Liner notes

A1Meet Loafie

Loafie lives on the desk under the clock. She wanders, loafs, grooms, watches the weather and stares into space. Leave her alone long enough and she dozes off.

Pet her. Drop her a fish. Tap Z and she curls up for a nap and the board dims; touch the board and she's up again. She has a box. The rest you'll figure out.

A2Focus: five stations

Hit FOCUS on the tuner and step through them with ◀ ▶. Each has its own spot on the dial, and none of them is a recording. The music is written as it plays, so it never comes round the same way twice.

Late Shift

Warm Rhodes and a lazy beat. Built for working late.

Rainy Window

Soft keys, a little melody, rain on the glass. Study mode.

CRT Dreams

Analog pads, slow arpeggios, a few blips. The synthy one.

Sunday Loaf

Jazz chords, brushes and a purr underneath. Zero urgency.

Desert Night

Slow pads, far-off bells and crickets. Wind-down mode.

A3Calm

Hit CALM for purr, rain, ocean, fireplace or brown noise. The meter turns into a slow breathing light that swells and settles. Follow it or don't. Tap Z and Loafie naps with you while the board dims.

A4Three looks

Tap the little display key to flip through them.

808

Red, orange, yellow and cream pegs, straight off the step keys. The default.

VFD

Cyan and orange, like a vacuum-fluorescent receiver. Goes with Ambient.

Red LED

The clock radio on your nightstand in 1987. Low glare, for late nights and Lo-fi.

Until you pick one, the display follows the track. Rain, fire, ocean and purr tint it a little, and after dark it dims on its own.

A5Her sky

Every station brings its own weather: rain on Rainy Window, stars and the odd meteor on Late Shift and Desert Night, falling green code on CRT Dreams, leaves on Sunday Loaf.

With nothing playing, it follows the real world: stars at night, snow in winter, petals in spring, fireflies on summer nights.

A6Leave it running

On a computer, the float key keeps Loafie on top of your other windows. You can still pet her and feed her there.

Got an old tablet? Add Loaf FM to the home screen, keep it plugged in, and you've got a desk clock with a cat in it.

Once it's loaded, it works offline.

A7Nerd stuff

Nothing here is an audio file. The drums, bass, keys, rain, waves, fire and purr are synthesised in your browser with the Web Audio API, note by note, while you listen.

It's procedural, not AI. Every melody note is pulled onto the chord underneath it, which is why any mix you stack sounds right.

A mixtape link is just a handful of choices and a seed. Your friend's browser plays the rest.

No keyboard shortcuts, on purpose: you're probably typing in another window, and a stray key shouldn't stop the music.

The whole thing is small, because a clock radio with a cat in it shouldn't need 40 MB of JavaScript.

A8Liner notes

Music and sounds

Loaf FM's own code, played in your browser.

Fonts

Doto and IBM Plex Sans (SIL Open Font License).

The cat and the board

Made for Loaf FM.

A9What's the catch?

There isn't one. It's free, there are no ads and there's nothing to sign up for. I like cats and beats, so I made this. If you like it, send it to a friend.

A10Say hi

Something broken? Got an idea? Got a good cat picture? hello@loaffm.com