Synthesized Singers

ctwxman writes "Over the past few decades, advances in computer hardware and software have eliminated many jobs... some technical, some menial, but none artistic. As an on-camera performer in television, I've always was believed that I was 'bulletproof' as far as replacement through technology was concerned. Not so fast. Recently, The Sinclair television stations began using 'central casting' to bring news and weather anchors from a central location (near Baltimore) to the local outlets. Still, real people are needed, just not as many. But now, even real performers may be replaced. The New York Times (inhalation of airplane glue required) reports on a new technology which allows synthesized singers to sing. Imagine having a singer with a world-class voice at your disposal, any hour of any day. She's just standing at the ready, game to perform whatever silly song you might make up for her: a ballad about her love for you, a tribute to your best friend's golf game, a stirring rendition of the evening's dinner menu. Scary."

Comments

Google Link

[Ryan Stortz]

Google partner link...and yes. I did use my subscription to get it. :P

Here is the demo MP3

[UnderScan]

From >a href="http://www.zero-g.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid= 802">http://www.zero-g.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid=8 02
LOLA Demo 1 -Little Bird (MP3)
Demo 1: "Little Bird".
(NOTE - the lead vocal line on this demo is NOT by Vocaloid - it is a real singer. Please listen to the backing vocals!). This demo illustrates well how LOLA has been used to create a simple backing vocal arrangement for a personally-produced song. The song was written and performed by one of the Zero-G singing synthesis development team, Andy Power. Andy is singing the lead vocal himself, with his real voice, but he was able to add the backing vocals to his song purely by creating them all using LOLA. Although this is only a very simple example, it immediately illustrates LOLA's usefulness in an everyday situation.

Re:Here is the demo MP3

[XorNand]

Forget backing vocals, here's a sample of "Amazing Grace" mentioned in the article. Not perfect, but quite impressive.

Re:Here is the demo MP3

[JoshRoss]

Here is a solo. And, yes it does sound like a vocorder.

Re:Macintosh speech synthesis

[danamania]

I have a couple of samples from a dev preview. The newer full 10.3 release is better and doesn't have the odd speech impediment in some places, but I have no idea how to actually record panther speech straight to a file (and haven't been bothered looking how to, to be honest!)

http://www.danamania.com/temp/victoria.mp3 is the old
http://www.danamania.com/temp/vicki.mp3 is the new

Hmm...

[cr0sh]

No ones yet mentioned Flinger, which is a customized MIDI-adapted singing Festival thingamibob...

Personally, I think the best examples to download are "The Easy Way" (song 15) and "K'ai - Eyes swim" (song 16).

While no where near perfect, Flinger and the samples really show where things are heading - I have said it before, but this type stuff (perfected, of course), plus tech like machinima (once again, as it becomes better) are truely going to alter what we think of movies, acting, etc - virtual actors, virtual singers, virtual movies...

At last, the ultimate weapon against the RIAA

[Animats]

U.S. copyright law provides a "compulsory mechanical license" option, allowing anyone to record a "cover" version of a song for a fixed statutory royalty of $0.0155/minute per copy. The RIAA likes this, because they can re-record some oldie using a new band cheaply.

But this works for anybody. If you can synthesize music from MIDI and vocal models, you can use that deal. The RIAA can't stop you from doing this.

A synthesized music web site could even buy blanket ASCAP and BMI licenses, which aren't too expensive, and allow music downloads. The going rate seems to be about $5000 per million downloads, or about $0.005 per song.

This is a real threat to the RIAA. If the technology works.

Re:At last, the ultimate weapon against the RIAA

[Psychic Burrito]

Do you have any proof for this? From what I have found, the copyright owner can still stop you from releasing your poorman covers:

In order for a compulsory mechanical license to be valid, the copyright owner must have authorized the commercial release of the song, and the song must be non-dramatic. While the Copyright Act doesn't provide a specific definition for the term "non-dramatic song," most people think of it as a song that's not from a musical or an opera.

The compulsory mechanical license rate (also referred to as the statutory rate) is periodically modified. The current statutory rate is 7.55 per song, per record, distributed for recordings of up to five minutes. If the recording is more than five minutes, the rate is 1.45 per minute per record.

The next change is scheduled to become effective on January 1, 2002. As of that date, the statutory rate will increase to 8 for recordings up to 5 minutes, and 1.55 per minute for recordings over 5 minutes.

A compulsory mechanical license allows you to make another musical arrangement as necessary to conform the song to your style and interpretation. However, you cannot change the basic melody, the lyrics, or the fundamental character of the song without permission from the song's owner.

(from http://www.manhunt.com/features/html/55.shtml)