coolThing

Retro web experiments, local music tools, and small repo utilities.

Live site:

https://mcamner.github.io/coolThing/

What's inside

• docs/ - static GitHub Pages site and browser experiments
• backend/ - local FastAPI backend for music features
• tools/ - shell scripts for local development and repo workflow

Projects

Mega Guitar Tabs

MTV-style guitar tab generator prototype. The browser UI sends a YouTube URL to the local backend, which downloads audio with yt-dlp, runs Basic Pitch transcription, detects chords, can transcribe lyrics locally with faster-whisper, and returns a generated guitar tab.

Files:

docs/mega-guitar/
backend/app.py

Live frontend:

https://mcamner.github.io/coolThing/mega-guitar/?v=mtv1

Local frontend:

http://localhost:3000/mega-guitar/

Mega Now

Spotify "now playing" display. Shows the current track, album art, timing and audio features, then can search YouTube and send the track to Mega Guitar.

Files:

docs/mega-now/index.html
backend/app.py

Local frontend:

http://localhost:3000/mega-now/

Mega Setlist

Frontend-only setlist builder. Saves songs, YouTube links, Spotify links, BPM, key, tuning, capo and notes in browser localStorage, with direct handoff to Mega Guitar.

File:

docs/mega-setlist/index.html

Live:

https://mcamner.github.io/coolThing/mega-setlist/

Local frontend:

http://localhost:3000/mega-setlist/

Mega Tuner

Chromatic guitar tuner that runs in the browser. Uses the microphone via Web Audio API, detects pitch with the McLeod Pitch Method (NSDF + 3-sample MIDI-space median filter), and displays the note, octave, frequency and cents deviation on an animated needle meter. Covers the full guitar range including low E (E2, 82 Hz).

File:

docs/mega-tuner/index.html

Live:

https://mcamner.github.io/coolThing/mega-tuner/

Local frontend:

http://localhost:3000/mega-tuner/

Mega Movie Tube

90s-inspired video/web experiment with loud visuals and old-school streaming-launcher energy.

File:

docs/mega-movie/index.html

Live:

https://mcamner.github.io/coolThing/mega-movie/

Quick start

Start the backend and local frontend together:

./tools/start.sh

Then open:

http://localhost:3000/

Individual commands:

./tools/run-mega-guitar-backend.sh
./tools/serve-frontend.sh

Backend URL:

http://127.0.0.1:8000

Spotify setup

Mega Now requires Spotify OAuth credentials.

1. Create an app at developer.spotify.com.

2. Add this redirect URI:

   http://127.0.0.1:8000/spotify/callback
   

3. Export credentials before starting the backend:

   export SPOTIFY_CLIENT_ID=your_client_id
   export SPOTIFY_CLIENT_SECRET=your_client_secret
   

Requirements

• macOS or another Unix-like shell environment
• Python 3
• ffmpeg installed locally

On macOS:

brew install ffmpeg

Python dependencies are installed from backend/requirements.txt by the startup scripts. Auto Lyrics uses local Whisper transcription through faster-whisper; the first run may download a model and can take time on CPU.

API

Health check:

GET /

Generate guitar tab:

POST /generate

Detect chords only:

POST /chords

Transcribe lyrics locally:

POST /lyrics

Spotify:

GET /spotify/login
GET /spotify/callback
GET /spotify/now-playing
GET /spotify/youtube-search

Project structure

coolThing/
├── backend/
│   ├── app.py
│   ├── requirements.txt
│   └── README.md
├── docs/
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── favicon.svg
│   ├── mega-guitar/
│   ├── mega-movie/
│   ├── mega-now/
│   ├── mega-setlist/
│   └── mega-tuner/
├── tools/
│   ├── README.md
│   ├── connect-any-repo.sh
│   ├── run-mega-guitar-backend.sh
│   ├── serve-frontend.sh
│   └── start.sh
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
└── .gitignore

Notes

GitHub Pages only hosts the static frontend files. Anything that needs Python, Spotify OAuth, YouTube downloads, ffmpeg, or Basic Pitch must run locally.

License

MIT