not. Sadface.jpg

quantumwoke• 6 years ago

I don't know if it's just my Chrome browser but this website doesn't load at all for me and just hangs on a black screen. The only relevant extension I have is uBlock and uMatrix.

vaccinator• 6 years ago

uMatrix breaks many websites if you don't mess with it constantly.

jermeh• 6 years ago

This is so close to being a tab I'll constantly have open for coding. Simple volume and pause controls make this a 10/10 site. Awesome job!!

nowledge• 6 years ago

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-_qA0nelfNc

doesn't get any better than that for me.

monkeycantype• 6 years ago

I'm looking for almost this, except I don't want music, I would like the white noise of people in a public space where don't speak english. Any recommendations?

terrycody• 6 years ago

I love this soooo much!

Show HN: Lofimusic.app, an open source Background Music Progressive Web App

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