How to generate some music with SoundHelix and save it to MP3
2013-01-29
- Download SoundHelix. It is an algorithmic random music composer distributed under a GPL license.
- Unpack the binary zip archive.
- Edit configuration file examples/SoundHelix-Piano.xml; uncomment
midiFilename
tag (to save results in midifiles/) mkdir midifiles
- Run as
java -jar SoundHelix.jar examples/SoundHelix-Piano.xml -s 'Some song name'
. Song name seeds the random number generator. A MIDI file is saved tomidifiles/
. - Convert MIDI to WAV (install timidity++ and freepats if necessary):
timidity midifiles/Some_song_name-device1.mid -Ow
. - Convert WAV to MP3 (install lame if necessary):
lame --preset medium midifiles/Some_song_name-device1.{wav,mp3}
. - Important: tag MP3 as generated by SoundHelix, it is requested by the author; I use id3v2:
id3v2 -a "$(java -jar SoundHelix.jar --version)" -t 'Some song name' -y $(date +%Y) -g 'Algorithmic Composition' midifiles/Some_song_name-device1.mp3