DADABOTS

DADABOTS is an audio analysis tool. A two-person music hacking band using open source neural nets and PyTorch to generate extreme metal, breakcore and drum and bass, with 24/7 livestreams, albums, a documentary on prompting music live, and bookings for shows, talks and workshops.

DADABOTS is a band, not a software vendor. The duo of Zack and CJ describes itself as music hackers working with DIY neural nets, open source tooling, PyTorch and Ableton, and the project sits at the meeting point of live performance and machine learning research. Their catalogue includes the Relentless Doppelganger neural technical death metal livestream inspired by Archspire, the WOW LOL EP (billed as kawaii deathcore drill and bass), an infinite remix of a DJ Dave track, a livecoding hydra breakcore set recorded at Unsound in Kraków, and the GENRE CANNON experiment. The band also ran a 24/7 livestream generating drum and bass, and produced PROMPT JOCKEYS, a documentary on DJing with a neural network where the tracks are prompted live rather than pre-written. The audience is narrow and specific. This is for experimental musicians, algorave and breakcore fans, machine learning hobbyists who want to see generative models pushed to unpleasant extremes, and event programmers looking for something stranger than a DJ set. Bookings listed on the site cover performance, dance parties, harsh noise sets, funerals and birthdays, artist residencies, keynote talks, hackathons, workshops and general mischief. The band also collaborates, so producers and researchers can approach them directly rather than buy a product. In practice there is no dashboard to log into. You follow the livestreams, watch the YouTube channel, listen on Bandcamp, and join the Discord to keep up with new releases and experiments. The FAQ and science pages are the places to read how the models are built and trained; the music pages collect the output. Anyone expecting a prompt-to-song web app will be disappointed, because the work is presented as art and research first. Among alternatives, DADABOTS is the opposite of commercial AI music generators. Consumer tools sell finished tracks from a text prompt; this project documents the process, publishes the methods, and treats failure and harshness as part of the sound. That makes it a reference point and an inspiration rather than a production utility.