The United States Library of Congress has announced the release of a free-to-use tool for music producers in the summer of 2020. Citizen DJ will allow creators easy access to public domain audio samples via an interface developed by Innovator-in-Residence Brian Foo.
Citizen DJ sees Foo construct a visual map system through which users can browse audio recordings belonging to the Library of Congress database. As can be seen in a demo video, the “Explore” feature allows the user to listen to brief clips grouped together by common characteristics, and the “Remix” feature allows them to hear them in the context of various arrangement templates. The project is geared towards hip-hop producers on account of the genre’s heyday having been curtailed by a rise in copyright lawsuits.
Data is Beautiful
Brian Foo has dedicated his career to “making public resources such as audiovisual collections, scientific datasets, and cultural objects more visible and accessible to the general public,” according to his website. He has worked in libraries and museums for almost a decade, most recently specializing in data visualization for the American Museum of Natural History and the New York Public Library.
Other data visualizations overseen by Foo include AMNH Photographic Collection and AMNH Climate Wall. Some of his work takes the form of film projects such as 12 x 24 and Moving Archives.
An early version of Citizen DJ can be tested out on its dedicated page of the Library of Congress website.
