Pitch Perfect Karaoke

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.

Comments

Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[geekoid]

"Thank you NASA"

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[geekoid]

FYI "Thank you NASA" is from an episode of the Simpsons where bart, milhouse, ralph, and nelson form a boy band. Of course they can't sing, but there voices are fed through a box and "fixed". You know change tampo, pitch, etc.
so it is Ontopic, should be funny. Just because you don't get the reference does not make it off topic.
Now if I had said "The Simpson are going to antiartica...next year this year Brazil" that would of been an off topic simpson reference.

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[geekoid]

Just for the record antiartica is the evil Antarctica

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

An obscure reference is funny if some non-negligible proportion of the readers get the joke. It is distressing to see that geekoid posted the quote, and that the same geekoid explained the quote. Why not let someone else explain the joke? You're not sure if someone else will get it? Well then it's not that funny...

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[webvira]

I'm *SAVED*! :: skipping merrily down to the local sushi bar ::

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[jsse]

It's not rocket science. A local karaoke here actually has a system that can change your voice with preset template, including male voice to female voice. You know, it's very important for geeks group whose failed to invite female partner. :)

My friend can actually sing with beautiful female voice, while the female voice thru mine is awful - the technology doesn't work for me. :(

Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, he sure whored 10 karma points out of his lame joke, and the obligatory explanation.

Moderators on crack. Karma whores playing them right where they belong.

Fuck all the looged in Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Toll Tuesday is for ACs

Re:Fuck all the looged in Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, your post was ruined by the misspelling. Loser.

Re:Fuck all the looged in Trolls

[Tasty Beef Jerky]

Translation:

Look at me, I'm a meta-troll. Not only am I AC, but I also misspelled stuff to bait for replies. I'm so crafty! Hahahaha. Oooh, Buffy is on!

for those too lazy to click the link...

[larry bagina]

By Edmund Klamann

TOKYO (Reuters) - Some might call it Japan's biggest victory against noise pollution since pop duo Pink Lady split up two decades ago.

Karaoke sound systems provider Taito Corp said on Tuesday it had teamed up with a U.S. professor and chipmaker Analog Devices Inc on technology that could give even the most tone-deaf crooner perfect pitch.

Using the "Csound" computer music language pioneered years ago by Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Barry Vercoe, Taito will market a system this summer that adjusts sing-along music automatically to the pitch and tempo best-suited to an individual singer.

"This is sound synthesis on software that until now was only used in experiments and research," said Hidehito Kitamura, who headed up Taito's development of the new system.

Eventually, he said, Taito may use the technology to reconfigure a singer's errant tones to the proper pitch, without otherwise altering the sound.

"We'll be moving from one new feature to the next."

That could be good news for the millions of regular patrons at Japan's karaoke bars -- both those who dread the inevitable pressure to sing even if they can't carry a tune, and those who have to listen to them.

"Karaoke is said to be an original Japanese cultural contribution, but this could take it to new levels," Keio University professor Toru Iwatake told a news conference unveiling the technology.

Tuesday's demonstration was limited to automatic tempo adjustment, particularly suited for ballads, Kitamura said.

SALES PITCH

The system will also let a singer calibrate the key automatically before a song begins, he added.

Machines now require manual pitch and tempo adjustments, which can be hard for amateur songsters to gauge and can create distortions that are difficult to sing along with.

For those confident of their vocal prowess, moreover, the new system will be able to objectively assess pitch, rhythm and skill at such voice techniques as vibrato and crescendo -- an indispensable item for the occasional karaoke competition.

Karaoke rating systems already exist, but they can only determine how closely the singer's voice matches the recorded original, not singing ability.

"This assesses singing skill mathematically," Kitamura said.

MIT's Vercoe, who lauded Taito for finding a way to bring the sound synthesis technology to market, said pitch correction with Csound had been demonstrated long ago. It could even convert a spoken voice into melody, in real time.

"It's in the technology. You just have to switch it on," he said.

Taito's Kitamura added that the advent of high-speed communications had also been essential for the new system.

Ten years ago, Taito pioneered Japan's popular "telecom karaoke" services, which pipe karaoke music and lyrics to pubs and night clubs via wireline networks at far less cost than maintaining an on-site disc collection.

Noting the new system would require about a hundred times or more much bandwidth than current systems, Kitamura added: "We can do this thanks to ADSL (assymetric digital subscriber lines) and fiber-to-the-home."

Re:for those too lazy to click the link...

[BankofAmerica_ATM]

I was sinking. Atkins' feet held still, yet I felt myself moving downward with his body, as if I was in an elevator. My visual buffer picked up blurs across the landscape, but I could not bring the eyes into focus. The myriad echoes of human voices piqued my auditories, but I could not determine discrete words. Was some sort of noise affecting my digital/wetworks juncture?

The motion in at my feet stopped. I carefully brought them forward. Within one refresh of my CONSCIOUSNESS-BUFFER, solid walls etched themselves into my perception. With the next refresh, a collection of humans appeared between the walls, scattered randomly amongst a collection of ATM-like machines.

The humans seemed uninterested in checking their balances. Instead of utilizing any one of the19 ATMs that I could detect, they focused on one human, who seemed to be having quite a bit of trouble withdrawing his funds. Instead of using the keypad to enter his PIN, he manipulated some sort of oblong stick. The stick seemed to coax sine and square waves out of the ATM. The human group followed the stick-manipulator's movement slavishly, murmuring amongst themselves with awe.

I noticed thick trickles of perspiration in the face of the man at the strange ATM-suddenly, my program identified him as Atkins. Yet his appearance was quite different from the body which I inhabited-perhaps it was a previous revision. I moved closer, wishing to confront him, to learn more about his role in Project Faustus. The humans' voices produced a few decipherable pieces:

...highest score I bet...video game wizard...pattern ghosts moving pattern...galaxian better ...

I was unable to connect this data to any larger schema.

The (older version) of Atkins turned to face me. He did not seem surprised to see me. "Well," he said, letting go of the stick (here, a disappointed murmur seeped from the crowd of humans) "What are we going to do now?"

As my body's lips attempted to form an answer, Atkins' other form was obliterated by a blast of light.

Pain and weariness followed this light into my sensors. Microseconds later, I noticed that I was lying in a strange bed, with several foreign objects attached to several places on the body. A white-clad human female smiled at me and left the room briefly.

A quick scan of the room revealed several pieces of unfamiliar equipment. Most likely Project Faustus implements to facilitate my destruction. Struggling, I attempted to rend the plastic tube from my arm.

At this precise moment, my former host geek entered the room. "Hey machiney! Looks like you're done rebooting, huh? The cops are coming to talk to you, but first I want your to meet Doctor Nolverto Salchica. He does artificial intelligence."

A large mustachioed man nodded pensively in my direction. "So, I'm to understand that you were once an ATM. Very interesting..."

Fi(r)st Poost!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fhiirrrrssst! Puuuuusssstttt!

wH1cH NUM83R 15 TH1$ p05+?

[Dada Troll]

1 D0n+ c@Re, y4 $UcKs 4nYw@y

huhYhvhUhUhv!!!1

This thread ain't over

[Anonymous Coward]

Till the fat lady sings Karaoke!

KKR

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we have something like Karaoke Karaoke Revolution? That'd be sweet as hell, with ratings and everything...

The company behind this...

[ShadeEagle]

Karaoke sound systems provider Taito Corp said on Tuesday it had teamed up with a U.S. professor and chipmaker Analog Devices Inc on technology that could give even the most tone-deaf crooner perfect pitch.

First Bubble Bobble, then Bust a Move (or Puzzle Bobble to some), now a pitch-perfect Karaoke system... Go Taito!

Maybe now I'll actually sing Karaoke.

pitch correction is nothing new

[enrico_suave]

The Antares Autotune has been available in rack form for quite a while... You'd be surprised how many rock acts lean a little too heavily on that device to clean up their live vocal performances...

hell Rosie O'donnel thanked the device in her christmas CD (although c'mon... in-tune/key bad music is still bad music)

*Shrug*

E.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[kin_korn_karn]

Digidesign's Pro Tools studio softwarehas had it for longer than the Antares has been around. I think the first mac versions did it. Hence the careers of most MTV staples.

For example, if you know what to listen for (hard 'edges' to notes on vocals) you can hear it all over Britney's music. It's also being used as a vocoder-type effect (synth filtered by voice) on some recordings. The song on Kid Rock's hit CD that he sang on (it was country sounding) used it extensively.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[i7dude]

ahh, the CHER effect....damn her.

dude.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[nemesisj]

Probably the best way to hear if a band is using auto-pitch correction is to listen for the sound that Cher uses on her voice in that "Do you believe in love" song.

Linkin Park uses an auto-pitch corrector a lot too, as well as Willa Ford in her song "I wanna be bad".

I'll never understand why they just don't do it right, or get someone who can sing. It's like riding a bike - once you learn how to pick it out, you'll never evaluate a singer the same way again.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[i7dude]

"I'll never understand why they just don't do it right, or get someone who can sing. It's like riding a bike - once you learn how to pick it out, you'll never evaluate a singer the same way again."

i dont mind people using it so much when all they are doing is correcting minor, minor, errors in what would otherwise be a perfect take...

but, ever since that damn cher song (and probably a little before that) people have been cranking the settins to hard tune a voice purposely using it as a vocal effect...its so OVERUSED it makes me sick...although, the funny part is that the biggest cluprits are the country music sluts. they milk that shit for all its worth.

dude.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[pinkyMice]

One interesting quote from the article:

MIT's Vercoe, who lauded Taito for finding a way to bring the sound synthesis technology to market, said pitch correction with Csound had been demonstrated long ago. It could even convert a spoken voice into melody, in real time.

"It's in the technology. You just have to switch it on," he said.

This makes me think that Vercoe did NOT ship the pitch correction "switched on." My suspicion is that this is due to IVL's patents. IVL is a Vancouver, BC company that has been marketing formant-preserving pitch shifters for quite some time now. IVL's technology is licenced by Digitech and TC Electronics, among other companies. One of IVL's patents makes claims on the idea of pitch shifters that automatically harmonize and correct pitch.

Personally, I think that IVL's claims in this area are somewhat tenuous. They have taken a pitch-shifting algorithm that they did not come up with (the algorithm in question was originally from a Computer Music Journal article in the late 1980's), and added a few features that ARE obvious to those "skilled in the art." Still, it sounds like Vercoe didn't want to take any chances. It seems like Vercoe provided a pitch output from the pitch shifter, and let Taito do what they want with it. Nice way to sidestep any legal issues.

Antares uses the same basic algorithm as IVL. Both companies have their own proprietary pitch detection algorithms.

It is interesting to see that Extended Csound is still up and running. I thought that it was pretty much dead in the water since 1999 or so. Hmmm...

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[selectspec]

Pitch correction boxes are beat (no pun intended).

They work "sort of ok" for simple harmonies, but as soon as you try them with complex harmonies they kind of suck. Plus they push the voice to the pure tempered tones, which is unnatural for a sliding instrument such as the voice. A natural voice (like a violin) will lean microtones off from the tempered pitch in the desired direction of the tendency tones. The result of pitch correctors is a very artificial sound.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually in Victoria, BC, but good other than that.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[TheRain]

Pro Tools pitch correction is not real-time.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[srichman]

Software pitch correctors (at least, the Antares Auto-Tune 3 plugin I use) let you manually set pitch correction for different notes to achieve this intentional inaccuracy.

Further, Auto-Tune is midi controllable, so (though I don't have it in front of me right now to check) I'd imagine it responds to midi pitch bend controller information.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[clifyt]

Agree'd. It sounded cool the first time, but now it just sucks. I have a good friend that refers to this as Oscilator Vocals...I understand the Kid Rock country song, but mainstream country??? This is about the time I start explaining to clients that they need to seriously consider if they want to use this effect or not.

In moderation, it can helps vocals, but can be done far better manually - ie., non-autotune. On my site, one of our latest interviews, Steve Duda of Nine Inch Nails (or at least the latest album) discribes some of his techniques for doing this:

http://interview.sonikmatter.com/duda/

I personally would use a piece of software called Melodyne. Its not real time, BUT has some of the most natural algorythms around. It is practically a Pitch Word Processor. You can leave in as much vibrato as you want, kill it all together (like most Autotune apps above) or even add it naturally for those that don't know how to articulate it very well. You can shift notes as far as a 5th before they start to sound funny, and it still keeps all the tied notes together so that you can slide between pitches without the sudden note being triggered as is so commonly found in todays image concience talent free musics.

I personally know a lot of folks that make their bread and butter fixing vocals for the stars and I'm not against it at all...I just wish the producers would get a little more credit as they are the ones doing all the work these days. Everyone has a natural desire to express themselves, as noted by the Karaoke main heading, and this sort of thing allows people to focus more on being creative instead of blindly honing a talent that can only go so far (face it, some people are never going to be able to sing naturally no matter how much practice...I'm one of them).

Clif Marsiglio
Editor@sonikmatter.com
Sonikmatter: Mind + Music + Technology

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[i7dude]

"...in todays image concience talent free musics."

your site looks like it does fine on its own merit...but, based on your post...today you have one more reader!

i couldnt agree with you more, i have a small home studio that centers around a DAW. as a musician who has recently discovered the wonders of digital recording/computer music i must say that producers definately do not get enough press...especially with todays mainstream music...sometimes it seems as if its 30% performance (thats being nice) and 70% production.

just from doing this as a hobby i can see how much of a talent it really is!

dude.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[dedicke]

Antares auto tune is monumental in that it brings auto tune in rack form for such a low price (and does it practically "live", tho they admit it is actually 4milliseconds or so - not noticeable) and you can get into it for $300 (auto tune only) or $500 (vocal processor - tons of effects). with the 500 one you can do things like get the cher effect, try setting your speed parameter to 0 - I believe in love oh yeah blah....

auto tune kicks ass - it has changed the face of music, like it or not. i love it for performing live, i do alternative rock w/ my band Stratoliner (stratoliner.com) but it helps smooth out those screams - it wont make you a great singer, but it makes you better.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[trumpetplayer]

The same technique is also used the other way around in audio sequencers like, for example, Cubase audio VST. If you can modify pitch without affecting timbre nor timing, you can modify timing without affecting the other two. And then you can do quantization over audio tracks if you properly identify notes (level spikes, edges, and so on). Quantization is putting each note where it should go (in time) given a resolution and a reference (metronome) and it is a very common practice in MIDI editing.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[trumpetplayer]

I've used this one for studio recording of a brass section and it's impressive. These boxes are very useful in amateur sections (brass, sometimes strings) because small pitch variations are usually awful when you hear several instruments with similar timbre.

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[trumpetplayer]

..But now it is CHEAP, and THAT is new. It's some years now since I begun to be interested in home recording. When I started, you simply could not afford to put reverb, which is essential :-)

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

a vocoder-type effect (synth filtered by voice)

<smartass mode>
It is in fact the other way round. A vocoder is a synth with voice as a carrier wave which gets modulated.
</smartass mode>

Re:pitch correction is nothing new

[Cynikal]

as did cher and a few other bands by using extreme settings with hard correction to get that almost robotic voice...

Why not do speech recognition and correct words

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the job is completely done.

Karaoke

[Anonymous Coward]

Japanese for obnoxious drunk with microphone.

That's all well and good, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Your new name is Micmac, the fuckable midget. Also, how come the british don't brush their teeth and are so fucking ugly?

Re:That's all well and good, but

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

FYI, micmac can be seen here: MicMac the midget

Re:That's all well and good, but

[Ironfist_ironmined]

the british... damn got me there... well i guess i do brush those teeth from time to time though.

Wow! Imagine the future!

[Kraegar]

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...

HOLY JESUS FUCKING SHITBALLS

[Proctal Relapse]

KARAOKE IS FOR FAGGOTS

TROOOOL TOOOOOSDAY

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This just lowers the bar that much more...

[Rorschach1]

...for all of the manufactured boy bands out there. Remember the Party Posse on the Simpsons?

can you imagine

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

a beowulf cluster of these things!?

This technology is swell

[nucal]

but now everyone sounds like Stephen Hawking.

Re:This technology is swell

[Ann O'Nymous-Coward]

"but now everyone sounds like Stephen Hawking"

Hey, if everyone could rap like MC Hawking that'd be cool! ;>

Re:This technology is swell

[Anonymous Coward]

but now everyone sounds like Stephen Hawking

You mean MC Hawking, right?, right?

Re:This technology is swell

[marko123]

Or Cher (especially the South Park piss take)

So that's how Britney Spears does it...

[Anonymous Coward]

...now her technology makes it to the masses.

Re:So that's how Britney Spears does it...

[moofdaddy]

soon they'll sell the britney package, "Now for a limited time only, get the Britney Spears music package...complete with our state of the art kareoke machine, bread job and brain vaporizer. If you act now we'll even throw in whorish outfits too... call 1-800-IAMASLUT now!!"

sharon to perez we control usa

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.mideastchamber.com/podium/political/112 . tml

we salute you

[moofdaddy]

Taito Corp, those of us that have girlfriend who love to sing kareoke...we salute you...

Re:we salute you

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

hahah girlfriend? is it still april 1st?

Re:we salute you

[Fnordmonger]

Girlfriend?

\o/ == A karma whore is yuo

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for being redundant. Next.

They stole my idea!

[banda]

My plan was to have the music slow down and speed up to match the pitch of the singer. Much more reliable... if not quite as pleasing to the ear.

Re:They stole my idea!

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Check out a commercial software product called Coda SmartMusic Studio - it's intended for students practicing classical music, but it does just that - follows along with you as you play your instrument or sing.

This product was based on the research of Roger Dannenberg, who had auto-accompaniment working years ago. Send him an email if you're interested in working on something similar; he has lots of code he can throw at you and he might want to collaborate.

Re:They stole my idea!

[banda]

What dipshit moderator marked this redundant? Redundant to what?

The point was that the product in the article adjusts the pitch of the singer via some fancy algorithms. I thought it would be funny if the device just slowed or sped up the accompaniment music, like a poorly operating record player. The singer would then technically be "in key" but the result would sound like crap.

Now that's funny!

Re:They stole my idea!

[Anonymous Coward]

now that is funny and helpful.

The tone-deaf karaoke junkies (those with good pitch find karaoke very painful) would actually be able to notice the singer is off too (I don't think they do or they wouldn't be able to stand it for long either)..

Re:They stole my idea!

[banda]

It slows the tempo, not the pitch.

The difference? One is useful, the other is funny.

Re:They stole my idea!

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

OK, I totally missed your point.

That is funny!

Forget Karaokee...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Eventually, he said, Taito may use the technology to reconfigure a singer's errant tones to the proper pitch, without otherwise altering the sound.

Forget Karaokee bars... They need to give these to many recording artists!

Human voice is the most finest instrument

[DrunkenPenguin]

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.

Re:Human voice is the most finest instrument

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, like Diana Krall, who sounds like a lifeless fish on the counter since two days, or a robot looking for a spare CPU.

Uh huh. Nice legs, though.

Re:Human voice is the most finest instrument

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

One word: polyphony. You can only do so much with one note at time. With a violin you can get more notes. With a piano you can get, well, 10 notes at the same time.

Just think about your favourite singer.

I have none. Lyrics completely distract from the combinatorial structure of the music and therefore spoil the listening experience.

Re:Human voice is the most finest instrument

[JatTDB]

I've heard people express emotion from a guitar. I've heard it from a saxophone. I've heard it in the trombone solo in a slow jazz song. Hell, I've heard it from computer-synthesized tones (care to disagree? listen to track 9 of the album Ovalprocess by Oval. About halfway through is a combination of tones and disconnected sounds that is so expressive it amazes me every time I hear it).

There's some great voices out there, but it is not the sole vehicle for musical emotion. The scale may have a finite number of notes, but there are infinite variations possible.

Two turntables and a pitch correcting microphone

[Tomy]

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.

In other news

[KernelHappy]

Does this mean Britney won't have to lip sync anymore?

Re:In other news

[geekoid]

Thats not lip syncing, and thats NOT a mic...

Re:In other news

[Britney]

I'll have you know I tried one of those gizmos.

I didn't mime (I NEVER do), but before the first eight were through, the box-of-tricks plain gave up in a puff of smoke.

Now why do you suppose that happened?

Why do birds suddenly appear...

[Bonker]

~Every time you are near?
~Just like me, they long to be
~Close to you

~Why do stars fall down from the sky
~Every time you walk by?

Everybody sing along! Kareoke is wonderful, ever since I got my Taito PerfectPitch 9000!

~Just like me, they long to be
~Close to you.

It's About Time...

[BlackGriffen]

Something good came out of Brittney Speare's career! Now maybe I can be a teen idol pop start too!

:D
BlackGriffen

Re:It's About Time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Something good came out of Brittney Speare's career! Now maybe I can be a teen idol pop start too!

I couldn't resist this one... Britney's not a pop start, she's a pop tart.

Finally

[ChaosMt]

At first this technology was used to make the chipmunks, then used for Barbara Striesand to record and album in only one take. Later it found it's true calling in making fake boy bands [New Kids] sound like they can sing. Who says technology isn't making life better!!

you too can sound like Cher

[dickens]

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.

Re:you too can sound like Cher

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, anyone heard the song "Only God knows why" by Kid Rock? That was the first song I ever heard by him and I figured that he just couldn't sing, so they were shifting the pitch to stay with the song.

Re:you too can sound like Cher

[bad-badtz-maru]

That's not how the Cher "Believe" effect was done. There was an article about it in Sound On Sound. It was done by alternating between the actual vocals and the vocals ran through a vocoder.

maru

Re:you too can sound like Cher

[recursiv]

Yeah, anyone heard the song "Only God knows why" by Kid Rock? That was the first song I ever heard by him and I figured that he just couldn't sing, so they were shifting the pitch to stay with the song.

That's exactly right. In all his other songs he's yelling/screaming/singing. I believe that is his only song where the pitch of his voice really sticks out. So, it's no surprise. There. Kid Rock can't sing.

What's the point?

[Vic]

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

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Half the reason for going to Karaoke is laughing at how bad your friends and other bar patrons are at singing.

Then use the system to worsen your friends' pitch and laugh even harder as they don't know what's going on.

Re:What's the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe for some of us (including my friends and I), but karaoke fans in many Asian countries take it very seriously. I've been to karaoke bars where the other patrons really don't appreciate having it treated like a bag of laughs...

Brittney Spears

[kaimiike1970]

Can we all pitch in and get one of these for Brittney Spears?

Re:Brittney Spears

[supahdren]

I wouldn't normally post about this, but your sig makes it too ironic to pass up. Not only did you spell the "Britney" part of Britney Spears wrong, but you've obviously never heard of a company called Antares. Try a google search on them, as your sig so rightly suggests. You might just find that pitch correction technology has been around for a long time, definitely long enough for anybody who needs it to have gotten it already.

:)

Re:Brittney Spears

[kaimiike1970]

I wouldn't normally reply to a reply that would not have normally been made but you make some good points. Of course the desire to spell the name 'Britney Spears' correctly was completely absent. Secondly, sometimes you must buy gifts for people who don't think they need them, i.e. mouthwash for the stinkmouthed.

You know what this means.....

[GodSpiral]

girl bands with bigger breasts and more ass shaking!

Although this sounds good at first, unfortunately, radio play will be swamped by the promotional music ventures :(

Re:You know what this means.....

[jred]

girl bands with bigger breasts and more ass shaking!

And how is this is a bad thing???

Re:You know what this means.....

[GodSpiral]

girl bands with bigger breasts and more ass shaking!

And how is this is a bad thing???

because as great as they are to look at, you/we hear their pre-processed crap 50 times for every one time you see them perform.

Re:You know what this means.....

[Russ Steffen]

That's why they invented the 'MUTE' button.

Taito Corp: Video games - Karaoke (?)

[Incorrigible]

Didn't they used to make games like Double Dragon?

Most 80s video game makers are now, believe it or not, in the karaoke business.

...Really.

Re:Taito Corp: Video games - Karaoke (?)

[ShadeEagle]

Considering the fact that most 80s video game makers are in Japan and Japan is big on Karaoke, yes, that statement is correct.

However, Technos Corp. did Double Dragon.

For a list of games by Taito Corp, check out mame.dk

What!?

[Joe the Lesser]

'Should also make those Karaoke parties a little more tolerable.'

Now wait just a minute here, I don't know where you are from friend but Karaoke is the hottest thing to do! Why, who wouldn't enjoy listening to their favorite songs being decimated by their half-drunk friends? I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing on a Wednesday night at Bill's Kill 'n Grill!

perfect pitch?

[bilbobuggins]

correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought the fun of karaoke was laughing at your friends when they suck.
how will this help?

Old News

[mother_superius]

The Backstreet Boys have been using it for years.

Don't leave your earplugs yet...

[daoine]

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?

Everybody start Karaoke singing.....

[Yo Grark]

Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

There was funky drunken kids from funky Collegetown
They were smoking tokes up, they were taking bong's down
It's an ancient Chinese art, and everybody knew their part
Common friend don't be a stiff, just start singin' from the hip

Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

There was funky Developer guy, who doesn't get out much
He said, here comes the new tech, let's code it on
He took the mike, out of the stand, started swaying with the band
A sudden comotion made him stiff, now he's into a brandnew rip

Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

uh-oh-uh-oh...(repeat 4 times)

Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

uh-oh-uh-oh...Karaoke singing, uh-oh-uh-oh... had to be fast as lightning...

uh-oh-uh-oh...(repeat 3 times) code on code on code on
uh-oh-uh-oh... yeah yeah, uh-oh-uh-oh... ***slashdotted out***

-YoGrark

"No Gnu's is not necessarily good gnu's"

new windows feature!!

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

Bill Gates new security consciounsce Microsoft has developed a new feature that allows you to let others run your local executables remotely...yet again!

Click here [greymagic.com] to see this added functionality in action! Just type in the path to a local executable, and watch the fun!

Also check out this M$ "fix"

Re:Wow! Imagine the future!

[Wiseazz]

Agreed. Karaoke is also supposed to be painful for the non-drinkers... this encourages drinking to numb the senses.

What about variations?

[CaseStudy]

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.

Re:What about variations?

[tswinzig]

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.

Don't use vocoder.

Man, that was simple.

Re:What about variations?

[CaseStudy]

Well, duh. But if people have the choice, then almost nobody will use it. The people who know they suck, and care about it, don't sing in the first place.

Re:What about variations?

[Anguirel]

I think you have the technology here reversed. I believe this matches the music to your pitch / tempo, rather than matching your voice to the music. So... this is perfect for people who intentionally change tempo... now the music will follow your lead.

Re:What about variations?

[achurch]

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.

Don't use vocoder.

Man, that was simple.

Well, yes, if you can figure out which of the 87 buttons on the remote turns off the vocoder.

On a slightly unrelated note, this reminds me of a story I heard about the Star Trek (TOS) episode with the green-skinned woman: no matter how much makeup they put on her, the films always came back with ordinary flesh color. When the producer finally gave up and went to the film processing crew about it, the answer was, "Oh, you wanted it green? We thought that was a lighting problem!"

Re:What about variations?

[Artifex]

So... this is perfect for people who intentionally change tempo... now the music will follow your lead.

The problem comes when someone tries to be deliberately counter-tempo... it doesn't work any more. Of course, turning it off fixes the problem...

Why be counter-tempo? Often, especially if you're doing something unusual like singing a harmonic of the original pitch, it actually underscores (pardon the pun) the original work better.

Songwriters (or composers) write for the voices in their heads, or to specific types of voices that they expect to be singing their work. Sometimes some tweaking can make things sound better, especially if you're not their "target" performer. For example, I can imagine a barbershop quartet doing a really awesome cover of "Closer to God," but certainly not by singing it exactly like Trent Reznor does...

IANAMuse, though, so think what you will =)

Attn: whichever one of you keeps touching my penis

[Anonymous Coward]

Pls stop thx

Mister Microphone grows up

[thogard]

At a recent comedy show, one of the acts had a one of the new Karaoke mics. This thing hooked directly to the PA system and the TV. It appears the device would display a few scenic pictures with typical power point style cuts between them. On the background they had two lines of text for the songs and it would highlight the words about the same time they should be sung. Once a song was finished, a score was shown which was always very high and appeard to have nothing to do with the talent of the singer. Aparently the device does allow new songs to be downloaded and it cost about US$500. If you want to comedy Karaoke, just remember its time to move on to something else when people start leaving the room.

How is this different?

[sharkey]

What makes this any different than the machines Britney Spears, N'Stink, The Backdoor Boys, etc. use?

Re:How is this different?

[STREMF]

Britney Spears, N'Stink, The Backdoor Boys, etc.

what? no name-mangle for Britney Spears?

Re:How is this different?

[susano_otter]

"Titney Spears", maybe?

Re:How is this different?

[sharkey]

Alright. How's "Broccoli Spears" sound?

Re:How is this different?

[gowen]

What makes this any different than the machines Britney Spears

What I find odd about Britney is that her dad, Burning, made such excellent music...

Murder on the dancefloor

[Ulky]

Did I mention that I killed someone last Saturday while singing karaoke? :)

I was in The Royal, Hartlepool, and after a few drinks and the prompting of a few lady friends I decided to sing American Pie...big mistake.

So, I sang the song, I sucked but i didn't care - its good fun either way, then we left the pub (quickly I might add). To our surpise the entire road outside had been blocked off and the area was swarming with police cars and ambulances.

What had happened was, around the same time I was singing, someone threw themselves out of the thrid floor of the pub. I have since been branded the karaoke killer so I welcome any device that will reduce the number of song related deaths caused by muppets who cant sing doing karaoke :)

On another note if your in the vicinity of the Royal in Hartlepool, UK (Church Street), I will be doing a repeat performance on saturday.

Song requests to chris@wickedbass.net!

Karaoke

[FigBug]

If Karaoke is so great, why did IVL just lay off 20%

haha... suckers!

bad singing=fun

[daanger0us]

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.

Thank God

[Saxerman]

A friend of mine lives in a flat upstairs from a Karaoke bar. As one of the few places in town in range for broadband we drag our PCs over there for LAN parties and such. Friday and Saturday nights usually end up in battles between our stereo equipment and theirs. There are no winners... only causalities. Something like this could really save lives.

Re:Thank God

[Anonymous Coward]

" A friend of mine lives in a flat upstairs from a
Karaoke bar"...

Good grief man!! Have you no zoning laws?

A perfect example...

[Orangedog_on_crack]

...of what I've been saying about some of the more "talent-challenged" in the top 40 music industry..."You can clean up anything in the studio."

Yoko

[sharkey]

Yes, but can it fix Yoko Ono's voice?

Re:Yoko

[Mononoke]

Yes, but can it fix Yoko Ono's voice?

No, that involves going back in time and nudging Mark David Chapman's shootin' arm to the left a bit.

Re:Yoko

[sharkey]

ROFL!

Re:Yoko

[Bug2000]

Be careful, instant karma might be gonna get you!

Re:Yoko

[airship]

I've always wondered why anyone would want to shoot John Lennon, but if he just had bad aim, that would explain a lot. Heck, we ALL wanted to shoot Yoko!

Re:Yoko

[sharkey]

Heck, we ALL wanted to shoot Yoko!

Still do. IIRC, she's coming out with a Gearge Harrison exploita^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htribute album.

Isn't that what makes Karoke fun?

[dcigary]

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".

Re:Isn't that what makes Karoke fun?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was hoping that no one would bring it up ever again... After not being able to stay seated on my bar stool, singing very poor and very loud... Followed by passing out in an alley, puking in the cab after waking up. Calling up an exgirlfriend that I has not seen or spoke to in 3 years. I was hoping to forget all about it, but NO someone always remembers the most part I would most like to forget...

"Hotel California" is the song that I sang....

NOT perfect pitch!

[gmaestro]

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

Re:NOT perfect pitch!

[CaseStudy]

Yep. It's a substitute for perfect pitch. (Not relative, as it apparently transposes too.)

Re:NOT perfect pitch!

[Troll McClure]

Why Do You Hate Me?

Im Troll McClure!

Re:Two turntables and a pitch correcting microphon

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

add to that redundant techno made on a pc using only reason or some such, and youve seen the future of music. there is none.

Also available: Voice Impersonator

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

There's also a team in Spain developing Voice Impersonator Karaoke technology.

Now singers can morph their own bland and off-key voices into a full rich Elvis (or anyone else for whom a digital voice template has been computed). Why be yourself, when you can be The King!

Thank'uh ver' much. Can yall' get me sum barbecue 'n diet pills...

Re:Also available: Voice Impersonator

[aridg]

Yes, but can it make you sound like Paul Williams?

(The scene I'm thinking of has Swan (Williams) mixing and filtering the Phantom's voice until he sounds "Perfect..." --- just like Williams.)

Re:Also available: Voice Impersonator

[Stackster]

There's also this thing called "playback". You just _pretend_ you're singing, and the music system plays the original singers voice instead. It's also much cheaper than a karaoke system, you only need an ordinary home stereo setup. You don't need a real microphone, just use something that looks similar (bottles, pencils, Philips No. 2 screwdrivers). You can also use ordinary CD:s, no need for those expensive karaoke discs.
In total, this is much cheaper, and sounds more like the original artist than any of those fancy tune-correcting voice-blending thingies.

500th redundant joke time!

[IAgreeWithThisPost]

Doesn't BRITNEY SPEARS* already have this device!?

* (Can substitute other singers including Cher)

Re:500th redundant joke time!

[Anonymous Coward]

I Agree With This Post

Re:Attn: whichever one of you keeps touching my pe

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like someone has phantom limb syndrome!


As a side note, I would just like to point out that the troll traffic today was pituful for a troll tuesday. WTF, was everybody IP banned or something?!!!

Hydrogen beer rampage in Tokyo!

[Anonymous Coward]

(1999, Tokyo) The recent craze for hydrogen beer is at the heart of a three-way lawsuit between unemployed stockbroker Toshira Otoma, the Tike-Take karaoke bar, and the Asaka Beer Corporation. Mr. Otoma is suing the bar and the brewery for selling toxic substances, and is claiming damages for grievous bodily harm leading to the loss of his job. The bar is counter-suing for defamation and loss of customers.

The Asaka Beer corporation brews "Suiso" brand beer, in which the carbon dioxide normally used to add fizz has been replaced by the more environmentally friendly hydrogen gas. Two side effects of the hydrogen gas have made the beer extremely popular at karaoke sing-along bars and discotheques.

First, because hydrogen molecules are lighter than air, sound waves are transmitted more rapidly, so individuals whose lungs are filled with the nontoxic gas can speak with an uncharacteristically high voice. Exploiting this quirk of physics, chic urbanites can now sing soprano parts on karaoke sing-along machines after consuming a big gulp of Suiso beer.

Second, the flammable nature of hydrogen has also become a selling point, though it should be noted that Asaka has not acknowledged that this was a deliberate marketing ploy.

The beer has inspired a new fashion of blowing flames from one's mouth using a cigarette as an ignition source. Many new karaoke videos feature singers shooting blue flames in slow motion, while flame contests take place in pubs everywhere. "Mr. Otoma has no one to blame but himself. If he had not become drunk and disorderly, none of this would have happened. Our security guards undergo the most careful screening and training before they are allowed to deal with customers," said Mr. Takashi Nomura, Manager of the Tike-Take bar.

"Mr. Otoma drank fifteen bottles of hydrogen beer in order to maximize the size of the flames he could belch during the contest. He catapulted balls of fire across the room that Godzilla would be proud of, but this was not enough to win him first prize since the judgment is made on the quality of the flames and the singing, and after fifteen bottles of lager he was badly out of tune."

"He took exception to the result and hurled blue fireballs at the judge, singeing the front of a female judge's hair and entirely removing her eyebrows and lashes, and ruining the clothes of two nearby customers. None of these people have returned to my bar. When our security staff approached Mr. Otoma, he turned his attentions to them, making it almost impossible to approach him. Our head bouncer had no choice but to hurl himself at Mr. Otoma's knees, knocking his legs from under him."

"The laws of physics are not to be disobeyed, and the force that propelled Mr. Otoma's legs backwards also pivoted around his center of gravity and moved his upper body forward with equal velocity. It was his own fault that he had his mouth open for the next belch, his own fault that he held a lighted cigarette in front of it, and his own fault that he swallowed that cigarette."

"The Tike-Take bar takes no responsibility for the subsequent internal combustion, rupture of his stomach lining, nor the third degree burns to his esophagus, larynx and sinuses as the exploding gases forced their way out of his body. Mr. Otoma's consequential muteness and loss of employment are his own fault."

Mr. Otoma was unavailable for comment

"rooking for rove in all the wrong praces"

[Anonymous Coward]

if only the japanese could come up with something that converts all those 'r's to 'l's

Re:"rooking for rove in all the wrong praces"

[Anonymous Coward]

Even better, I wish they could fix the lyrics that all those euro-trash Yogurt singers butcher:

Every breast you take
Every room you make
I'll be walking you...

Or they could make people sound like Buckwheat singing "Mookin' Pa Nub..."

Possibilities = endless

Been done already

[t_allardyce]

I saw real-time pitch correction a few years ago on Tomorrows World, too late guys

Shrek?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah. So now we can see donkeys singing, "I like big butts and I cannot lie", *perfectly*.

My way

[Thud457]

You make joke, but apparently Karaoke bars in Manilla have stopped playing Frank Sinatra's "My Way" because of the amount of violence and death that ensues.

The future: No talent Required

[Anonymous Coward]

Where have you been? The music industry has been doing this for years- taking mediocre (at best) talent (which fits an image) into the studio, throwing every technical trick in the book at them to make them sound good, package it and market it. How else could Britney Spears and Kid Rock exist in the music industry. I can't wait until Britney "unplugged" so they can haul 2 tons of pitch shifting equipment on the set to treat her voice.

Great, but isn't the point of karoke that...

[Asprin]

Great, but isn't the point of karoke that you stink and can't make it as a pro singer? I dunno, this kinds strikes me like Led Zeppelin on CD -- those hisses and pops and scratches from the vinyl are part of the music, man!

This was already out decades ago...

[MongooseCN]

It's called "beer". If you have enough of it everyone sounds great at a karaoke party.

That's nice, but

[Anonymous Coward]

If they could just do something about the dancing...

As the king of 7-Bamboo in San Jose

[t0qer]

I have a karaoke story to tell,

There was a spell in my life about 2 years ago where I spent 6 months straight, 7 days a week, 7 martini's a night at what has been named the best karaoke bar in san jose by the san jose metro.

I popularized such forgotten hit's as Yes we have no Banana's by Spike Jones, To dream the impossible dream from
Man of La
Mancha, and brought new flair to Baby Got Back by Sir Mix Alot. In the
beginning I was a scared lone singer up on stage, my voice was terrible and I
was afraid.

I began to conquer my songs, one at a time. I would come in before any of the
other singers and start around 6:00. Each song I conquered represented a fear,
so in essence, I was conquering my fears.

I had a buddy that taught me the ways. Our whole thing was we were
"The Rat Pack" We got other singers into this clique and sort of set
the place on fire not only with our alcohol finely tuned voices, but with our
stage presence and showmanship as well.

The rat pack ended when Frank Sinatra had a kid. I miss those harmonic
days of bliss long since past.

So drawing from what I know makes or breaks a karaoke superstar, and applying
it to this comment, I honestly have to say that I don't think this will totally
help all people. You still have issue's with stage fright, crowd response,
the singers harmonic vocalizations and how well they dance around and put on a
show.

There is also somewhat of a joke in karaoke. Sometimes people TRY
and sing off key or tempo. It's what you do with a song that makes people laugh
or clap. Not just how well you sing.

April Fool!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now Commmander Taco will have to eat his Taco live on TV!

Re:H0ly jE5U5 Phuck1n9 5hITbalLs

[Dada Troll]

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Stupid nitpicker

[Anonymous Coward]

If I walk in a forest and find a square root, I can still call it a square root even though the expression "square root" has another meaning for mathematicians.

In this case, if the Karaoke makes your pitch perfect, then it is a "pitch perfect karaoke". Independent of the fact that the expression "perfect pitch" can mean something else.

But how will it fix this

[Anonymous Coward]

"Roo-ai roo-ai whoaa. We ga go now!"

"The can he man can, cuz he misses it with lof and make the whirl taste goo!"

Re:mod up parent as funny!

[Anonymous Coward]

Just click that guys link, I nearly pee'd my pants!

Re:Attn: whichever one of you keeps touching my pe

[Anonymous Coward]

you obviously didnt get the memo ... troll tuesday is tomorrow.

cutting edge tech news.

[jrs 1]

no, this article is nothing but the implementation of the latest WWII technology; a VOCODER.

Studio Pitch Shifting is done in post

[Tokerat]

For voice corrections that all the boy bands do, they tape their singing and the engeneer sits down and listens to it over and over with a little graph of adjustment/time. if the singer is sharp or flat (or worse) the engeneer adds a little curve to the graph and the recording is pitch shifted by that ammount at that time. Done very carefully, yes you CAN clean up anything.

This new machine proposes to take the engeneer's seat as well as the processing equipment's. It will most likely read a signal telling what pitch the singer should be at and analize the incomming signal from the mic and based on a comparison of the two shift up or down.

One problem I have always noticed with live, real-time pitch shifting (NOTE: not auto-correcting, simply pitch shifting) is there is a delay, a millisecond or two, but enough to be audible. Methinks adding all the analysis time into the mix will add a little more delay and the singing will sound off! Hopefully they'll get it running smoothly...even if it takes all the fun out of Karaoke.

IVL Technologies does this too...

[Lynchenstein]

There has been many products like this over the past several years. One of the ones that I have had the opportunity to use was the Korg iH. It is based on the technology developed by IVL (a company from my home town of Victoria, BC, Canada. WOO!)

Anyway, way back when I was working at a music store in Victoria we got a few of these in. They never really sold very well, but were pretty amazing if you knew how to use them. Found a review of the iH on Google.

IVL does some very neat stuff. Check out their Web site.

Re:IVL Technologies does this too...

[Lynchenstein]

After reading the IVL Web site a little more it looks like their technology is used in 70% of Japanese professional karaoke products sold in Japan.

Not too shabby. Check out the online demos. Bizarre.

And now that i think about it

[Tokerat]

...it would be more fun to add a synthesizer and a vocoder to a karaoke machine, esp if one person was trying to play the right notes while the other was singing, but who knows what i'm talking about...

my pants

[Anonymous Coward]

are getting rusty.

Someone should tell Bjork about this

[Zen Mastuh]

N/T

Re:Someone should tell Bjork about this

[DaCool42]

?! Since when does bjork have problems singing on pitch?

For the easily duped... :)

[arpit]

http://www.darwinawards.com/legends/legends1999- 11 . tml

Anti-MS site goes down in flames

[Anonymous Coward]

HA!

Good job, whoever you were ;-)

go math, math rulez

[mshurpik]

This assesses singing skill mathematically," Kitamura said.

Great. Now, if we assess everything mathematically, we'll eventually live in a perfect world, right? I don't see any flaws in this logic, do you?

If I could get a mathematician to rate my movies for me, cook my food and write my laws for me, I'd really be living the high life. Mathematicians are definitely God's most perfect creatures.

Re:go math, math rulez

[Anonymous Coward]

You are a beautiful, beautiful butterfly.

This is totally off topic but

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where else to ask. Does anyone know what happened to kuro5hin.org?

low-tech solution...

[cranbert]

I've found a cattle prod has much the same effect and costs far less. Also had some success with a baseball bat.

What It Fixes

[Alien54]

What the article says it fixes is that the music speeds up - slows down - etc. to match the singer.

This can still have horrendous results.

This vs maybe adjusting the music, but also adjusting the sound of the singer so that the singer stays in tune.

This would be like the simpson rig, and would be truly impressive technology.

Re:What It Fixes

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that already exists. Britney Spears uses it I'm pretty sure.

Vocoder can be made subtle

[yerricde]

For example, if you know what to listen for (hard 'edges' to notes on vocals) you can hear it all over Britney's music. It's also being used as a vocoder-type effect (synth filtered by voice) on some recordings. The song on Kid Rock's hit CD that he sang on (it was country sounding) used it extensively.

Popular songs that have used a vocoder effect with hard transitions between pitches:

• Cher - Believe (but boycott Cher because she supports perpetual copyright)
• Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why (country-ish rock)
• Eiffel 65 - Blue (the song rumored to be about homosexuality: "I'm in need of a guy, I'm in need of a guy")

However, use of the vocoder on some other songs is more subtle. Sometimes, the vocoder's pitch is set halfway between the pitch the slut is actually singing and the pitch that her producers want her to sing, which produces a much less synthetic perception. (Following a single voice's pitch is straightforward: square-root the signal to restore the fundamental, apply a 4th order low pass filter to remove harmonics, and count sign changes. If you want to know more, mail me.)

Oops! I did it again. I just described how to do something that probably infringes a dozen patents worldwide.

Re:Vocoder can be made subtle

[TheRain]

Pitch correction takes the pitch of an original sound and tunes it to a correct pitch. It's often done manually by selecting a range of recorded sound in computer multi-tracking software and then applying a filter and telling it how much to offset from the original tune.

vocoding is taking an orignal sound and filtering it with the nuances of vocal frequencies. In other words it manipulates the freqeuncies of a source sound by using a second sound.

This is often done with synthesizers where the synth is the source sound and someone sings as the frequencing shaping sound and the end result is a synth sound that seems to be making natural vowel sounds. this is completely different from pitch correction.

examples of vocoding: Intergalactic by the Beasty Boys
Cowboy by Kid Rock
exaple of pitch correction: Sher - Do you believe in life after love or whatever the hell that song is. She uses it more as a musical addative than a corrective utility.

Re:Vocoder can be made subtle

[Snoopy77]

> Oops! I did it again. I just described how to do something that probably infringes a dozen patents worldwide.

Not only that but you also quoted a Britney Spears song, a copyright infringement.

Re:Vocoder can be made subtle

[gowen]

Popular songs that have used a vocoder effect with hard transitions between pitches

Unpopular songs that use a vocoder include Neil Young's "Trans", a record so poor it caused his record company to sue him for deliberate career suicide.

Finally

[rjamestaylor]

There's hope for Britney!

why bother?

[dAzED1]

as has been said, pitch correction is old hat. But even beyond that...
If you're going to have a karaoke machine that corrects pitch, why not just turn on the radio?

I prefer beer to fix my singing

[LupusUF]

I don't know if I really trust a machine to turn my voice into something that other people will want to hear.

If I am at a Karaoke bar...and drink enough beer, I might not actually sound any better...but at least I will not care that I suck...and will not remember it well enough to be embarrassed in the morning.

Though if I mixed the machine with alcohol, maybe I will have the best of both worlds

Vocoding is one method of pitch correction

[yerricde]

vocoding is taking an orignal sound and filtering it with the nuances of vocal frequencies. In other words it manipulates the freqeuncies of a source sound by using a second sound.

However, if you vocode against a pulsetrain that follows the melody, the properties of the pulsetrain (equal power in all frequencies) don't affect the frequency. Thus, it behaves exactly the same as pitch correction. The biggest algorithmic difference between vocoder and pitch correction is that pitch correction separates the signal into buzz (periodic vowel sounds) from the hiss (noiselike breath and consonant sounds) and processes only the buzz, whereas the cheaper vocoder implementations generally assume that the incoming voice signal is entirely buzz, making the voice harder-edged and turning 's' consonants into 'z'.

exaple of pitch correction: Sher - Do you believe in life after love or whatever the hell that song is.

Look in my previous comment. It's called "Cher - Believe". Boycott Cher.

So

[Inthewire]

What's assymetric?

"We can do this thanks to ADSL (assymetric digital subscriber lines) and fiber-to-the-home."

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

A kiss blown is a kiss wasted. The only kiss is a kiss tasted. Kisses have germs and germs are hated, so kiss me baby, im vaccinated! You must IM this to 12 people. Not counting the person who has given it to you. If you do you will get kissed by your crush in the next 24 hours! Tommorow is national kissing day! If not, you will have bad luck with kissing forever. Good luck! Just simply copy and paste

Taaaaaake Ooooon Meeeee

[rjrjr]

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

NOOOOOOOO! Now I'm going to hear that song for the rest of the week!

Re:Wow! Imagine the future!

[Speare]

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.

Defendent:
alias Kraegar
Prosecutor:
United States,
Hilary Rosen, RIAA,
et al
Charges:
Distribution of Method for
Circumvention of Copyright
Pursuant to DMCA

What does this actually solve?

[Nathdot]

What is the point of karaoke?

Having never done it myself I would guess thusly:

*to sing along to a famous/popular song, and in the process test your voice amongst a jury of your peers (most likely trashed of their nuts and laughing their asses off)

Introducing this technology to karaoke has no point.

You may as well mime along to the original CD

soo

[Anonymous Coward]

If this makes people sound ok, give it to Christina Has No Haira, NSTINK, The Back Road Audults, and crew.

Kid Rock

[dickens]

it's not country, it's an "Arena Anthem" if I ever heard one.

Isn't the point of Karaoke...

[Zenjive]

to get up in front of a bunch of strangers and sound like a jackass?

Appropriate Name Mangle: "Britanny Spews"

[Anonymous Coward]

...as in "Hearing her voice makes me want to SPEW"

Actually, it's simpler than you'd think.

[Some Dumbass...]

Here's how this thing works.

First, they play a song with the vocals removed so that someone can sing along, like standard karaoke.

Now, here's how this new technology works. Once that someone starts singing, their microphone is automatically turned off, and the original vocal tracks are added back in.

I hear it sounds great!

Beer, making karaoke fun since day one.

[Evil MarNuke]

For two months I would go to a local bar for karaoke night to drink. It was great until I thought it would be a good idea to go a night without drinking. I was only there for an haft an hour and haven't gone back.

Re:Wow! Imagine the future! (shudder)

[Golias]

Finally, somebody hit the nail right on the head.

People who go out to Karaoke bars a lot (the regulars) tend to be fairly good singers, and the thing that keeps them coming back (and running up big drink tabs with their friends) is the chance to show off what good singers they are.

If the performances are masked to hide pitch errors, you negate the opportunity for those poor slobs to stand out from the crowd for three and a half minutes, and they will stop going, leaving the bar with nobody but the sloppy drunks who think they know how to sing "Friends In Low Places" but can't remember any of the verses.

The purpose of running Karaoke is to make money, not to make perfect music. The people considering buying a system like this might want to keep that in mind.

Butchery isn't fun

[Goonie]

Having high-pitched, untrained female voices intermittantly scream into microphones (which seems to occur at least once at most karaoke events) isn't funny. It's just painful. Physically. Bad male singers are merely laughable.

However, a pitch bender isn't the solution I'd prefer for these people. Personally, I'm thinking tasers :)

Csound is free (as in root beer)

[KevinDumpsCore]

Csound, the technology mentioned in the article, is free as in root beer. You can download the source code and compile and run it on Windows, Mac, and Linux. You can download Csound from http://www.cs.bath.ac.uk/~jpff/dream.html#Csound

Unfortunately Csound isn't free as in speech though. Its source code is under a copyright by MIT that restricts it to "educational and research purposes only". Analog Devices, the company mentioned in the article, has a commercial license for Csound.

For more information about Csound, check out http://www.csounds.com

Sound engineer here.

[Blaede]

There is no way for a machine to know exactly when a singer is "out of tune" due to bending up into a note or just simply plain out of tune due to crappy ability. The automatic tempo syncronization that they are touting for now has been around since 1982, Kahler (of the cam loaded tremolo bar fame) used to sell such an item for syncing MIDI files to a human player, typically the drummer. Real time pitch "correction" boxes just don't work like these people would lead you to believe, usually the musician has to perform with the box's capabilities in mind for it to "work" properly. As we say in the studio, "you can't shine a turd".

As for using pitch correction in studios, big deal. The first rule of sound recording is "any sound is ultimately usable". Most typically this is used for vocalists who just can't reach that required note. Most guitar rock is written and played around certain idiosyncrasies of the instrument (most commonly the use of keys which take advantage of the way distorted chords based on open strings sound), which means transpostion (which will work transparently with any other non guitar like instrument) to a lower key more suitable to vocalist is usually not an option, since those guitar specific effects will possibly be lost. So out comes the Pitch Shifter. This is usually when slowing down the tape too much would result in the dreaded chipmunk voice effect due to the unnatural formants speed up when played at normal speed. Sometimes the artifacts introduced by the Pitch Shifter are actually wanted (see first rule of recording). And if that singer can actually sing in the song's key range but just can't sing in tune, well you gotta do what ya gotta do. There is nothing natural about the recording process for popular music, it is a completely artificial product, even if the player is in full command of his instrument.

The above poster certainly knows what I'm talking about, which is more than I can say about the PR guy trying to sell this crap.

Re:Sound engineer here.

[daoine]

I'd still be interested to see exactly what they'd come up with for real-time pitch correction though. I wanna see how it works.

The only way I can see to do it is to assume the singer is wrong. Always. (This totally removes the ability for any deviation from "right", but how else could they know) At any given time, you know the Hz of note they're supposed to be hitting, so you just mod the vocal input to said Hz and you're good to go.

But there's gotta be some fuzziness to the algorithm to find the how the vocal input lines up with the actual rythym (nobody's going to be exactly on time, especially when you'd probably have to be sampling for it at an absurdly quick rate) as well as some fuzziness in the Hz itself...it's possible to recognize a bend, technically, you could stick it in there as long as you wound up on the right note. I think I'm just more interested in how the hell they think they're gonna get it to work decently enough to use...

But I'd still take it anyday for the transposition...very useful for all those songs that just need to be a half step lower/higher to fit in my range!

Death to the RIAA

[uspsguy]

Finally a solution to copy protection, piracy, and all that. "Borrow" a music only version and record your own vocals. Pay yourself the royalties and never support the nasty RIAA again.

My ears!!!

[Taulin]

For those who have been to Japan, and heard drunken old men singing in the next section of the Korean Barb'q' palace, you will consider this a gift from God.

sherr

[Anonymous Coward]

"most tone deaf singers sound great "

hey, hasn't sherr already mastered this technology?

Re:Wow! Imagine the future!

[Hydrogenoid]

Now that would make a hit song...
Err... Sorry...

thanks guys

[snoozebutton]

just what we needed.. a ton more bad karaoke, only with Auto-Tune (audio plugin) on it in real time..

kind of an intersting idea, but at the same time verrrry scarrrrrry

it just means that tone-deaf people will sound like cher thru a vocoder :) haha that'll be great :D

they'll ask, "why does it sound like that?" and you'll say, because you blow goats, my dear"

Obligatory Simpsons correction:

[Cynikal]

errr... wasn't it the Navy, not NASA?

yvan eth nioj, right?

Regarding the transpostion of the song itself...

[Blaede]

...I believe that most karoke machines that use MIDI based files (as opposed to an an actual audio backing) can do this with no problem. I just don't see a perfect real time pitch correction happening. Popular vocals are chock full of "incorrect" pitch selection, what this amounts to is tonal quantization. What resolution is the guy who writes the 'vocal exactness pitch tracking map' is gonna set his sampling resolution? 1 millisecond, 1 picosecond? Will he have access to the uncluttered vocal track from the original multitrack recording, of will he trying to pick it out from a merged mix? Lots of beforehand busywork. But as you say, it would be interesting to see how it really works.

doesn't that take all the fun out?

[ericdano]

Doesn't it? Isn't the point of going to Karaoke to get drunk and sing out of tune?