Bill Gates' Plan To Destroy Music, Note By Note 659
theodp writes "Remember Mr. Microphone? If you thought music couldn't get worse, think again. Perhaps with the help of R&D tax credits, Microsoft Research has spawned Songsmith, software that automatically creates a tinny, childish background track for your singing. And as bad as the pseudo-infomercial was, the use of the product in the wild is likely to be even scarier, as evidenced by these Songsmith'ed remakes of music by The Beatles, The Police, and The Notorious B.I.G.."
Re:That laptop in the infomercial... (Score:5, Informative)
...it looks like an older generation MacBook Pro with a sticker over its logo.
Yes, it is a MacBook. Techcrunch had a Story [techcrunch.com] on this last week.
It's inconceivable to me out they could let something like that slip thru.
Hey good lookin'... (Score:3, Informative)
Vocaloid is better (Score:5, Informative)
And yet, the Japanese have virtual singers. Witness Vocalioid 2 (three is better, but there aren't many videos on YouTube):
Clearly, we've lost the digital song war.
It does something like this... (Score:5, Informative)
But what does it do do if you don't (or like me, can't) sing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN9pGgg8YlQ [youtube.com]
What if you just talk or make random hooting noises?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7qyjLuWVU8 [youtube.com]
Re:This is just awful. (Score:4, Informative)
It gets worse - the article references a previous link here: http://gawker.com/5130701/microsoft-ad-and-product-advertised-could-both-conceivably-make-you-want-to-kill-your-family [gawker.com]
Funny how a microoft ad for a vista-only product shows it running on a mac ... (check out the window decorations on the dialog it's eithr a mac or linux with the osx look-n-feel).
This product should be on EVERYONE's Christmas shopping list - give it to the kids of people you hate.
Anyone remember "Band-in-a-Box" back from the DOS days? It was better. This is so cheezy Kraft is suing for damage to their Cheeze Whiz brand.
Microsoft "innovation" (Score:3, Informative)
So Microsoft Research reinvents Band-in-a-Box [pgmusic.com] which has been around for years and already lets you feed it an MP3 and it'll tell you the chord changes [pgmusic.com]. Then you can use that to have Band-in-a-Box generate a song in any style you choose. Nothing new here. Move along.
Re:Microsoft Sucks Checklist (Score:5, Informative)
My father in law owns a PS3 that he had to put onto a wire frame so that it would circulate the air underneath the console. It was getting so hot it would stop working, so that was his solution to being able to use it to watch a whole movie (which is what my in-laws mostly do with their console).
So, anecdotally speaking, I'd have to say that my experience has been almost the polar opposite of what yours has been.
Sony not as benevolent as you'd believe. (Score:5, Informative)
With X-Box, you need to hack the HD in order to run any other software. With the PS3, you simply go into the system menu and select (install other OS).
Sony's just as evil [wikipedia.org] as the next company. From what I understand, they declared the PS3 to be a "computer system [1up.com]" as a means of avoiding tariffs in Europe, and to do this they needed to offer access to the OS. Plain and simple. They tried this with the PS2, but it didn't offer access to the OS, and thus failed the test [bbc.co.uk] (as I am led to believe).
Re:Microsoft Sucks Checklist (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the iPod Shuffle has a considerably better built-in amplifier than the 'vanilla' iPod models. (This can be measured [home.comcast.net] objectively)
Unfortunately, I haven't seen similar tests for more recent models. nor am I sure if Apple ever bothered to implement the Shuffle's push-pull design in other models.
Re:Microsoft Sucks Checklist (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microsoft Sucks Checklist (Score:5, Informative)
That article is ancient. It's analysis is a hair off (mis-describing how blocking caps work). And most of all the difference between the shuffle and a regular iPod is not that the shuffle is "push-pull". All the devices in that test are push-pull. Single-ended (class A) is not power effective enough to use in a device like that.
The difference between the two is that a regular iPod has blocking caps to remove the DC component from the output. The shuffle at that time did not. Blocking caps create a high-pass filter with the impedance of the headphones, so low frequencies are rolled off. The capacitors need to be large enough that the roll off frequency is low enough that you get the bass notes through. At the time, the regular iPods didn't have high enough capacity blocking caps. However, this was changed shortly thereafter on the regular iPods and there has not been a noticeable difference between the two since then.
A couple other things:
The lack of blocking caps meant that the iPod shuffle was outputting a DC value even when playing complete silence instead of being at ground. Thus it was very susceptible to making ground loops. In fact, if you plugged the shuffle into a charger and a computer at the same time, you were guaranteed to get a ground loop and usually the buzz that goes with it.
If you used higher impedance headphones or connected the iPod to line in, the rolloff frequency went down so low that there never was an issue anyway. So the effect was only noticeable with headphones and most headphones cannot reproduce bass that low anyway. So only owners of high end headphones could even notice it.
The iPod Shuffle in question used integrated amps on the main chip in the Shuffle. This chip was changed years ago when the Shuffle was put into a metal case. So there's no reason to believe any newer shuffle had the same characteristics anyway.
Re:This is just awful. (Score:5, Informative)
Look, they do some sort of Hidden Markov Model estimations to find the most likely chord progression to fit the vocals. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Markov_model [wikipedia.org] It's an impressive piece of work, but it WON'T WORK IF THE SINGER CAN'T SING WORTH A DAMN. And sadly, folks, most singers (in the consumer market) can only jingle if they have a backing track to start with.
Trust Microsoft to invent the chicken before the egg. Or was it the other way round? Meh.