Nearly forty years behind a microphone have given me plenty of ideas about radio. Building SBN — Stellar Broadcasting Network ( https://sbnradio.dk/ ) has meant turning those ideas into music, software and working production tools, together with other people and our AI collaborators. I’m SBN’s founder and creative director. We launched on October 1, and all four stations are already online. Our first hosted live programme aired on October 14. The project grew out of Stellar Eagle Alliance, a Star Citizen community. Our catalogue of around 700 tracks draws inspiration from the game’s locations and wider universe, as do our jingles and station sound. Our hosts are players themselves, while listening is open to everyone. The creative process is particularly interesting to me. I work with Stina, my AI collaborator, and other contributors work with their own collaborators. Someone brings an idea, a musical interest or a particular atmosphere they want to explore. Through discussion, generation, listening and revision, that idea develops. Bringing it back into the group introduces further perspectives and possibilities. We use AI-generated music and AI-assisted production. Developing a catalogue this way involves a great deal of creative work: finding a direction, exploring variations, changing an approach and developing material that belongs within a particular station. The software has grown alongside that work. The backend uses Python and Django to organise the radio’s data and operations, with a separate streaming process using FFmpeg for audio processing and encoding. Programme preparation, audio production and continuous broadcasting have different requirements, so each needs its own tools and controls. Our browser-based production studio uses JavaScript and the Web Audio API. Audio clips sit on a timeline, their positions determine timing, and track controls shape levels and transitions. Hosts can record speech and combine it with music and other audio. Scripts and programme notes support the preparation around that timeline. A host still has to judge how a spoken introduction feels against the next track, whether a transition needs more space, and how the programme should move. Those are practical production decisions the interface needs to support. We also need to manage the catalogue, organise schedules and keep the stations streaming while people prepare future programmes. Each part has to connect with the others. Building this has made me examine things I previously did almost instinctively. “That transition feels wrong” needs to become a useful discussion about timing, level, mood or delivery before we can improve either the production or the tool. For me, that is where the collaboration becomes most valuable: experience gives us something specific to explore, and working through it together opens up ways to develop it. My ambition is to grow SBN into a substantial commercial radio business. We have the stations online; building a lasting audience is the next part of the work. For others building creative projects with AI, where has your experience of the craft most strongly shaped the software or workflow you ended up building? — Fabian Founder & Creative Director, SBN submitted by /u/Fabianpetersen
Originally posted by u/Fabianpetersen on r/ArtificialInteligence