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<a href="http://ferment.audio"><img src="/ferment-logo.png" alt="WebTorrent" width="200"></a>
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Ferment
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Ferment is a peer-to-peer audio sharing and streaming application. It is an attempted re-creation of classic SoundCloud, but runs entirely decentralized instead of one corporation and its investors holding all the power. 💞 🍻
It is made possible by combining these amazing projects: ssb, webtorrent and electron.
Experimental // EVERYTHING IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AND BREAKING!
I'm just fiddling with ideas right now. My goal is to replace my need for SoundCloud as a backyard musician that uploads WAY to much stuff. I no longer want to pay them $200 a year to host it all (also sick of being told to pay more money to get SoundCloud Go and having my feed ransomed out from underneath me).
The long-term vision ✨
I want to see a thriving audio sharing community (actually would be COMMUNITIES! it's decentralized), a lot like SoundCloud used to encourage before it had to MONETIZE and start trying to make a profit (AND OH NOEZ, WE'RE GOING BANKRUPT 😞). Pretty sure that SoundCloud was doomed from the start (so glad we had all these great years off the pocket of those investors), but a peer-to-peer decentralized not-for-profit open source might just work!
It will also soon be possible to host your own server that allows people without the app to stream music from your profile (or others that you want to seed). This will still be peer-to-peer but your server will act as a mirror and tracker.
Requirements
- You need
ffmpeg
installed to add audio files! Otherwise you'll just receive an error when you choose the file. - If there is no packaged app for your platform, you'll need a modern version of
node
andnpm
- To build from source or npm you currently need to have
automake
andlibtool
Install
on macOS
Download the latest release here!
Make sure you read the section of this readme titled "Joining Pub Server"!
from npm
$ npm install -g ferment
And then run using:
$ ferment
If you get an error appear saying something like Module version mismatch. Expected 50, got 48.
, try running the following:
# requires automake on your system
$ ferment --rebuild
Install latest updates:
$ npm install -g ferment@latest && ferment --rebuild
If you get weird issues, trash it and reinstall:
$ npm rm -g ferment
from source
Warning: Development is done on the master branch, so this could be broken right now!
$ git clone https://github.com/mmckegg/ferment.git
$ cd ferment
$ npm install
And then run using:
$ npm start
Install latest updates:
$ npm update
$ npm run rebuild # make sure native add-ons are compatible with electron version
If you get weird issues, trash your ferment/node_modules
directory:
$ rm -rf node_modules
$ npm install
Joining Pub Server
By default, Ferment will only see other users that are on the same local area network as you. In order to share with users on the internet, you need to be invited to a pub server.
Since I'm a nice person 💖 you can hang out in my pub, and you don't even have to buy any drinks! 🍻
Click 'Join Pub' on the sidebar then paste the code below:
pub.ferment.audio:43761:@uIL3USK7QJg5AHohnZC329+RXS09nwjc24ulFBH2Ngg=.ed25519~MqAyQji/+ZHHtq9JM8Dl/w6hOujxXAxlOpYiFUfLgRM=
NOTE: To avoid destroying my server, this code can only be used a limited amount of times. Please post an issue if it doesn't work for you, and I'll generate a new one.
If all goes to well, you'll start to see audio appear before your eyes! Give that play button a spin.
However, if you don't see anything appear after about 30 seconds, try restarting ferment. It may take a minute or two before it appears. You should be all good as long as +connected pub.ferment.audio:43761:....
appears in your terminal.
If you receive an error message, it probably means my pub server has locked up. This seems to be happening a bit at the moment, trying to get to the bottom of it. Let me know and I'll restart it. In the mean time, you could start creating a shiny profile and adding some tunes!
Hosting Your Own Pub Server
See this guide for full info setting up scuttlebot.
Ferment flavoured pub server
Ferment includes it's own bundled server app that you can run which also functions as a tracker and torrent seeder. It also scopes the network, only replicating ferment feeds with you (rather than the normal 3-hop friend replicate, which gives you a bunch of other ssb data, which you won't be able to see but takes up hard-drive space and makes things slow for no reason).
This is all super undocumented now. Eventually there will be a one-click style install. Or at least some step by step instructions for different platforms.
Here's a hint to get started:
xvfb-run npm run server -- --host={yourhostname} --seed {YOUR_ID}
TODO
- ☑ Scuttlebot database
- ☑ Webtorrent streaming
- ☑ Layout main application interface, base styles
- ☑ Audio player interface
- ☑ Sequencial feed playback
- ☑ API for adding file (transcode, analyse waveform)
- ☑ Upload interface [still needs more fields, and artwork]
- ☑ Connect to local peers and merge streams
- ☑ Store artwork in blobstore, and retrieve again
- ☑ User setup (choose display name, bio, picture)
- ☑ Specific Artist Feed
- ☑ Proper play/pause/loading buttons (nice try emoji)
- ☑ Follow other users ("friends")
- ☑ Display following stats
- ☑ Likes
- ☑ Backgrounding (keep seeding / syncing when main window is closed)
- ☑ Invite to pub
- ☑ Make torrents more reliable via pub server trackers [still need to make this work for other pubs though, hard coded to pub.ferment.audio right now]
- ☑ Allow revisions (some kind of special reply that replaces the content with new content)
- ☐ Make Save / Download buttons work
- ☐ Allow "delete" of audio posts (some kind of tombstoning)
- ☐ Automatically download/seed items you like
- ☐ Reposting
- ☐ Playlists
- ☐ Show seed stats
- ☐ Figure out a way to track listens? [Would be difficult given the decentralized nature of this. Might be better to show swarm strength or some other clever metric]
- ☐ Commenting? This is a pretty major part of soundcloud, but I'm personally not really a fan
Server
- ☑ Pub server (invites, etc)
- ☑ Seed torrents from specified feeds
- ☐ Web interface for viewing specified feeds
License
GPL-3.0
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