Mr. Microphone 2.0: Microsoft Songsmith Puts Even the Worst Lyrics to Music
Like to sing in the shower or in the car? Want to subject others to your incoherent warblings as if they were a real song? Microsoft Songsmith may be for you. And if you're a professional lyricist, musician, or someone with real musical talent? Songsmith may be incredibly helpful for you, too.
The technology is actually quite impressive. Songsmith takes a cappella vocals - no matter how disjointed - and interprets a musical melody to lay behind them. Meaning? Meaning that with no musical talent whatsoever, you can now compose, record, and share songs with whomever is willing to listen.
But what if you actually have talent? Songsmith could be of potential use to you, too.
"Songwriters can use Songsmith as an 'intelligent scratchpad' to work with new melodies, quickly turning your scratch recordings of new ideas into richer, deeper explorations. Musicians can also play instruments right into Songsmith, instead of singing."
No doubt a great deal of research went into the development of the product, and it probably has some very interesting potential applications. But, I must admit, after watching the promo video, I'm having a hard time clearing my head enough to figure out what those uses might be.
Who knows? This might be another one of those Seinfeld things.
Scoble has just posted an interview and demo with two researchers from Microsoft - who coincidentally also star in the promo video. They provide additional insight on the product and highlight some of its potential applications.
Interested users can download a trial version from Microsoft Research. The product is available for purchase for $29.95 US.
Something tells me that the American Idol tryouts just got a lot more interesting.
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Have you seen this promo movie for Songsmith? They are using Mac :-)
This is cool! We can now easily make some interesting music even we don't have that talent in Music.
Having just watched the promo video, I am in shock. RWW articles don't usually link to the twilight zone of twee. I am going wander around for a while now wondering if I can extract that promo-video from my brain.
I am sure the Soundsmith software is perfectly acceptable (or is this the effect of shock).
This is funny, scary, cool, thoughtful... I'm sure I will be using this one day; good or bad!
Download link doesn't seem to work (at Microsoft's end).
My mind is filled with such ill intentions >:) I couldn't tell if the video was taking itself seriously or not. I'm going to believe they went for campy. I mean, glow in the dark towels...
Wow! That was cheezeee! The demo, that is. Of course, that was likely the intention, but with Microsoft, you can never really be sure ;-)
Still...pretty cool technology. Could be fun...maybe...
Cheese!
Byron
I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
The using an apple for the promo video. The application is nice, but in a world of singstar and rockband I am not sure if this sound level is state of the art.
Looks like the muzac-ification of previously normal conversation. A plague, really.
made me want to kill myself...