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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."
What is really cool is when machines can do what people cannot do. The first sign of this was several decades ago when drum machines and analog synthesizers came about. The drum machines could play beats so fast and hit more instruments simulateously than a single person has limbs for and the synthesizers could create entirely new sounds. In the present, there are pitch machines which put singers' voices at a desirable pitch when singing. Hopefully next we'll have robots/machines with AI that can create their own insightful, fun, or intelligent lyrics to songs and sing them to an original beat. Popular music analyzers(just posted on /.) are already capable of predicting what tunes have potential. Music is a product of man, whether it is created through human hands or machines. You can't mentally hold yourself back to the idea real music is only a direct product of man.
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(O.o) This is Bunny. (> <)
Serious legal issues arise when creating "voice fonts" made from singing material previously released by artists. I doubt the RIAA or the artists themselves will like this new techonlogy at all. If this technology is a success then I forsee a push by the RIAA/artists themselves to get their voices copyrighted.
As an example, Harley Davidson (the motorcycle company), tried to get it's unique motorcycle engine sound copyrighted and failed. Will this change the copyright office's stance?
Combine these synthetic vocals with some randomized instrumentals and pipe it into your 'hitablity` algorith (covered here and here) and generate endless pop music!
I actually develop and work with voice synthesizers that are phoneme and phrase based. We dig up an actor, or an unwitting researcher from another project, and make them rattle off a few thousand sample sentences. Then, in theory, we use that date to make a "realistic" human voice. Yeah. Sure. Riiiiiight. If it worked, I'd be out of a job. :) Technology has come a very long way, but it is no where near what a real person can do. It can't even imitate. The spoken word is a thousand times easier than singing, I'll believe it when I hear it sing what I say within an hour of placing a request.
By the way, I proposed that we develop a rapping version of our synthesized voice, just for fun. The idea was trashed in 30 seconds, b/c who wants a voice that raps like an off duty LAPD Sergeant at Karaoke night? I doubt this thing can sing that well...
"Life's funny sometimes." "And sometimes it isn't." --Cat's Cradle
Classic singers stay as close as possible to the "absolute" quality line - it's perfect for being mathematically modeled and it's a matter of time such models will be apparead, even if their implementations will take some hardware resources.
Pop singers make sound anyway far away from being called as an art. It's perfect for being implemented in embeded solutions. It's a matter of time first cyber-singers will be cloned like cheap "made-in-China" electronic (sorry, my oriental friends, although nothing personal or racial in this comment).
Jazz is still an art, like classical music, but its improvizations are very unpredictable. Jazz singers will be last ones to go. Even more - Jazz improvizators will be eventually involved to prototype new cyber-singers. Hmm, I can even imagine special programming languages for singer-modelling: "bebop", "blues", "swing" :)
Less is more !
What about sign painters? There are still 2d animators around, they just migrated media from paper->cel to paper->digital. Of course, those that are still working (no thanks to brainless execs who think 3d is the panacea for bad, overworked and overbudget stories...)