crack head beats

what is crack head beats?

crack head beats is a free acid techno radio that makes itself. every [minute / your cadence], a generative audio model and a browser-based TB-303-style synth cook up a fresh transmission. you steer it: vote on styles (gabba, industrial, massive attack, horrorcore), twist the effects, change the tempo. upload your own tracks to blend into the live mix, then record, name and share what you made.

how the generated techno radio works

press start the radio and the radio starts playing. type a style such as "industrial", "gabba", "bristol gabba", "massive attack", "classical choir" or "horrorcore" and the next beat is steered toward that mood. listeners vote on styles together, the most popular one fires on the next refresh, and you can nudge tempo, resonance, glitch and drive live. effects like ghostly, crushing, omen, donnie darko, speedracer, barbie girl and star wars reshape the sound while it plays.

upload techno and blend it into the mix

sign in with google to upload your own techno, acid, ambient or experimental tracks. uploads appear in the community feed where other crack heads can play, like, react and comment on them, and any upload can be blended into the live generated acid with a single slider. record the result, name it, download it and share it as a snapshot — every snapshot gets its own page and share card.

about noisetrance

Experimental dark, ambient and rave trance, prepared noise and corroded live-hardware recordings with drone frequencies and crack head beats.

frequently asked questions

is crack head beats free?

yes. listening, steering the generator, chatting and uploading are free. downloads are pay-what-you-like, from £0.

what kind of music does it play?

generated instrumental acid techno, acid house, IDM, breakcore, industrial, glitch, drone and dark ambient, steered live by whoever is listening.

do i need an account?

no account is needed to listen or steer the beats. a google sign-in is required to upload tracks, comment, like, react and use the live crack chat.

can i use the beats in my own tracks?

clips generated by the radio can be reused in your own tracks, sets and videos. credit noisetrance / acidtechnoradio.dance. a mix that blends in someone’s upload stays under that uploader’s rights, so check with them first. see the terms.

is there a mobile app?

there is no app, but the site works in your phone’s browser. on iPhone and Android you need to tap “start the radio” once because browsers block autoplay. on android the radio keeps playing with the screen locked or the tab in the background. on iPhone, safari pauses the acid when you lock the screen or switch apps, so keep the tab open and the screen on. if you hear nothing on an iPhone, check the ring/silent switch on the side — when it is set to silent it can mute the generated audio, so flip it to ring.

what is a TB-303?

the roland TB-303 bass line is a small silver synthesizer from 1981 that was meant to stand in for a bass guitarist and failed at it completely. it has one oscillator (sawtooth or square), a resonant low-pass filter, an envelope with accent and slide, and a fiddly step sequencer. when second-hand units turned up cheap in chicago in the mid-80s, producers cranked the resonance and twisted the cutoff while the sequence ran, and the squelching, liquid sound that came out became acid house, then acid techno. crack head beats runs a software 303-style synth inside your browser: a procedural sequencer feeding a resonant filter with accent and slide, so the acid line is cooked live on your machine, not streamed from a file. the res and glitch controls on the radio are the modern equivalent of grabbing those two knobs.