[HN Gopher] Bubble Sorted Amen Break
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Bubble Sorted Amen Break
Author : eieio
Score : 230 points
Date : 2026-03-12 17:13 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (parametricavocado.itch.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (parametricavocado.itch.io)
| eieio wrote:
| (the amen break is one of the most commonly-sampled drum breaks
| in popular music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break)
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| And a tragic story at that:
|
| >Coleman died homeless and destitute in 2006. It was unlikely
| he was aware of the impact he had made on music. Neither he
| [band leader Spencer] nor Coleman received royalties for the
| break.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I've heard conflicting accounts about their knowledge and
| royalties.
|
| While I'm certain they didn't receive royalties from all
| artists, I heard many 80s artists did. And Amen Brothers took
| others to court. So they would have know about the use of the
| break.
|
| I will admit I haven't done any independent research into
| this matter personally. Just echoing accounts I've read and
| taking their reports at face value.
| corndoge wrote:
| > And Amen Brothers took others to court.
|
| Who is "Amen Brothers"?
| input_sh wrote:
| "Amen, Brother" is the name of the track it's from, so
| the parent is likely referring to the band.
| tialaramex wrote:
| A reminder that your society will be judged not on how the
| _most_ fortunate lived but how the _least_ fortunate lived.
| Context still matters but there 's a meaningful difference
| between "Anne Bronte died of Consumption (Tuberculosis), at
| that time there was no cure" and "Dave died of TB, he
| couldn't afford the cure at current market prices".
| verisimi wrote:
| Sure. Which is your society though?
| fragmede wrote:
| What is a mote in such a society to do though? Dave
| couldn't afford the cure, but neither can I. What do you
| suggest I do to make it affordable for both of us?
| creative-9 wrote:
| This is our manifesto. We are creative people. Here is our
| strategy for advancing creative work and supporting the
| people who do it.
|
| We upvote comments that completely miss the point of how
| this algorithm works. We upvote comments that claim the
| algorithm does nothing at all. We downvote comments about
| how the creator of the original drum break died destitute.
| legitster wrote:
| "Samples" were kind of like musical memes in the 1980s. What
| made for a good sample had a lot more to do with convenience
| and luck. The sounds that were picked for drum samples had
| more to do with how useful they were - the dynamic range, how
| isolated the drums are, how easy they were to mix.
|
| The other famous drum sample - the "Funky Drummer" as drummed
| by Clyde Stubblefield for James Brown, Stubblefield didn't
| think the particular drum pattern he used was particularly
| noteworthy. In that case, James Brown's production choices
| were actually more key - his signature sound revolved around
| really crisp drums that he insisted needed to be clear on AM
| Radio and Jukeboxes. Which is what made it so useful for
| sampling.
| WhiteOwlLion wrote:
| Samplers became accessible at the time which allowed music
| production with just loops. Look at snap I got the power.
| All looped samples
| input_sh wrote:
| I mean, look at any house or hip-hop track, sampling's
| like _the_ most fundamental part of both genres.
|
| The track you've mentioned is the prime example of the
| blend of those two genres. Before the term Eurodance
| caught on, this track would be referred to as hip-house
| (as in hip-hop + house). Chicago and the broader NY area
| did it first, but it was a Belgian track that first
| topped the US charts (Technotronic's Pump Up The Jam).
| ompogUe wrote:
| Reminds me of Motown's James Jamerson [1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jamerson
| araker wrote:
| That's true, though there was a community fundraising a while
| back. Many well known dnb and jungle dj's donated there.
|
| https://ra.co/news/28370
| exDM69 wrote:
| That's a fun two minutes for any computer scientist drum and bass
| fan.
| staplung wrote:
| Cool, but I don't see how it's sorting anything. It just seems to
| play a randomized arrangement of the slices. You can re-randomize
| as much as you like but there's no sort option as far as I can
| see.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| Give it a minute or two.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Did you play it to the end? It's absolutely sorting from
| smallest to largest. Unless you have a confused understanding
| of a bubble sort, it's doing a bubble sort
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Not the OP but I stopped listening pretty quickly because I
| was confused about how it was sorted.
|
| It wasn't until I read your comment that I realised the
| sorting happened while you were listening rather than before
| hand.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Same! thanks for saving the experience for me :)
| lxgr wrote:
| So it's sorting from earliest to latest, really?
| dylan604 wrote:
| The value that is being sorted isn't obvious to me. It's
| obvious that it is sorting it. I'm guessing maybe some dB
| level of each of the hits/notes. If that was the case, I'd
| expect the initial unsorted view to line up with the
| pattern of the waveforms which is _not_ the case. Maybe it
| 's just an unsorted list of values sorted in sync to the
| rhythm. It's weird though that the segment corresponds to a
| segment of the audio. I just don't see how they are linked.
| scrumper wrote:
| It's sorting by index of the slice. Pressing "shuffle"
| jumbles the slices up. So it puts the slices of the break
| back in the correct order. You never hear the result.
|
| Set it to 8 slices and it becomes easy to see what it's
| doing: look at the waveform and the now-playing highlight
| jumping around.
| joeypickles wrote:
| It randomizes slices of the sample and begins to play the
| slices in the random order. Meanwhile it begins the bubble sort
| algorithm at a pace that matches the tempo, sorting the slices
| into their chronological order. Throughout, it only plays the
| unsorted slices. (I was kinda hoping it would play the sorted
| sample at the end.)
| icambron wrote:
| I actually wanted it to play them as it went, so that it
| would be <unsorted><sorted> each time through, with the
| former shrinking and the latter growing.
| hyperhello wrote:
| You're right. It doesn't play the sorted parts, which is
| strange. I expected to have a series of random-then-controlled
| slices with the random part getting shorter and the controlled
| part getting longer, but it really is just a shortening loop of
| random beats.
| butlike wrote:
| Would have been cool if it played the sorted ones at the end
| as a final run through victory lap
| pdpi wrote:
| The idea is that it slices the Amen Break into however many
| slices you specify, and the list being sorted is the indices
| for those slices. At each step, it plays the slice the pivot is
| being compared to.
|
| Because it only plays the samples being compared, it never
| plays the sorted chunks, so it's missing a "punchline" of
| sorts.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| I was surprised at how _frustrating_ it was to not hear the
| sorted result at the end.
| sandwell wrote:
| It sounds like a Ventian Snares track. Love it.
| marssaxman wrote:
| I can't help laughing. This is great.
|
| I don't understand the comparison function, but it's really
| enjoyable listening to the algorithm work out its logic.
| cocodill wrote:
| It's comparing the t value.
| braebo wrote:
| No sound on iPhone. Shame Apple is so hostile to the web. Tragic
| really.
| quag wrote:
| iOS seems to mute the web audio apis when the phone is in
| silent mode (the switch on the side of the phone). If you
| toggle it on, then this site (and many others) play sound.
|
| I have no idea why it works this way and it's frequently
| annoying.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Why _wouldn 't_ it work that way? Whether it's a hardware
| toggle like on iPhone or a software one like in Android, I
| want silent to mean _silent_. Not "silent but if a web page
| decides to play sound it can".
| tialaramex wrote:
| There is some amount of the "Focus follows brain" problem
| here. What we _want_ is for things to do what we meant, all
| the time, and in this case it 's very possible that the
| visitor wanted to hear the music. It is not practical
| (without yet to invented technology) for that to work so we
| have a substitute - there's a switch and you should
| remember to press it.
|
| "Focus follows brain" is how everybody wants windowed UIs
| to work. When I type on the keyboard the letters go where
| my brain thought they should go - duh, but of course that's
| unimplementable, so the Windows UI provides "Click to
| focus" - if I click on a Window the typing goes there until
| I click another window, meanwhile some Unix systems do
| "Focus follows Mouse" - if I move the mouse over a Window
| then my typing goes there even without clicking. Neither is
| what we actually wanted, both are trying to approximate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Many many times I have music playing in the background
| from another app while browsing. So no, there's no way to
| focus follow brain. There's just no way for this device
| to know what I want unless I tell it
| relaxing wrote:
| The phone will still make sound if I launch a music app,
| why is a web page different?
|
| And I hate web pages making sound! But the UX is confusing,
| and it's changed over the years, seemingly without reason.
|
| Iphones now have a software toggle as well, which may have
| coincided with the shift from "mute ringer" to "mute
| (almost) everything" that came with the multifunction
| button.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| Because silent mode is for the _notifications_. App volume
| has its own dedicated buttons.
| probabletrain wrote:
| media sound is generally unaffected by the silent mode
| toggle, which apple suggests is only for notifications. but
| the toggle inconsistently affects media, muting some things
| but not others. it's incredibly frustrating. android has
| much better audio controls for notifications, media,
| alarms, and vibrate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| How old of an iPhone does one need to have that switch? My
| 6S+ has one, but a 15 doesn't.
| sertsa wrote:
| My 14 has the switch. I believe the 15 is when they
| switched to a programmable "action" button in place of the
| switch.
| fragmede wrote:
| I can hear it. Chrome on iOS 26.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| I would have expected it to be terrible to listen to, but it was
| pretty nice.
| moosehater wrote:
| Yup, this is essentially what the original concept of the
| Jungle genre was built around. Chop up the Amen Break, mix the
| notes(?) around, repeat them as you see fit, and add other
| samples/vocals around the drum patterns you've created.
|
| A couple favorites from the 90s:
|
| https://youtu.be/mL2Bgj-za5k?si=fhXHhNGjA-RZkiD7
|
| https://youtu.be/a5meT63flnM?si=ggvypNCFfUUq3Qxq
| robin_reala wrote:
| My personal prize for the most chopped amen goes to Breakage's
| Final mix of Equinox's Acid Rain VIP.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoKlz6_I4vY
| bouk wrote:
| Wow I've heard pieces of this but never the full thing,
| incredible
| jamal-kumar wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI5Qlo2Y6Jg
|
| Nice pick! Above that same song but not compressed to hell
|
| I like this one for amen stuff. Heavyweight Vol.4 - Untitled 7
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfyHx7SCn3g
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Worlds colliding here.
|
| We're dropping amen selections now?
|
| Some classics that sound like what the app is sortin':
|
| Remarc - Sound Murderer (Loafin' in Brockley Mix)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SUdpCVITxc
|
| Splash - Babylon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vghx8SEeH8
|
| DJ Krome & Mr. Time - The License
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPa5JBg8hZI
|
| Source Direct - Secret Liason
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfEWCVoB45s
|
| Danny Breaks - Droppin' Science Vol 1A
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqZT-Jse5rQ
| HelloUsername wrote:
| > We're dropping amen selections now?
|
| Futurama theme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz8HmN2uvuk
| butterknife wrote:
| Hype for Equinox in Sheffield on Sat
| araker wrote:
| Love that tune. Some of my personal favorites, amen andrews -
| jungle bunny, doc scott - here comes the drumz (breakage
| remix), loxy & ink - murder inc (twisted anger remix), pendulum
| - through the loop, dj hidden - times like these
| prmoustache wrote:
| I like Bruce Lee Mc by Quincy.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUqsDy3TD3Y
| oybng wrote:
| Automatic chopping has existed for decades, popularised here:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20051225061044/http://www.cus.ca...
| https://github.com/mdsp/Livecut See also, dblue Glitch,
| chrisGlitch, Renoise
| bzzzt wrote:
| Yes, and on many samplers too. The linked website looks like a
| 'lite' version of the slicer on my Elektron Octatrack ;)
| evereverever wrote:
| This is bonkers and I love it.
| uoaei wrote:
| I need WebGL to play audio on HTML pages now?
| probabletrain wrote:
| it's an application built with webgl that plays audio, rather
| than just an audio player
| empath75 wrote:
| Not playing it all the way through at the end is diabolical.
| nvader wrote:
| This deserves the top spot on the front page!
|
| Might I ask for the implementation of other sorting algorithms
| here?
| jatari wrote:
| -100 points for not having a volume slider.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Can someone explain the comparison function?
| Retr0id wrote:
| I wish it'd play through the whole thing in order at the end
| robot_jesus wrote:
| 100% this. Because I'm a masochist, I let it run through 128
| random slices. Took maybe 15 mins (wasn't timing or anything).
| Definitely deserved the payoff at the end to hear the whole
| thing.
| teach wrote:
| If you never play the original sample, you never have to worry
| about royalties.
|
| :rollsafe-think-about-it:
| matsz wrote:
| Funnily enough, there's a drum loop that's also frequently
| sampled in electronic music from a track titled "Think (About
| It)."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_(About_It)
| xg15 wrote:
| The unshuffled song: https://youtu.be/qwQLk7NcpO4 :)
|
| (Same here - though at least so I learned about the Amen
| Break.)
| telesilla wrote:
| You don't know it by heart even yet, after all the time it's
| been in countless songs?
| Retr0id wrote:
| I haven't heard it in the original order many times!
| ttyyzz wrote:
| 429 Too Many Requests
| ykl wrote:
| If you aren't familiar with the Amen Break, here's a now classic
| 18 minute documentary on the Amen Break and its origins and
| evolution:
|
| https://youtu.be/5SaFTm2bcac?si=J99_Sh9x3fIBCSms
| ge96 wrote:
| Different bubble sort
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4EMG63W388
|
| Or types of sorts
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| Can we get an Amen quicksort now?
| larodi wrote:
| tbh i expect it to be much more interesting if doing other kind
| of sorts
| regus wrote:
| This afternoon I was getting the oil changed for my car, and
| while I was in the waiting room the Amen Break started playing
| from a nearby speaker.
| suzdude wrote:
| This is unreasonably fun.
| cocodill wrote:
| At first I didn't understand, but then I did.
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(page generated 2026-03-12 23:00 UTC)