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How Spotifly songs sound

From the WaveFern Wiki

Every song you make has its own instrumental that you can play from your Spotifly artist page. The tracks are not stored as audio files. The game writes each one in the browser when you press play, from a few numbers saved with the song.[1]

One seed per song

When you record a song it gets a random number called a seed. The seed picks everything about the beat:

  • a beat style from the song's genre (see Genres and genre focus)
  • the tempo, within that style's range
  • the key, and a major or minor scale
  • a chord progression
  • which drum pattern variations play, and small changes to the drum sounds
  • a hook melody, made up note by note

The same seed always gives the same beat, so a song sounds the same every time you play it, on any device. Collabs and band songs get their own seed too.

The sounds

Most of the sounds are made in code with the browser's audio engine: drums, basses, keys, plucked guitars and synths. On top of that, some sounds are recorded samples:

  • Melodic one-shots (keys, basses, bells, brass, plucks, flutes, strings and more). Each song picks one sample per instrument from its seed, so a bass never changes sound halfway through.
  • The recorded 808s and hi hats you can pick under Extras when you make a song (see Extras: diss tracks, 808s and hi hats).

Some of these sounds come from tumfy's free kits.

Song structure

A song on Spotifly plays an intro, then verses and hooks with a short bridge, and loops after that. A festival or tour set uses a livelier order that gets to the hook sooner, and a recording session plays a short version under the minigames.

Where you hear it

  • Under the minigames while you record
  • On your Spotifly artist page, with the play button on each song
  • During festival sets and tour shows, where each song in the setlist plays its own beat

The background music you hear while walking around is different: that is the game's soundtrack, made by Rowan Burton (see Credits).

See also

References

  1. ^ 67-beats.js. WaveFern Records source code, game v47.9.0.
  2. ^ 132-808-hats.js. WaveFern Records source code, game v47.9.0.
Category: Music