Show HN: Pulse 2.0 – Live co-listening rooms where anyone can be a DJ (473999.net)

86 points by 473999 ↗ HN
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.

17 comments

[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 33.7 ms ] thread
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 deleted)
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).
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
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...)
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.

really awesome, going to leave it running in a tab probably til 2026
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.

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

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

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.

How do you create your own room? How do you connect system audio to a browser?
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!