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Pitch Perfect Karaoke

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the advancing-audio-processing dept.

BuffJoe writes "The folks paid to make newer and improved karaoke machines have discovered a way to make even the most tone deaf singers sound great with a new technology for perfect-pitch karaoke!" Make your cracks about Karaoke if you like, but read the article- there are hooks for scoring singing, correcting pitch, and more. Should also make those Karaoke parties a little more tolerable.

10 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Wow! Imagine the future! by Kraegar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Early versions will adjust the pitch, future versions will go beyond that! Just think, someday I can "sing" the words along with the music, and due to their nifty software it will sound exactly as if I had the CD in.... Wait, if it sounds the same, why not just put in the CD? Doesn't this whole thing take some of the point out of it? I mean, bad singing included, that's the fun of Karaoke... laughing at people who try to sing along but suck...

  2. Human voice is the most finest instrument by DrunkenPenguin · · Score: 1, Insightful

    If you compare human voice to any music instrument out there, you probably agree with me when I say that human voice beats them all. Just think about your favourite singer. Although this karaoke thing is "cool", I don't believe technology itself can ever produce such emotionally rich voice that the best singers have. It's not just about singing technically properly - it's about emotions also.

  3. Two turntables and a pitch correcting microphone by Tomy · · Score: 4, Insightful
    We're close to having technology so good that it will require no talent whatsoever in order for people to make music. Just go out in the street and find attractive people to dance around and pose as singers.


    Wait, this has already happened.

  4. you too can sound like Cher by dickens · · Score: 3, Insightful

    and all the others now using auto-tune boxes as an effect. You can set these things to quantize to a diatonic scale and just "snap" from one pitch to another not allowing any slide at all. I'm sure you've heard it.

    I'm also sure you've not heard it when the thresholds are set a little looser.

    It was kinda neat the first time I heard it, but jeeze.. it's getting old.

  5. What's the point? by Vic · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Half the reason for going to Karaoke is laughing at how bad your friends and other bar patrons are at singing. If it corrects this for you, ya might as well just play the jukebox and lip-sync...

    -vic

  6. Don't leave your earplugs yet... by daoine · · Score: 4, Insightful
    It doesn't quite have the full effect as one might be lead to believe. Looks like they've got tempo adjustments, which is good for the speed demons; and key calibration (which is nice, letting all those altos sing Diana Ross now) but they're basically adjusting the music coming out, rather than the vocal input.

    Thus, bad karaoke is still bad karaoke. Good for all of us with pitch, we'll still impress. :)

    Adjusting the voice on the fly is going to be a different problem -- it would probably be easiest solved by hard coding the Hz at each given moment of a song (with some fuzzy boundaries) and then running the mic input through.

    But what fun is that? How can we be impressed by the guys who can sing A-Ha's 'Take on Me' if everyone can do it?

  7. What about variations? by CaseStudy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sure, this corrects people who are off-key, but what about those of us who intentionally change notes or tempo? I don't want to have my choices vetoed by vocoder.

  8. bad singing=fun by daanger0us · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Hearing people make fools out of themselves because they can't sing is part of the fun. At least for the first 10 min or so.

    --
    Aliens? Magnetic Rings?! Bah! Who needs that when we have
  9. Isn't that what makes Karoke fun? by dcigary · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I mean, seeing how bad some people sing? I've only been to a Karoke bar once or twice, but that was certainly part of the fun: Seeing someone up there completely butchering "Hotel California".

    --
    ...my Karma ran over your Dogma...
  10. NOT perfect pitch! by gmaestro · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Perfect pitch is commonly used to describe absolute pitch:

    an intriguing behavioral trait involved in music perception and is defined as the ability to recognize the pitch of a musical tone without an external reference pitch

    For example, a professor at my beloved alma mater was able to identify a pitch by referring to its frequency in Hz! The phrase describes someone at a different end of the musical spectrum than the idiots at which this product is aimed.

    -jason