Standout Hacks from Music Hack Day Boston 2011

Boston's Music Hack Day has come and gone with a bunch of interesting projects to show for the hackers' efforts. This was one of a number of ongoing Music Hack Day events that were founded by SoundCloud's Dave Haynes.  Though not all of the resulting projects are available for use, those that are offer a good look at the possibilities that can result from a single day of hardcore programming with access to music resources.

Music Hack Day Boston 2011 involved 250 hackers and resulted in 56 hacks some of which have already received a bit of media attention.

• Drinkify seems to be the most popular, judging from headline appearances. It's powered by The Echo Nest and Last.fm and features well-chosen homepage art. You tell it what music you're listening to and it tells you what to drink.
• Bohemian Rhapsichord, a "web app that turns the song Bohemian Rhapsody into a musical instrument", has also received a bit of understandable attention.
• So too has Spartify which helps pick Spotify songs for a party though I'm more intrigued by the 300-inspired graphic!

Not all hacks are readily available. For example, Album Covers, which "smash[es] a song into tiny pieces using the Echonest API and then…use[es] the album cover art as a schematic for putting those pieces back together" currently only has a demo wav file but sounds like a potentially very cool web app.

Others that caught my attention:

• Couch Tour – "Couch Surfing for bands"
• Hiptap.es – "Make your posters sing"
• The Videolizer – "Music visualizer that syncs dancing videos to any song"
• ClipSwitch – "A switch board with YouTube videos and sheet music to compare several performances of one score"
• Songalogue – "Making songs talk to each other"
• Snuggle – "Synchronize animated GIFs to jams of the future"

I'm sure you'll find favorites of your own on the complete list.

Though I haven't checked them all, you'll notice that use of The EchoNest's services occur over and over again. That's what happens when you open up your data for free experimentation. People make cool things and you become the center of the game.

Also at Hypebot: 2010 Music Hack Day Boston Winners

Hypebot contributor Clyde Smith maintains his freelance writing hub at Flux Research and blogs at All World Dance and This Business of Blogging. To suggest topics for Hypebot, contact: clyde(at)fluxresearch(dot)com.