We've got more details on Beaterator from Rockstar's web developer
(unofficially, of course, but he has some interesting info on how it
came about, as a predecessor to the very-cool 2001 creation Rhymerator.)
Now, if Rockstar could just create a killer music video game . . .
Hit read more for details.
Most of the technical details you could guess — the genius is that
they actually developed it. Macromedia, color us impressed. Thanks
again, Josh and Lane, for bringing this to our attention, and Jerry,
for sharing your incredibly cool work.
Jerry Luna writes us:
"[Beaterator] is an idea that my boss had thought of years
ago, but we didn't have the time or manpower to do it, until the
beginning of last year. it was finished last April, but given our
schedule we weren't able to release it. After all, we are a gaming
company first and foremost."The technology behind Beaterator is something that sort of evolved
during the process of building it. We tried many different ways to
accomplish some of the more complicated things like BPM changes,
creating loops, and compiling sequenced songs into MP3 format. The
sequencer itself is done in ActionScript, and the respository of
"stock" sounds is also done through the Flash Player. Any sound
"changes" are done on the server side, with XML as the transport
mechanism, and then sent back to the Flash player after it's
processed. Obviously i don't want to get too detailed about the
technology." [Ed: Of course! I think I speak for all my readers by saying that none of us will be able to replicate this. -PK]"I'm not much of a musician myself, but have used both hardware and
software sequencers in the past, beginning with cakewalk years ago, and
more recently using reason and cubase. i also DJ, so i have some
knowledge from that side of the spectrum as well. There are a lot of
people here at Rockstar that are passionate about music, so it was easy
to get suggestions and feedback by having them play around with it for
a bit."And while i doubt anyone would ever perform with this, i've heard some
really interesting and varied songs made by users so far, and it's only
been up since friday. that's a really rewarding feeling, since i
put alot of love into this, as it combines what i do here at Rockstar
(web development) and what i'm interested in personally (music)."