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Bill Gates' Plan To Destroy Music, Note By Note
theodp writes "Remember Mr. Microphone? If you thought music couldn't get worse, think again. Perhaps with the help of R&D tax credits, Microsoft Research has spawned Songsmith, software that automatically creates a tinny, childish background track for your singing. And as bad as the pseudo-infomercial was, the use of the product in the wild is likely to be even scarier, as evidenced by these Songsmith'ed remakes of music by The Beatles, The Police, and The Notorious B.I.G.."
I checked the links. Now I feel so dirty.
Hey Microsoft, will you please stick with the business that you are good at? You know, Operating Systems?
Oh, nevermind.
...it looks like an older generation MacBook Pro with a sticker over its logo.
Plausible deniability?
"I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
The day the music died.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
What is needed is to do some of the worst songs ever like those were done and see if improves the worst ones.
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
This is what I think music would sound like without drugs. (NSFW, but WTF, it's Sunday...)
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
And I quote from the demo video...
"Now I'm gonna sing a demo song, it wont be short and it won't be long! Ohhh I'm gonna sing a demo song for youuuu hoooo"
Please don't listen to it, you won't be able to unhear it. It's like audio goatse!
This is supposed to be a news site. Is there any purpose to this article other than blatant Microsoft bashing?
I have. She's not that bad
... with President Obama's executive orders banning torture by US forces and requiring the closure of Guantánamo Bay, there's a dire need for alternative interrogation tools.
2 hours of those absolutely inhuman renditions of 'Roxanne' and 'Sgt Peppers', together with the MS infomercial, would be enough to break even the staunchest jihadist.
"Please, PLEASE NOOOO!! I'll give you current GPS coordinates for Osama bin Laden! Just turn it off PLEASE!!!"
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
I like how, even with Gates gone, everything that happens at Microsoft is attributed to him. If he knew about this product, he would probably call it the dumbest fucking idea he's ever heard.
Someone should plug Coltrane's "Giant Steps" into Songsmith, and see if their computer explodes. (I'm not volunteering mine.)
There seems to be a lot of flaming here for how the songs sucked etc. , but...
1. Goodness of music is a subjective issue. There may be people who actually like the sound, or the ease of karaoke-ing through it. Kids, perhaps who can be thrilled at the substantial quality of their renditions.
2. I suspect a lot of people are complaining about the examples there because they are comparing it to the originals. Think about how new songs or tunes can be arranged by budding composers using this. Songsmith might offer a lot more customisability making it an important tool.
We should try to look at the bright side once in a while.
Essentia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
You will not besmirch the mighty Shiva from Accounts Receivable!
And yet, the Japanese have virtual singers. Witness Vocalioid 2 (three is better, but there aren't many videos on YouTube):
Clearly, we've lost the digital song war.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
It is far worse!
If you have no strong heart, do not try watching the Songsmith Infomercial.
I REPEAT: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WATCH THE SONGSMITH INFOMERCIAL!
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Note that I specifically decided not to post this as AC so hopefully I won't be flagged as a troll...
But I think this is actually really cool.
Is it going to make any musical masterpieces? Probably not.
Does it sound like a fun little toy to mess with? Yes, yes it does.
Incidentally, I've never heard Sergeant Pepper before (yeah yeah, go ahead and -1 me for cultural illiteracy), and I thought the music worked rather well with the lyrics, even if it didn't sound particularly interesting.
Bill Gates has not been actively involved with day-to-day Microsoft decision for at least a year. He is now involved with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This foundation has relatively little to do with music, although a number of musicians do work with the foundation.
The equivalent to ./ stories like this would be to refer to Apple as "Steve Jobs made music 30% more expensive" (do the math).
And besides the headline was a serious troll.
Just listen to those demos, they're freaking amazing (not that I liked any of them, but just looking at the queues and matchings of everything, this is impressive beyond words). Specifically (and unsurprisingly) the rap song at the end was the clear winner, sounding eerily well-matched to the vocals. (Disclaimer: perhaps I'm impressed because I'm intimately familiar with the first two while I don't know the third song's original intended sound, but I do expect something with less acoustic range/complexity is easier to adapt.)
This gets negative vibe because it comes from our favorite enemy (at least while we transfer our hate to somebody more worthy of it these days), but I think this could be the start of something great, even if it means we have to listen to some crap on the way. Isn't that the big benefit to Creative Commons? Isn't that why we eat up Lessig's remix argument?
This is a good first step. Sad that it's not Free Software, as the next step is incorporating remix and a larger (user-submitted) library of base music to the system (see the intro video on the microsoft.com article link), and perhaps the step after that is in getting the system to automatically figure out things like tempo and an optimized list of suggested music stylings.
To Microsoft (if you're actually reading this) or perhaps otherwise those who wish to re-implement the idea: even as a closed-source solution, if you create a system that would allow (advanced) users to create their own base music, you will start a music revolution.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Have a look here:
http://www.menwithouthats.com/micro.html
Men Without Hats knew this was coming.
Pop goes the world!
But what does it do do if you don't (or like me, can't) sing?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN9pGgg8YlQ
What if you just talk or make random hooting noises?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7qyjLuWVU8
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Microsoft Bob -- Checkmate!
My blog
Where has this hate for the X-box come from? Isn't the X-box the #2 selling console? (#3 being Sony's Playstation 3??) Isn't Sony also losing billions of dollars on their hardware sales? And take it from someone who had one of those PS2s whose faulty lasers died right after the warranty expired, they aren't the first company to make a product that wasn't 100% bulletproof! Now, I don't have an X-box 360, nor do I want one. That being said, where is all this hate coming from?
It just worked.
On a side note, that was filmed in the Microsoft Research building, and many people there run OSX. Interestingly enough, you are allowed to use any platform you want as a Microsoft employee (I've even met Linux users who work there), but the Gates Foundation mandates you use only Microsoft products (source: friend who works for the foundation).
'Every story, if continued long enough, ends in death.' --Ernest Hemingway
I think the Slashdot crowd is showing too much of its human side here, and not enough of the geeky analytics that bring me here.
As the old saying goes, it's not how well the bear dances, but that it dances at all. I watched the demo and thought that Songsmith must have some *very* interesting algorithms behind it. Sure, the music sounds trite to the human ear, but aren't you kind of amazed at how much is done?
To analogize, think of recognition technology. I can't tell one raccoon (or orangutang or giraffe or shrew) from another. Anyone who makes software that *can* do so has some mad skillz in my book, regardless of the human utility.
1. Come up with something better than that chintzy MIDI backup.
2. Build a few songsmith boxes
3. Profit from your new crap music empire
4. ????
5. Die in remorse
??? part goes BEFORE "profit" part.
There is no step 5.
It is all sex and coke parties after the profit part.
Rainier: My new movie is me, standing in front of a brick wall for 90 minutes. It cost 80 million dollars to make.
Jay Sherman: how do you sleep at night?
Rainier: On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I think its that to Microsoft its just another way to lock people into Windows.
The Xbox could be a refridgerator if Microsoft felt that would help lock-in Windows users.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
please be joking. please be joking. please be joking. please be joking.
...must have gotten a pre-release version decades ago.
Yeah, I find it funny how badly the X-Boxes generate heat. I own a PS3 and run it (literally) for 2 weeks at a time, and the case is barely warm. No this is not idling, it actually runs FAH 24/7 when not being used for gaming or movies.
Not only does it run cooler, but it's the same size as the X-Box and the power brick is INSIDE the case! The power plug on the back is literally a standard computer power cable.
There is also the fact that they do not try to lock you out of anything (other than the GPU). With X-Box, you need to hack the HD in order to run any other software. With the PS3, you simply go into the system menu and select (install other OS).
Half-decent? The Zune is brown. It's like they hired product designers from Canonical.
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Vacuum cleaners - finally something Microsoft can make that won't suck!
The Slashdot summary is absolute nonsense. It's like listening to complaints about MS Paint; that people are going to ruin their camera shots with its horrible tools.
This product is obviously not intended for the average Slashdot user, but rather to children, parties and whatnot. Furthermore, this tool has the potential of helping people understand how music is built up.
Personally, I think this is a really interesting idea and I wonder what the reception would look like if this was an iSongsmith product.
Full Tilt
You don't get it. This is how Microsoft will destroy the RIAA.
This isn't even version 1.0. It's maybe 0.5 (sounds open source, doesn't it.) Of course it sucks. Most new Microsoft products suck at version 1.0. By version 3.0, they rule the world.
Remember how US music law works. Anybody can parody anybody else for free (hence the legions of Elvis impersonators) and anybody can make a new recording of an old song by paying a fixed royalty limited by law. That royalty goes to composers and songwriters, not the RIAA. The maker and user of this program owe nothing to the RIAA.
That's the key to this. As this technology gets better, there will be programs that listen to the repertory of a musician or a singer and build vocal tract and style models. There will be programs that take in a song recording and extract the music, lyrics, and expression, reducing it to something like MIDI with more annotations. Then the synthesis program will put them together, perhaps producing a "cover recording" indistinguishable from the original, at least when heard in a car. Plus you can have fun running combining different songs and musicians.
At that point, musicianship has been automated. Microsoft can dictate terms to the RIAA.
Don't laugh. I'll bet that in a few years, most videogame soundtracks will come from something like this. Then commercial soundtracks. Actual musical recordings will take longer, because there's a heavy "branding" factor. But it will come.
Aerodynamic chairs - check
Try brand new "DEADBEEF(tm)!" And delicious "BAADF00D(tm)!"
"But would you buy a product from a company that knew about the issue and continued to sell the product anyway?"
Yeah, I'm still looking for a car manufacturer that knows their cars won't break down after years of use too. They all know what how and hy things will break, and they do nothing to fix it. Bastards.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I don't own any XBox360 to compare it to, but my PS3 generates a lot of heat to the point where it can get uncomfortable to the touch. This is after a few hours of playing it, but still a lot more than what you're describing.
My father in law owns a PS3 that he had to put onto a wire frame so that it would circulate the air underneath the console. It was getting so hot it would stop working, so that was his solution to being able to use it to watch a whole movie (which is what my in-laws mostly do with their console).
So, anecdotally speaking, I'd have to say that my experience has been almost the polar opposite of what yours has been.
I for one applaud Microsoft, now everyone can finally catch up to the synth music eternalized in the 80's! All you require is a dual core computer wit 2GB of RAM with Windows Vista Genuine Ultimate Edition and every last shred of your human dignity. And if you have no dignity left, no need to worry, they can loan that out since they know you'll be paying it back with interest when Windows 7 comes out!
They're really just toys. They won't "destroy music" any more than karaoke destroyed singing as an art or profession.
The way other Slashdot readers scream "Oh No No No No Oh God No!", I came up with some theories:
I think the technology/products are enablers - for children to start experiment with writing their own songs. It's not about the quality of songs, it's the jump-start of children's creativity.
Once children realize how easy it is to create music, they'll have a huge bonfire lit within them.
What do you think?
With X-Box, you need to hack the HD in order to run any other software. With the PS3, you simply go into the system menu and select (install other OS).
Sony's just as evil as the next company. From what I understand, they declared the PS3 to be a "computer system" as a means of avoiding tariffs in Europe, and to do this they needed to offer access to the OS. Plain and simple. They tried this with the PS2, but it didn't offer access to the OS, and thus failed the test (as I am led to believe).
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
If you can find a car manufacturer which regularly replaces 4-6 power trains while the car is still under 3-year warranty, I'll buy you a shot.
Put identity in the browser.
Actually, the iPod Shuffle has a considerably better built-in amplifier than the 'vanilla' iPod models. (This can be measured objectively)
Unfortunately, I haven't seen similar tests for more recent models. nor am I sure if Apple ever bothered to implement the Shuffle's push-pull design in other models.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
If we get access to install any new operating system that we desire, and to use the PS3 for whatever reason we want, then how can that be bad?
If Sony is circumventing the tariffs by being "forced" into making the PS3 more open (and I use that term guardedly), then we still benefit a LOT more than by owning an Xbox360.
Come on, the iPod is as "locked up and proprietary" as the Zune, if not moreso.
You tell them! There's nothing wrong with the Zune or Xbox! They're PERFECT products produced by a PERFECT company!
Damn you Slashbots. WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE MICROSOFT ALONE?!
That article is ancient. It's analysis is a hair off (mis-describing how blocking caps work). And most of all the difference between the shuffle and a regular iPod is not that the shuffle is "push-pull". All the devices in that test are push-pull. Single-ended (class A) is not power effective enough to use in a device like that.
The difference between the two is that a regular iPod has blocking caps to remove the DC component from the output. The shuffle at that time did not. Blocking caps create a high-pass filter with the impedance of the headphones, so low frequencies are rolled off. The capacitors need to be large enough that the roll off frequency is low enough that you get the bass notes through. At the time, the regular iPods didn't have high enough capacity blocking caps. However, this was changed shortly thereafter on the regular iPods and there has not been a noticeable difference between the two since then.
A couple other things:
The lack of blocking caps meant that the iPod shuffle was outputting a DC value even when playing complete silence instead of being at ground. Thus it was very susceptible to making ground loops. In fact, if you plugged the shuffle into a charger and a computer at the same time, you were guaranteed to get a ground loop and usually the buzz that goes with it.
If you used higher impedance headphones or connected the iPod to line in, the rolloff frequency went down so low that there never was an issue anyway. So the effect was only noticeable with headphones and most headphones cannot reproduce bass that low anyway. So only owners of high end headphones could even notice it.
The iPod Shuffle in question used integrated amps on the main chip in the Shuffle. This chip was changed years ago when the Shuffle was put into a metal case. So there's no reason to believe any newer shuffle had the same characteristics anyway.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It tastes like someone DEFEC8ED on my plate :(.
Bringing new meaning to 'Red Ring of Death'. D: