Stem player

The stem player is a rock. It feels like a knapping stone in my hand.

It dropped in an opaque way, and people have built a cargo cult around it.

It is very cool. Still limited, but it feels like the first new instrument since the synth.

Like, DAWs take all the musical constructs of the 20th century and package them up into software. But the stem player packages up some of those same effects into a new physical mnemonic.

When I said cargo cult I meant only that it comes with few instructions, and people have built a Reddit and a Discord and a Wiki and YouTube explainers and a Google Drive full of stems, etc.

Until watching this video I did not realize I could do effects mode.

This document has me convinced that I can, if I am careful, delete Donda album stems. But I will have to edit config files by hand.

If I have to do this more than once I will be speaking with my Python kernel.

Stem Player Community Manual docs.google.com

DONDA STEM PLAYER Community Manual By: Gare Manual Last Updated: Dec. 17, 2021 Latest Stem Player Version: 1.0.1636 Join the Discord for Community Support and Discussion: https://discord.gg/stemplayer The Official Manual (Scans from VoxelJar) Basic Player Functions The Stem Pla...

That’s the stem player community wiki. It is 17 pages long.

The first 3 pages are a scan of the original comic-style manual, which is very cool and opaque. It is a little frustrating that I had to do internet archaeology to find it, so I’m linking it here for my future self.

The wiki is written by an earnest group of (gamers / teenagers)? who are reverse engineering the stem player’s internal state. It is helpful.

However as a coder I think, I should automate this. And then open source a library. It is not as hard as they’re making it sound.

Of course, I understand that updates will come, that’s the advantage of software, ship the MVP, Kanye patches his albums, blah blah blah. There should be, and will eventually be, a universal interface to the musical potato device. If not by the makers, then by the hackers.

For legal reasons I would never risk the integrity of my stem player or do anything weird with it.

Of course I like it! It has little nubs. It’s made with Advanced Vibrator Technology. It’s the coolest most 2021 object you could have.

Also I am an idiot so whatever.

Me with my

Those four words everyone waits their life to hear

“Developer tools coming soon”

🙌

And yes tbc the stem player website allows some file management. As well as the stemming itself, which is awesome!

I just am in the very tiny minority of users who already have spleeter installed on my GPU machine, so I want to treat it as a filesystem.

One more thing if I have your attention.

One possibility I didn’t see people mention in your thread.

It would be cool to do “beats one and three are switched” type remixes. With something like https://github.com/beat-machine/beat-machine which I have used before.

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