How remixing works in Songcode

Every track in Songcode is ode, a text file that plays. When someone publishes one, the code is public, and anyone signed in can take it and keep working on it. That is a remix. This post covers what happens when you press the button, what the remix carries with it, and how the numbers on a public page are counted.

Starting a remix

Opening someone else’s Songcode session link, signed in, starts a remix straight away. Only the writer of a track opens it as it is. A published track also has a remix button in the app’s top bar, and on a public page at songco.de/@tag and on each song page, remix in Songcode does the same thing. A visitor who is not signed in can play and read the track, and is asked to sign in to remix it.

Songcode saves the remix in your account straight away, before you change a note. It starts as the published track exactly as it stands: the same code, genre, tempo and settings, with (remix) added to the title. The prompt the original was written from stays with its writer, so a remix starts without one. The code opens in the editor, and a line over it says remix of, the original’s title and, when its author has a public page, by @tag. The title links back to the original.

Here is a short track, the way someone might publish it.

stem keys: upright_piano {
  line [mf a4/4 c5 e5 c5 | g4/4 b4 d5 b4 | f4/4 a4 c5 a4 | e4/4 g#4 b4 e5]
}

And here is one remix of it. The piano line is the same until the last bar, and the remixer added a bass under it.

stem keys: upright_piano {
  line [mf a4/4 c5 e5 c5 | g4/4 b4 d5 b4 | f4/4 a4 c5 a4 | e4/8 g#4 b4 e5 g#5/2]
}

stem bass: fingerbass {
  line [a2/2 a2 | g2/2 g2 | f2/2 f2 | e2/1]
}

Both are playable here, and both are text you can change. That is the whole idea of a remix in Songcode: you inherit the source, so the edit can be one note or a new part.

A remix has its own shelf

Remixes sit in their own group in the library, apart from your drafts. Each row shows the track it came from where a draft shows its genre. The two groups keep separate room: 100 drafts and 100 remixes, and when either fills up, the one you left alone longest makes way.

Pressing remix on the same track twice, before you have changed anything, opens the remix you already have. Changed remixes stay as they are, so a second press after editing starts a fresh copy.

Nobody edits another person’s track in place. Whatever you change lands in your remix, and the track stays as its author published it.

Publishing a remix

A remix can be published once its code differs from the code it started from. Until then publish rests and the line over the code says change something to publish it. A new title on its own does not count. Songcode compares the code you have now with the code the remix began as, so changing a note and then changing it back puts the lock back on.

Once published, a remix is a track like any other, with its own link. It also keeps its line to the original for good. The line shows in the app, in your library, on your public page and on the song’s own page as remix of with a link. Publishing it again, after more edits, keeps the same line.

What the line back stores

The link from a remix to its source is two facts, saved when the remix starts: which published track it came from, and that track’s title at that moment.

Songcode shows the original’s current title wherever it can, so when the author renames their track, every remix of it shows the new name. The saved title is there for the case where the original is gone, for example after it was taken down. The remix then still says what it came from, without a link.

The by @tag part is looked up each time it is shown. It appears only while the original’s author has a public page that is switched on. If they make their page private, remixes of their tracks keep the title and drop the tag.

A remix points to the track it was made from, one step back. A remix of a remix names the remix as its source, and that remix names the track before it, so you can follow the chain back by clicking.

Code moves one way. A remix is a copy at the moment it starts, so later edits to the original never reach it, and edits in the remix never touch the original.

How the counts work

A public page can show two numbers under its owner’s name, and one on each track.

• N remixes counts the remixes this person has published of other people’s tracks. Unpublished remixes and remixes of their own tracks are left out.
• remixed N times, under the name, counts the remixes other people have made of the tracks shown on the page. Each track shows its own remixed N times as well.

The remixed count includes remixes that are saved in someone’s account and not yet published. The moment someone presses remix on your track and gets a copy, it counts. Pressing it again without changing anything does not add a second, because they get the same copy back. Your own remixes of your own tracks never count. When someone deletes a remix they never published, or it makes way on their shelf, it leaves the count.

The counts cover what the page shows. A track you keep off your page keeps its remixes, and they come back into the numbers when you put it on. Visitors can sort a page by most remixed, which uses the same per-track number. None of the numbers shows until it is above zero.

We count remixes on our side too, to see which tracks people build on and how many remixes get published. That count is made from the same links and holds no code.

What you control as the author

Publishing is the decision. A draft is private to your account and nobody can remix it. When you publish, you choose whether the song goes on your public page or stays with only the people who have its link. Either way, anyone who has the link can open it and anyone signed in can remix it, and there is no switch to stop that for one track. The terms say so in plain words: publishing gives other people permission to play your track, build their own tracks on its code and use what they make. The track stays yours.

Within that, you choose which of your published tracks are listed on your public page, whether the page is public at all, and so whether remixes of your tracks say by you. You can rename a track and every remix line follows. If you want a published track taken down, we will do it when you ask.

The line back exists when a remix starts in Songcode. Because ode is text, someone can still copy code by hand into a new song, and that song has no line back. The terms cover that copy the same way, and you can read every track’s code before you build on it.

For the buttons and screens, see save and share and your public page in the docs.