Bubble Sorted Amen Break(parametricavocado.itch.io)
143 pointsby eieioMar 12, 2026

18 Comments

eieioMar 12, 2026
(the amen break is one of the most commonly-sampled drum breaks in popular music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break)
zonkerdonkerMar 12, 2026
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.

hnlmorgMar 12, 2026
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.

tialaramexMar 12, 2026
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 Brontë 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".
verisimiMar 12, 2026
Sure. Which is your society though?
fragmedeMar 12, 2026
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-9Mar 12, 2026
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.

legitsterMar 12, 2026
"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.

ompogUeMar 12, 2026
Reminds me of Motown's James Jamerson [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Jamerson

exDM69Mar 12, 2026
That's a fun two minutes for any computer scientist drum and bass fan.
staplungMar 12, 2026
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.
throwuxiytayqMar 12, 2026
Give it a minute or two.
dylan604Mar 12, 2026
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
hnlmorgMar 12, 2026
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.

ricardobeatMar 12, 2026
Same! thanks for saving the experience for me :)
lxgrMar 12, 2026
So it's sorting from earliest to latest, really?
dylan604Mar 12, 2026
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.
scrumperMar 12, 2026
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.

joeypicklesMar 12, 2026
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.)
icambronMar 12, 2026
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.
hyperhelloMar 12, 2026
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.
butlikeMar 12, 2026
Would have been cool if it played the sorted ones at the end as a final run through victory lap
pdpiMar 12, 2026
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.

sandwellMar 12, 2026
It sounds like a Ventian Snares track. Love it.
marssaxmanMar 12, 2026
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.

braeboMar 12, 2026
No sound on iPhone. Shame Apple is so hostile to the web. Tragic really.
quagMar 12, 2026
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.

bigstrat2003Mar 12, 2026
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".
tialaramexMar 12, 2026
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.

dylan604Mar 12, 2026
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
relaxingMar 12, 2026
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.

LordDragonfangMar 12, 2026
Because silent mode is for the notifications. App volume has its own dedicated buttons.
probabletrainMar 12, 2026
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.
dylan604Mar 12, 2026
How old of an iPhone does one need to have that switch? My 6S+ has one, but a 15 doesn’t.
fragmedeMar 12, 2026
I can hear it. Chrome on iOS 26.
onionisafruitMar 12, 2026
I would have expected it to be terrible to listen to, but it was pretty nice.
moosehaterMar 12, 2026
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_realaMar 12, 2026
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
boukMar 12, 2026
Wow I've heard pieces of this but never the full thing, incredible
jamal-kumarMar 12, 2026
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

ChrisArchitectMar 12, 2026
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

HelloUsernameMar 12, 2026
> We're dropping amen selections now?

Futurama theme! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz8HmN2uvuk

butterknifeMar 12, 2026
Hype for Equinox in Sheffield on Sat
oybngMar 12, 2026
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
bzzztMar 12, 2026
Yes, and on many samplers too. The linked website looks like a 'lite' version of the slicer on my Elektron Octatrack ;)
everevereverMar 12, 2026
This is bonkers and I love it.
uoaeiMar 12, 2026
I need WebGL to play audio on HTML pages now?
probabletrainMar 12, 2026
it's an application built with webgl that plays audio, rather than just an audio player
empath75Mar 12, 2026
Not playing it all the way through at the end is diabolical.
nvaderMar 12, 2026
This deserves the top spot on the front page!

Might I ask for the implementation of other sorting algorithms here?

jatariMar 12, 2026
-100 points for not having a volume slider.
idontwantthisMar 12, 2026
Can someone explain the comparison function?
Retr0idMar 12, 2026
I wish it'd play through the whole thing in order at the end
ttyyzzMar 12, 2026
429 Too Many Requests
yklMar 12, 2026
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