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8. Microsoft research songsmith

Posted on 15 Apr 2009 at 11:44

Songsmith is an unusual project for Microsoft - it's partly an entertainment tool that you can use to make real recordings and partly a proof-of-concept. The concept is that the computer uses signal-processing techniques to analyse your voice and adjust background music to the right key automatically. There are several musical styles - such as big band and rock - and you can edit the styles and tempo after you do the voice recording. You start a new song, select the style and tempo, and start singing using a PC microphone.

Songsmith is an excellent example of machine learning: the tool can adjust to your voice in the same way that another person hears a pitch and can then adjust their performance. In the future, these kinds of tools could be much more pervasive: a speech-recognition system that knows you're speaking English, but can also interpret French automatically. Or, when you're surfing the web, the computer learns which sites are valuable to you based on previous clicks, and makes suggestions.

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Author: John Brandon