AIs to brainstorm pedal names! No shit!!

[niftyprose]

I don't know if anyone else here has been reading aiweirdness.com, formerly lewisandquark.tumblr.com, in which Janelle Shane documents her efforts to train neural networks on real-world lists and then lets them generate their own versions. Personally, I find the AIs' qualified successes and abject failures hilarious.

Last year I suggested to Janelle that she should let the AIs loose on a listing of pedal names, and I sent her a few examples. She was into the idea, but pointed out that hundreds or thousands of names would be required for robust training. I said I'd see what I could do and sat on the idea.

Last month I used some downtime to scrape the entire contents of the harmony-central.com user reviews of effects. It's in a *pitiful* state, with inconsistencies, duplications, and page after page of non-effect listings. But it still yielded several thousands of pedal names from the last quarter-century, some of them fabulously obscure. I will forward an edit to Janelle shortly.

Some points, in no particular order:
* This is a creative exercise. My objectives are mostly giggles, but there is the possibility that a network-generated name will start a pedal builder thinking in new and unexpected ways.
* If you maintain a listing of pedal names and would like to add it to the AI's reading list, step right up. I'm thinking of UglyCasanova's recent thread on inappropriate names (viewtopic.php?f=149&t=60487) but others may maintain their own. Please make it easy for me by inputting each name on a separate line in the format {name of maker} {name of pedal}. You can post here or PM me. I'll set an arbitrary cutoff date of May 20, one week's time.
* Many ILF favourites are absent from harmony-central.com -- if you want to support your favourite maker, consider posting your review of their product. I have no particular fondness for h-c but maintaining their listings of decade-old pedals is a way to keep the darkness at bay.
* If anyone wants the raw h-c listing, my edit, or the collated listing earmarked for Janelle, PM me.

[Chankgeez]

#enterskynet

[Heraclitus Akimbo]

I don't know if anyone else here has been reading aiweirdness.com, formerly lewisandquark.tumblr.com, in which Janelle Shane documents her efforts to train neural networks on real-world lists and then lets them generate their own versions. Personally, I find the AIs' qualified successes and abject failures hilarious.

Last year I suggested to Janelle that she should let the AIs loose on a listing of pedal names, and I sent her a few examples. She was into the idea, but pointed out that hundreds or thousands of names would be required for robust training. I said I'd see what I could do and sat on the idea.

Huge fan of her work — one of her early experiments (the paint names one) provided the name for my band.

If she's got too much in the hopper, it's not too tough to take a stab at it yourself. Last year, I managed to set up a neural network through the Google Labs interface to create song titles for the band (the source was a list of song titles from albums tagged as Krautrock on Discogs). I know pretty much nothing about scripting an whatnot, but the tutorial I found made it fairly easy.

[oldangelmidnight]

http://www.effectsdatabase.com/ is probably where you want to go but I don't know how scrape-able the database is.

[Jwar]

http://www.effectsdatabase.com/ is probably where you want to go but I don't know how scrape-able the database is.

I wonder if you could email Bart for a list? I bet he has some enormous spread sheet somewhere.

[frodog]

Damn, way to pointlessly outsource the most simple and anyone-can-do-it part of making a pedal.

I'll toot my own horn as human; the other day I came up with the most basic-ass effect name and it wasn't even taken. It's part of the fun of creating.

That being said I'm sure this lady does a lot of other worthwhile things with her time, but I'm not quite onbard with this. Scared of a future where AI runs the pedl world.

[Jero]

Damn, way to pointlessly outsource the most simple and anyone-can-do-it part of making a pedal.

I'll toot my own horn as human; the other day I came up with the most basic-ass effect name and it wasn't even taken. It's part of the fun of creating.

That being said I'm sure this lady does a lot of other worthwhile things with her time, but I'm not quite onbard with this. Scared of a future where AI runs the pedl world.

Nothing worse (from a naming standpoint) than coming up with a great name for a pedal, especially if you have the circuit concept with it, only to find it's already been used...more so when used less creatively

[friendship]

in the future we'll pay subscriptions to stream effects algorithms into our signal path. available algos will change monthly depending on life of license.

[Dungus]

If I made pedals I'd just give them all human names like KENNETH, DEREK and SUSAN. Easy peasy.

[friendship]

If I made pedals I'd just give them all human names like KENNETH, DEREK and SUSAN. Easy peasy.

dungus knows what's up

[coldbrightsunlight]

If I made pedals I'd just give them all human names like KENNETH, DEREK and SUSAN. Easy peasy.

This. I like this.

[Jero]

If I made pedals I'd just give them all human names like KENNETH, DEREK and SUSAN. Easy peasy.

This. I like this.

I've seen someone do this recently with at least one pedal. Can't remember who.

[coldbrightsunlight]

There's the Walrus Julia. Only one that springs to mind but I'm sure there are loads out there.

[Jero]

There's the Walrus Julia. Only one that springs to mind but I'm sure there are loads out there.

I forgot about that one! It was a smaller company. I remember the pedal looked pretty cool. Was named LUKE, or CLINT, or something.

[frodog]

Well apart from mythologial names and such, Big Ear Pedals has Frank and Elle. But yeah there's enough names to go around yet. I'd be worried if you have to resort to last names and numbers. Algernon Burt III

Nothing worse (from a naming standpoint) than coming up with a great name for a pedal, especially if you have the circuit concept with it, only to find it's already been used...more so when used less creatively

That's gotta suuuuck. I'm not there yet, but I will soon reveal the basic circuit with the basic name I made.