The Echo Nest Remix API is the Internet Synthesizer that lets you make things with music and video.

We've done the following: rearranged the syllables of a vocal line, walkenized and cowbellized hundreds of thousands of songs in a week, mixed up the hits of a drum beat and synced it to another loop, beat matched two songs, split apart DJ mixes by their individual tracks, made new kinds of video mashups, corrected sloppy drumming, synced a video to a song, transitioned between two covers of the same song, made a cat play piano, put a donk on it.

We're making this available as an open source SDK for Python (other languages forthcoming!) that can be easily installed for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. It accesses the Echo Nest Analyze API at http://developer.echonest.com via the pyechonest wrapper and plays with the results to make new concoctions of audio and video. You'll need an Echo Nest API key to use this SDK, instructions are found on the following install pages.

What to do

Step 1: Download the native installer for your platform

Step 2: Set up your Echo Nest API Key

You need an API key from The Developer Nest to use Remix. Get your key and set it up on your computer or in your code.

Read this key install tutorial for Windows, Mac or Linux.

For the experts in the room, just set the environment variable you need.

export ECHO_NEST_API_KEY="the key you got from the Echo Nest Developer Site"

Step 3: Make something beautiful

Play with the many community contributed examples that make awesome things with audio and video. The installers put them on your computer along with some sample audio.

On Windows they are in your Python folder (probably C:\Python26\echo-nest-remix-examples\.)

On the Mac they are in /usr/local/share/echo-nest-remix-examples.

cd one
python one.py ../music/CryMeARiver.mp3 output.mp3

output.mp3 will sound like Cry Me A River, but only the first beat of every measure.

You should now start writing your own remix programs!

Join the discussion list for questions and comments.

Read Adam Lindsay's excellent tutorial.

Bookmark the API Documentation.

"""Reverse a song by playing its beats forward starting from the end of the song"""
import echonest.audio as audio

# Easy wrapper around mp3 decoding and Echo Nest analysis
audio_file = audio.LocalAudioFile("NeverGonnaTellIt.mp3")

# You can manipulate the beats in a song as a native python list
beats = audio_file.analysis.beats
beats.reverse()

# And render the list as a new audio file!
audio.getpieces(audio_file, beats).encode("NeverGonnaTellItBackwardsByBeat.mp3")

Which creates something like this: NeverGonnaTellItBackwardsByBeat.mp3

Lots more examples at ExampleAudioAndVideo