Show HN: Pulse 2.0 – Live co-listening rooms where anyone can be a DJ

Posted by 473999 11 days ago

I wanted to listen to music with friends who live far away. Not "watch a YouTube video together" - actually share what I'm hearing in real-time, like we're in the same room.

Pulse is what came out of that. Anyone can host a live audio stream from their browser tab or system audio. Listeners join, music recognition identifies tracks automatically, and there's chat with 7TV emotes. No account required - you get an anonymous code and you're in.

We're running demo rooms that stream NTS Radio and SomaFM 24/7 (indie project, not affiliated - we backlink to the original stations). There's also a "Money For Nothing 24/7" room if you want to loop that Dire Straits instrumental forever.

Think of it as co-listening infrastructure. Bedroom DJs, listening parties, or just sharing your current vibe.

Comments

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

Stack: LiveKit (WebRTC), Next.js, Node.js, Neon Postgres, AudD for music recognition.

What's new in 2.0:

Stream from browser tab or system audio (BlackHole/VB-Cable)

Music recognition with automatic deduplication and "winner selection"

24/7 demo rooms (NTS Radio, SomaFM, and yes... Money For Nothing on loop)

See Lobby rooms from inside a room

Push-to-talk overlay for hosts

Automatically add emotes dropping 7tv.app link in the emoji popup in the chat

Happy to answer any questions! PS. Audio can be shared only by desktop at the moment. Not mobile

Comment by 473999 10 days ago

PS2: Mic doens't work

Comment by 11 days ago

Comment by globular-toast 11 days ago

In the late 2000s I hosted an Icecast server for our IRC channel and we had regular "radio" shows presented by channel members. It was great fun. Sometimes people who were in close proximity in real life would turn up as "guests" on other people's shows. We did a thing where people in the channel could pick songs for the show etc.

I know, I know, it's classic to look back wistfully, but I really feel like something was lost in the past 15 years or so. We just cobbled together this stuff from simple components and had fun. I didn't require a PhD to get your head around it, I feel like people were more clever because you kinda needed to be. Nowadays if something isn't part of the shiny web app you're just shit out of luck. Back then we'd just do another hack and it was all good.

Comment by 473999 10 days ago

This was super cool to read about!

The way I think about, Pulse is an attempt to part ways from the traditional "Algos" and other machine based recommendation systems (which is what I think of as the real "shiny web")... and get back to listening to real people and just vibing with them while each one does their own thing.

Team is 2 people, with $0 spent ex tech

Comment by phyzome 11 days ago

People running a Sandstorm server might be interested in an app in the same vein called Groove Basin. But it's a single shared stream, and you upload tracks to a library and play queue (rather than streaming from one person's own computer).

Comment by ljlolel 11 days ago

My project https://hangout.fm/ does this based on turntable.fm and its legal and licensed and pays artists

Comment by pixel_popping 9 days ago

I feel the two feel very different in their initial onboarding. OP's project comes across as a quick tool that just "works," while hangout.fm feels like a bigger commitment, moving away from a mini tech tool and being a music-oriented project which can feel intimidating for people that aren't really knowledgeable in the music sphere.

Comment by eichin 11 days ago

Heh, anyone remember MixApp (2008ish?) (streaming your own mp3s to chatrooms, this decade you could probably rebuild it on top of tailscale, it was more shaped like that than modern streaming...)

Comment by spidersouris 11 days ago

And plug.dj!

Comment by herunan 11 days ago

This is cool! Just hosted a stream but there were a few bugs/issues.

1. Streamed via Blackhole and music was constantly slowing down for me, not sure if listeners had similar experience. 2. Couldn't unmute my mic so you could hear me breathing in the bg at times. 3. If I refreshed the page I couldn't go back to hosting my room. How can I do this? 4. If I blocked my mic all music stopped and re-adding it wouldn't go back to streaming.

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

Thank you for reporting these, we'll look into them and be back.

Comment by aviflombaum 10 days ago

So sick. We've been using this at work (we're a small team - 6 people) and it's just so much fun. Great work! Thank you so much!

Comment by Eduard 11 days ago

I see the marquee with "host a room" and arrows pointing up.

But I don't see a button or anything to actually host a room.

I can only join rooms.

Using Android Chrome.

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

From mobile or tablet? Currently hosting (and audio sharing) should be possible only from Desktop unfortunately.

Anyways, thank you for your comment. We'll investigate. If you want us to follow up with you, please drop us your email using the FEEDBACK form on the left side, referring to this message.

Comment by cedws 11 days ago

1. I created a room but after refreshing lost it and then couldn't rejoin or recreate the room

2. Setup is a bit of a painful (had to install software and then still couldn't get audio to work from Rekordbox) so if that could be simplified it would be cool

3. I like the chat, makes me feel like I missed out on the IRC era

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

Mac or Windows?

If you are willing to try again once I will have replicated (with Rekordbox) and solved your use case, please drop us your email using the FEEDBACK form on the left side of the page.

Thank you for trying and for taking the time of letting us know.

Comment by cedws 11 days ago

Windows. Was the issue specific to Rekordbox, if so how?

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

No I agree, I doubt it is a Rekordbox specific issue. If that outputs the audio as system audio, it should be doable. Thing is we developed testing mostly in Mac, so we need to pull up a Windows and actually try to replicate for longer.

Comment by cedws 11 days ago

Ah got it. I'll try again tomorrow, it's possible I was just being stupid.

Comment by dsp_person 11 days ago

I clicked everything on the page but couldn't figure out how to join a room. Clicking a room card no worky. I can however view song history

Comment by ProllyInfamous 10 days ago

Hanging out in https://473999.net/pulse/ok

(That's a direct link to a current stream, with a few casual chat'ters)

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

what browser / device are you using? this is not something I encountered when trying with a few different ones :/

Comment by 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 11 days ago

Might be the same issue for me, Firefox 137.0 on Linux.

When I click on a room, the URL changes, indicating I might have joined the room, but I don't get any audio. No audio icon on the tab. Can't hear anything.

Console says "WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details"

I don't have WebRTC specifically disabled that I recall, I thought I've taken video calls in this Firefox before. Hope this report helps!

Comment by 473999 11 days ago

Thank you so much for reporting these, we'll fix shortly

Comment by dsp_person 11 days ago

linux kde plasma wayland with vivaldi

Comment by trunch 11 days ago

Not able to join any room on Chrome and Windows

Also seems to require a password to host a room (can't just leave it open?)

Comment by 473999 10 days ago

Thank you for the report, we'll look into that.

Re. password... we landed on requiring a password to create the room to let you retain the "HOST" status. E.g., if you disconnect and go back ... need password to authenticate as HOST so that you won't lose your room to the first stranger that finds it empty

But all rooms are open. Password is just a "Recovery password". I will update now the description text to this