Last weekend we welcomed over 100 music and tech enthusiasts to Music Hack Day, a 24 hour hackathon at our central Paris HQ. It was an intense weekend: projects came to life, new friends were made, and the boundaries of music tech were pushed!
The catering seemed to go down well too. Parisian-style breakfasts, a New York hot dog van in the garden, energy drinks for night-time hacking, and endless beer for good times. What more does a hacker need?
One of the participants, Carl Anderson, explained his innovative project titled ‘Professor Xavier’ and gave a rundown on the vibe of the weekend:
“My project was about mind control. The goal was to control a music player using a cheap electro-encephalogram which worked pretty well in the end. By the end of the weekend you could start the music player by relaxing, and control the volume. Pretty cool!
The atmosphere was great: lots of music plus it was interesting to chat with smart people with tonnes of ideas. We also enjoyed a few good table football games, it wasn’t all hard work!”
Axel Calandre, the Deezer Platform Partnerships Manager who organised the event, summed it up nicely: “Innovative projects, brilliant and cool hackers, what a beautiful weekend!”. Thanks to the API partners who flew in from around the world (Spotify, SoundCloud, Rdio, Echonest, Gracenote, Musicmetric, Music Story, Musixmatch, SACEM, SendGrid, SonicAPI, Sony CSL). Last but certainly not least, thank you to all participants for your effort and inspiring creativity.
Read up on all the projects (including an app to ‘brutalise’ pop songs, and technology to visualise the mood of music), and get a glimpse of the weekend with this video.
The next Music Hack Day will take place in Barcelona on the 13th and 14th of June 2013. See you there!
