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Yamaha Releases Singing Synthesis Software
loopdloop writes "The world's first singing synthesis software, Vocaloid, was released by Yamaha this month at the Los Angeles NAMM show. Simply type in the lyrics and notate the vocal expressions to create a completely computer-generated singer. There are also audio demos of the product available." Update: 01/26 21:14 GMT by S : An earlier NYT-authored preview of this software has also been covered on Slashdot.
Vocaloid has been covered on Slashdot before. It is one of the many impressive projects to have at least in part come out of the Music Technology Group at Institut Universitari de L'Audiovisual in Barcelona.
This is one of many impressive Music Technology groups in the world who is kind enough to provide us with open source software such as CLAM. Similarly there are some groups out there doing interesting things. Needless to say, I could link all day...
I am a graduate student in this field
That's quite amazing. Now we need a computer to write music and songs.
-Tim
...this is where Britney Spears' talent comes from!
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Wow, this must make the RIAA's day. An artist who needs absolutly no pay and who really is property...
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
"The world's first singing synthesis software, Vocaloid, was released by Yamaha this month at the Los Angeles NAMM show.
Feh! They might be able to program something that sings better than Britney, but until they integrate it with something like this, Ms Spears' talents will continue to be in demand...
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
The logical next step would be a program that would listen to, and enjoy, the music that other computers write and sing.
Think of the time it would free up, and the money it would save - you would never have to buy CDs. *cough* of course, some people have already eliminated that expense.
Steven Hawking is trying to start up a band.
Just listened to these.
While their "Volcaloid" tech is nice, their "Lyricoid" tech needs work.
I had the chance to try it out at NAMM and it is VERY difficult to get it to "sing." It can probably be used adequately for backup vocals, but again, it takes a lot of work to get it to sound human. Nevertheless, a step in the right direction.
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I can't be the only one that thinks the background vocals sound like Electric Light Orchestra??
Just like many Yamaha firsts, this one may have been overhyped a bit. This sounds like a real person singing in the way that a synth brass pad sounds like a trumpet. There is no way in hell you would ever even consider that these noises were made by a human being. Yes, I understand that most of the samples are in Japanese and might not sound normal to me anyway. But, even if you listen to the ONE in English alone, it sounds like the Bell Labs female voice, but screechy and obnoxious instead of like a drugged out cigarette smoker after a trachyotemy (sp?).
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Machines can have emotions if we want them to. There was even an article in last month's Scientific American by an AI researcher who claims that machines will need emotions for real AI to work. There have been several robotics/AI projects that have attempted to incorporate emotions, Cynthia Breazeal's robot Kismet being the most famous.
Emotions are an information processing system that works holistically, priming the logical parts of the brain for the kind of work they will need to do. Big orange and black stripey thing running towards you? Prime the brain for a flight or fight response rather than curiosity, i.e. "Run, it's a tiger!" not "I wonder if this orange and black stripey thing wants to play?"
There remains the problem of qualia. That is, a robot may look for all intents and purposes as if it is having emotions, but does it feel the same things internally as we do? Unfortunately, there's no real way of knowing if even other humans feel the same thing we do.
When the day comes that a robot belts out a blues song about someone done it wrong and broke it's heart, we will judge it in the same way we judge human singers: Does it look and sound authentic, or is it faking it? If it looks and sounds authentic, I believe that we will take it for granted that it feels the same as we do, just as we take it for granted in other humans.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Now we can finally get rid of these whiny musicians, always complaining about "I need to feed my family" and "I'm a professional and should be paid like one." Now all of those unskilled morons can be sent to fill up the thousands of food preparation and customer service jobs that our public school system can't seem to find enough people for.
Sorry about the offtopic (tongue firmly in cheek) rant. You're right. this does sound like a fun toy.
The one thing I expected they wouldn't get right, was what they did the best.
When people hold notes, there are natural fluctuations in the tone, nobody can hold a perfect tone without some audible wax or wane.
But you can hear this simulated amazingly if you listen to that one japanese song with the single male "vocalist".
Vonal Declosion
I totally agree with you 100%. I mean, come on, the Terminator had a hella thick accent, and he came from like 30 years in the future.
Ah'll be BECK.
It's bad enough we have Cher and Madonna doing the fake electronic yodel dance, now every dipthong with a little cash will be creating them.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
I have several vocoders, software and hardware, and it is obviously a very different creature if you took the time to listen to the demos. Also, a proper vocoder needs an carrier, and it does not generate the vocal qualities. It merely functions as a formant filter (where the constanants are provided by the vocalist, and the pitch by usually a synthesizer).
Frankly, this thing just really needs a good plug-in format, like TDM or VST and it will be a gold-mine- not unlike those god-awful pitch-correction plugins that were reputed to give Cher that plastic effect to her voice (like she doesn't have enough plastic as it is). As a standalone app, it is doomed.
Those that suggest you "dance like no one is watching" really want to see you make a complete fool of yourself.