In the late 2000s I hosted an Icecast server for our IRC channel and we had regular "radio" shows presented by channel members. It was great fun. Sometimes people who were in close proximity in real life would turn up as "guests" on other people's shows. We did a thing where people in the channel could pick songs for the show etc.
I know, I know, it's classic to look back wistfully, but I really feel like something was lost in the past 15 years or so. We just cobbled together this stuff from simple components and had fun. I didn't require a PhD to get your head around it, I feel like people were more clever because you kinda needed to be. Nowadays if something isn't part of the shiny web app you're just shit out of luck. Back then we'd just do another hack and it was all good.
The way I think about, Pulse is an attempt to part ways from the traditional "Algos" and other machine based recommendation systems (which is what I think of as the real "shiny web")... and get back to listening to real people and just vibing with them while each one does their own thing.
People running a Sandstorm server might be interested in an app in the same vein called Groove Basin. But it's a single shared stream, and you upload tracks to a library and play queue (rather than streaming from one person's own computer).
I feel the two feel very different in their initial onboarding. OP's project comes across as a quick tool that just "works," while hangout.fm feels like a bigger commitment, moving away from a mini tech tool and being a music-oriented project which can feel intimidating for people that aren't really knowledgeable in the music sphere.
Heh, anyone remember MixApp (2008ish?) (streaming your own mp3s to chatrooms, this decade you could probably rebuild it on top of tailscale, it was more shaped like that than modern streaming...)
This is cool! Just hosted a stream but there were a few bugs/issues.
1. Streamed via Blackhole and music was constantly slowing down for me, not sure if listeners had similar experience.
2. Couldn't unmute my mic so you could hear me breathing in the bg at times.
3. If I refreshed the page I couldn't go back to hosting my room. How can I do this?
4. If I blocked my mic all music stopped and re-adding it wouldn't go back to streaming.
From mobile or tablet? Currently hosting (and audio sharing) should be possible only from Desktop unfortunately.
Anyways, thank you for your comment. We'll investigate. If you want us to follow up with you, please drop us your email using the FEEDBACK form on the left side, referring to this message.
1. I created a room but after refreshing lost it and then couldn't rejoin or recreate the room
2. Setup is a bit of a painful (had to install software and then still couldn't get audio to work from Rekordbox) so if that could be simplified it would be cool
3. I like the chat, makes me feel like I missed out on the IRC era
If you are willing to try again once I will have replicated (with Rekordbox) and solved your use case, please drop us your email using the FEEDBACK form on the left side of the page.
Thank you for trying and for taking the time of letting us know.
No I agree, I doubt it is a Rekordbox specific issue. If that outputs the audio as system audio, it should be doable. Thing is we developed testing mostly in Mac, so we need to pull up a Windows and actually try to replicate for longer.
Re. password... we landed on requiring a password to create the room to let you retain the "HOST" status. E.g., if you disconnect and go back ... need password to authenticate as HOST so that you won't lose your room to the first stranger that finds it empty
But all rooms are open. Password is just a "Recovery password". I will update now the description text to this
Might be the same issue for me, Firefox 137.0 on Linux.
When I click on a room, the URL changes, indicating I might have joined the room, but I don't get any audio. No audio icon on the tab. Can't hear anything.
Console says "WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details"
I don't have WebRTC specifically disabled that I recall, I thought I've taken video calls in this Firefox before. Hope this report helps!
Stack: LiveKit (WebRTC), Next.js, Node.js, Neon Postgres, AudD for music recognition.
What's new in 2.0:
Stream from browser tab or system audio (BlackHole/VB-Cable)
Music recognition with automatic deduplication and "winner selection"
24/7 demo rooms (NTS Radio, SomaFM, and yes... Money For Nothing on loop)
See Lobby rooms from inside a room
Push-to-talk overlay for hosts
Automatically add emotes dropping 7tv.app link in the emoji popup in the chat
Happy to answer any questions! PS. Audio can be shared only by desktop at the moment. Not mobile
PS2: Mic doens't work
In the late 2000s I hosted an Icecast server for our IRC channel and we had regular "radio" shows presented by channel members. It was great fun. Sometimes people who were in close proximity in real life would turn up as "guests" on other people's shows. We did a thing where people in the channel could pick songs for the show etc.
I know, I know, it's classic to look back wistfully, but I really feel like something was lost in the past 15 years or so. We just cobbled together this stuff from simple components and had fun. I didn't require a PhD to get your head around it, I feel like people were more clever because you kinda needed to be. Nowadays if something isn't part of the shiny web app you're just shit out of luck. Back then we'd just do another hack and it was all good.
This was super cool to read about!
The way I think about, Pulse is an attempt to part ways from the traditional "Algos" and other machine based recommendation systems (which is what I think of as the real "shiny web")... and get back to listening to real people and just vibing with them while each one does their own thing.
Team is 2 people, with $0 spent ex tech
People running a Sandstorm server might be interested in an app in the same vein called Groove Basin. But it's a single shared stream, and you upload tracks to a library and play queue (rather than streaming from one person's own computer).
My project https://hangout.fm/ does this based on turntable.fm and its legal and licensed and pays artists
I feel the two feel very different in their initial onboarding. OP's project comes across as a quick tool that just "works," while hangout.fm feels like a bigger commitment, moving away from a mini tech tool and being a music-oriented project which can feel intimidating for people that aren't really knowledgeable in the music sphere.
So sick. We've been using this at work (we're a small team - 6 people) and it's just so much fun. Great work! Thank you so much!
Heh, anyone remember MixApp (2008ish?) (streaming your own mp3s to chatrooms, this decade you could probably rebuild it on top of tailscale, it was more shaped like that than modern streaming...)
And plug.dj!
This is cool! Just hosted a stream but there were a few bugs/issues.
1. Streamed via Blackhole and music was constantly slowing down for me, not sure if listeners had similar experience. 2. Couldn't unmute my mic so you could hear me breathing in the bg at times. 3. If I refreshed the page I couldn't go back to hosting my room. How can I do this? 4. If I blocked my mic all music stopped and re-adding it wouldn't go back to streaming.
Thank you for reporting these, we'll look into them and be back.
I see the marquee with "host a room" and arrows pointing up.
But I don't see a button or anything to actually host a room.
I can only join rooms.
Using Android Chrome.
From mobile or tablet? Currently hosting (and audio sharing) should be possible only from Desktop unfortunately.
Anyways, thank you for your comment. We'll investigate. If you want us to follow up with you, please drop us your email using the FEEDBACK form on the left side, referring to this message.
1. I created a room but after refreshing lost it and then couldn't rejoin or recreate the room
2. Setup is a bit of a painful (had to install software and then still couldn't get audio to work from Rekordbox) so if that could be simplified it would be cool
3. I like the chat, makes me feel like I missed out on the IRC era
Mac or Windows?
If you are willing to try again once I will have replicated (with Rekordbox) and solved your use case, please drop us your email using the FEEDBACK form on the left side of the page.
Thank you for trying and for taking the time of letting us know.
Windows. Was the issue specific to Rekordbox, if so how?
No I agree, I doubt it is a Rekordbox specific issue. If that outputs the audio as system audio, it should be doable. Thing is we developed testing mostly in Mac, so we need to pull up a Windows and actually try to replicate for longer.
Ah got it. I'll try again tomorrow, it's possible I was just being stupid.
Not able to join any room on Chrome and Windows
Also seems to require a password to host a room (can't just leave it open?)
Thank you for the report, we'll look into that.
Re. password... we landed on requiring a password to create the room to let you retain the "HOST" status. E.g., if you disconnect and go back ... need password to authenticate as HOST so that you won't lose your room to the first stranger that finds it empty
But all rooms are open. Password is just a "Recovery password". I will update now the description text to this
I clicked everything on the page but couldn't figure out how to join a room. Clicking a room card no worky. I can however view song history
Hanging out in https://473999.net/pulse/ok
(That's a direct link to a current stream, with a few casual chat'ters)
what browser / device are you using? this is not something I encountered when trying with a few different ones :/
Might be the same issue for me, Firefox 137.0 on Linux.
When I click on a room, the URL changes, indicating I might have joined the room, but I don't get any audio. No audio icon on the tab. Can't hear anything.
Console says "WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details"
I don't have WebRTC specifically disabled that I recall, I thought I've taken video calls in this Firefox before. Hope this report helps!
Thank you so much for reporting these, we'll fix shortly
linux kde plasma wayland with vivaldi
How do you create your own room? How do you connect system audio to a browser?
really awesome, going to leave it running in a tab probably til 2026
Gurunath
neat!