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Frame from "Pipe Dream" - Animusic.com Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

"Pipe Dream" - Animusic.com

AnimusicLLC
Music
YouTube
1 HN user recommended this music video1 month2019–2024 score 1
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN people bring it up whenever music-playing machines or robot bands come up, as the classic CG precursor.

'Pipe Dream' is the best-known piece from the first Animusic DVD, a computer-animated music video in which fantastical machines play music. The animation is driven by MIDI data.

“Have you watched the Animusic series ( ) ... especially Pipe Dream -” (HN, 2024)

1 recommendations · 3 citations · Music

4 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@shagie Mar 2024 Recommends
on HN thread Wintergatan Marble Machine (2016) [video]
Have you watched the Animusic series ( [link] ) ... especially Pipe Dream - [this video] Be sure to watch the "Creating the Animusic DVDs" pair of videos. [link]
Animusic series highlight, especially Pipe Dream.

Citations, criticism and jokes

@bitwize Apr 2019 Cites it
on HN thread Moritz Simon Geist’s robots make technical techno
See also: The Floppotron: Music played on old floppy drives, hard drives, and scanners. [link] Animusic: CG animations of fantastic machines playing music. The animation is parameterized to the MIDI input. Attempts to build real-world working models of these machines or machines like them have been made, with varying levels of success: [this video] Compressorhead: An all-robot heavy metal band. Famous for Stickboy, the band's four-armed, headbanging drummer, or at least Stickboy is what I remember most about the band. [link]
CG animations of fantastic machines playing music, parameterized by MIDI.
@retzkek Jul 2021 Cites it
on HN thread The Alexander: Why did you build such a long piano?
Inspired, I presume, by those awesome ray-traced animations from the early oughts? I had started sketching ideas on how to make that a reality (pneumatics and magnets mainly) but never got beyond concept. Specifically this one: [this video]
Ray-traced animation of music machines that inspired the commenter's ideas.
@jonathankoren Jan 2023 Cites it
on HN thread Engineer has built and programmed a terrifying all-robot band
Reminds me of a real world Animusic video [this video] Also, at first I thought was going to be the person (or persons) that have their own restored Rock-Afire-Explosion bands and then reprogram them to play contemporary songs.
Animated precursor to real-world robot bands.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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