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Thread: Robot Mandolin Player

  1. #1
    Registered User Miltown's Avatar
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    Default Robot Mandolin Player


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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    That's crazy! And cool! And not really playing a mandolin. More of a harp made out of a mandolin. The string spacing at the bridge has been changed so that each string can be plucked independently. Each string is tuned to a specific note in the piece and the robot has been programmed to pluck specific strings.
    Not a whole lot different than a music box where the tones of a song are fixed and the turning wheel plucks each one as programmed by the tines on the wheel. Still impressive that the picking arm is actuated with stepper motors that I presume are programmable, like the arm of a CNC machine or automated drill press. I don't think Sam Bush should worry much for his job being automated anytime soon. Though that would be an interesting ending to the movie Revival 2: The Sam Bush Story, Electric Boogaloo.
    Actually, maybe the tuning machines could be automated with Gibson's auto tuner and programmed to change string pitch. That might be interesting.

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    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    I imagine at some point there will be an algorithm that would include small hesitations so that it feels more like music and less like a metronome.
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    Registered User Jeff Budz's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    What kind of pick was it using?

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    As my daughter said, "it sounds like a robot playing a mandolin." But what happens when the technology improves? I'm picturing some poor soul, replaced by a robot at work, thinking, "Well, at least I can pursue my dream of being a musician." Just when he's ready to be booked in bars, his local is featuring "R2D2 and the Vacuum Cleaners", playing bluegrass on Monday nights, blues on Tuesdays, rock on Wednesdays... All with a Greyhound Rhythm Track (if you don't know what that is, ask yer grampa).
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    It just raises the bar, that's all. There are flesh and blood musicians now today whose playing is pretty robotic. Inhumanly so in some cases.

    If you cannot do something that transcends what the robot can do, IMO, at some point who needs you. We are not going to beat robots for speed or articulation, but I think it will be a very long time, if ever, before a robot has much non-derivitave non-emulated musicality and/or expressiveness.

    Will a robot "get" the internal drama of a tune like "Wild Rose of the Mountain" or a Scarlatti piece, and be able to bring that out? Will a robot know what "Long Black Veil" is about and be able to play it with empathy? Will a robot know you have heard "Red Wing" a million times and so strive to do something interesting with it?

    So if you strive to play more musically you are already beating the robots. And if you strive merely for accuracy at high speed, well the robots will be ahead of you real soon.

    My opinion, YMMV and all.
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    Registered User Miltown's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by Jeff Budz View Post
    What kind of pick was it using?
    Someone get that robot a Blue Chip.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    For me,that certainly is one very boring robot...

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    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    Will a robot "get" the internal drama of a tune like "Wild Rose of the Mountain" or a Scarlatti piece, and be able to bring that out? Will a robot know what "Long Black Veil" is about and be able to play it with empathy? Will a robot know you have heard "Red Wing" a million times and so strive to do something interesting with it?
    I agree with your eloquent argument, Jeff. In fact, it reminds me of the arguments drummers were making about the Greyhound Rhythm Track. Then came the disco era, with improved automatic drum machines, when drummers found themselves short of work.

    Actually my tongue was planted firmly in cheek when I wrote Post #5. I think mandolin players are pretty safe as we're mostly way beyond the fringe of popular music. I don't doubt that the ability for a robot to reproduce a masterful mandolin solo exists or will exist, but why bother, except to prove it can be done? We already have recordings of the modern masters. By the way, is there a tongue-in-cheek emoticon?
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Now that's wrong, that durn thing plays better than i do.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Robot players... Robot writers... it's a brave new world we're setting up

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by Miltown View Post
    In the End the Machines Will Win

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by DaveGinNJ View Post
    In the End the Machines Will Win
    You got that right!

    Surgical Robot "Spirals Out Of Control", Kills Man As Docs Sipped Lattes

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    working musician Jim Bevan's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    I don't think that robots playing "with feeling" is all that unachievable. My day gig is playing the piano, but it's a digital piano I'm using – I've recorded my parts (in case I'm out sick or something), it sounds great, lots of feeling, nice phrasing etc, but I'm very aware that what I played could've been recorded as a midi file, and any laptop (which is, what, half of a robot?), given the same digital piano, could recreate my performance exactly. A midi file quantizes every note into (1) when it's played, (2) what volume it's played at, and (3) how long the note is sustained – I don't know the details of how much 1 and 3 are being quantized, but I do know that 2 is quantized into 128 different volume levels – seems that that's enough info, all the notes taken as a whole, to convey 90+% of whatever a performer was feeling at the time of the performance. (And the day will come when those quantize parameters get upped to levels beyond what the human ear can discern.) Plus, the digital piano has multiple recorded "samples" of each note, divided into I don't know how many levels (but I'm sure that there aren't 128) that produce a tone that matches the volume (the louder notes are also brighter, have more attack etc). So sure, it's not a real piano, but does the feeling that a pianist plays with get through? Did Leon Russell's performance on a digital piano move me? You bet it did.
    Building a robot, a mechanical machine, to actually play the piano "live" is certainly not easy, but getting it to play with feeling (somebody else's feeling, obviously) is the least of the challenges. Mandolins aren't digital pianos, of course, but I suspect that the existence of the technology required to duplicate a moving mandolin performance is only limited by the "who cares?" factor.

    For that matter, who actually does care? Given the choice, what would you rather listen to? Bill Thile on YouTube, or Bill's mandolin (or your Collings) sitting in your living room, played by a robot recreating a midi file'd recording of Bill? We entered this Brave New World with the dawn of recorded music – now we're just choosing our entertainment options, knowing full well that the real thing, within our lifetimes, will always be incomparable.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by bratsche View Post
    A side branch off-- that article is BS. The source is a highly dubious one. The article makes it sound like the surgeon just told the robot what to do and then went off to sip latte. As an OR nurse I worked with the Da Vinci robot and that's impossible.The robot simply mimics the hand and foot motions of the surgeon who sits in a little booth off to the side. It does this very precisely and accurately and is only as good as the surgeon at the helm. There are all sorts of safety,failsafe features incorporated into the machine.
    That's not to say that injuries and deaths haven't occurred with this robot but they've been more on the lines of equipment shutdown (in which case there are tableside surgical assistants who can take over until the Doc is ready to complete the operation),electrical shocks,etc. Those are pretty rare and I never saw them happen, but they definitely must be considered.
    For certain operations like radical prostatectomy,the robot has some real advantages. Unfortunately, some Docs use it to do procedures that can be done equally well and often faster using standard laparoscopic techniques. It also adds considerably to the cost of an operation.
    There, I feel better now
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Next step is to set up actuators over each fret... not difficult to program (standard midi with some sort of algorithm for string choice)

    [shudders]

    Of course, by that point you have so much robotic hardware that I am sure you are affecting the sound.

    [sigh of relief]

    C

  20. #18
    Registered User Ranald's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl23 View Post
    Of course, by that point you have so much robotic hardware that I am sure you are affecting the sound.
    I anticipate a future need in this area. Are there any venture capitalists out there who want to be first to invest in my robot-mandolin-toneguard company?
    Robert Johnson's mother, describing blues musicians:
    "I never did have no trouble with him until he got big enough to be round with bigger boys and off from home. Then he used to follow all these harp blowers, mandoleen (sic) and guitar players."
    Lomax, Alan, The Land where The Blues Began, NY: Pantheon, 1993, p.14.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Where can I order one of these Monroebots?
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    MandolaViola bratsche's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by Paul Busman View Post
    A side branch off-- that article is BS. The source is a highly dubious one. The article makes it sound like the surgeon just told the robot what to do and then went off to sip latte.
    It was a sensationalist headline, but the article seems pretty accurate otherwise. The surgeon's training with the robot was highly inadequate, so he never should have attempted this, or been allowed anywhere near the machine. And the two proctors, who were the experts on the robot and the ones who left early, whether for latte or lunch, "could not have stepped in to take over, as they were not registered with the General Medical Council". Definitely looks like 100% the surgeon's fault here (he has been "dismissed", so let's hope he's an "ex-surgeon"). The robot was just an unwitting participant. Dunno about any "failsafe features", though....

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-46107664

    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-46143940

    There, I feel better now
    Unfortunately, retired music teacher Stephen Pettitt, who would have had a 98% or better chance of success with conventional surgery, is still dead. R.I.P.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Well, they already got me beat at chess...

    Guess we need to invent a mandolin oriented Turing test of some sort.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Is Skynet is getting ready to go live? Bill Monro-bot and Bluegrass Droids.

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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Soon the only posts will be by bots sent out to communicate for the bots playing our music. Looks like we're being outsourced boys!
    Blessings

  27. #24
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Robot Mandolin Player

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Bevan View Post
    I don't think that robots playing "with feeling" is all that unachievable. ... getting it to play with feeling (somebody else's feeling, obviously) is the least of the challenges.
    That has been possible for a long time. Since Edison invented recording on cylinders.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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