Data-Driven DJ Track 1: Two Trains

You can listen to this track and read the full description here.

Software Required

All software required for making this song from scratch is free and open-source

Create a tab-delimited stations.csv file based on stations.csv.sample file and place in folder /data

Month Income column is what is being used by the script as the "budget" of the station
Latitude and Longitude are being used to determine the distance between stations

Create a tab-delimited instruments.csv file based on instruments.csv.sample file and place in folder /data

Price column is what the station uses to determine what instruments it can afford based on its Month Income column from stations.csv
Bracket Min and Bracket Max is the income bracket range this instrument is valid for. For example if Bracket Min equals 90, only the top 10% based on median income can use this instrument.
File is the filename of the instruments sound file
From Gain and To Gain is the volume range this instrument can oscillate between. A value of 0 is silent.
From Tempo and To Tempo is the tempo range this instrument can oscillate bewteen. A value of 1 is standard BPM, 2 is twice as fast, 0.5 is twice as slow.
Gain Phase is the number of beats that represent a full phase of an instrument's gain range. For example, if the gain phase is 16, gain min is 0, and gain max is 1, it will take 16 beats to go from 0 gain to 1 gain back to 0 gain.
Gain Tempo is the number of beats that represent a full phase of an instrument's tempo range. For example, if the tempo phase is 16, tempo min is 1, and tempo max is 2, it will take 16 beats to go from a tempo of 1 to a tempo of 2 back to a tempo of 1.
Interval Phase, Interval, Interval Offset control at what intervals the instruments can play. For example, if interval phase is 16, interval is 2, and interval offset is 1, every 16 beats, the instrument can play on the 2nd half of the beats (8-16).
Active essentially activates or deactivates an instrument

Prepare all your sound files and place in folder /instruments. All files should be in .wav format. For best results, I'd recommend using very short clips (< 500ms).

BPM is the song's beats per minute. I'd recommend using 60, 75, 100, 120, or 150. You will otherwise run the risk of having rounding errors caused by flaws in this script--sorry!
METERS_PER_BEAT is the amount of meters per beat. In general, the higher this number, the shorter the song.
DIVISIONS_PER_BEAT is how the beats are divided. For example, a value of 4 would create quarter-notes as the smallest unit, 8 would create eighth-notes, etc.

padding is the amount of milliseconds before and after the song.
instrument_buffers is the number of buffers each instrument has. If you hear clipping in your song, you will want to increase this number.

Run python subway.py in the project's directory. This will generate two files that ChucK will use:

Open up subway.ck in ChucK. You can either export the song to .ogg/.wav or start your VM and add a new shred

Open visualization/stations/stations.pde in Processing. This script generates a scrolling station visualization.

this script uses data (stations.json) generated from previous python script
set boolean captureFrames = true; to output frames to output folder
run script, this will generate frames at the framerate (fps) in the configuration.

Open visualization/map/map.pde in Processing. This script generates a map showing the train's progress.

this script uses data (stations.json) generated from previous python script
set boolean captureFrames = true; to output frames to output folder
run script, this will generate frames at the framerate (fps) in the configuration.