Microsoft Songsmith

Microsoft just released on of their research projects, called Microsoft Songsmith, which can provide music to a song, that a user sings. So it basically creates music to vocals. When their advertisement came out, most people noticed that they were using a Mac, in the video.

They did not even begin to imagine how this software could be used. Yes, some sites did review it, like Ars Technica and others.


The advert itself has gone viral. You can check it out here. It’s definitely worth a chuckle.
But once it has been introduced into the wild, it is being used in ways, Microsoft did not even think of.
A lot of people have been feeding it vocals from songs, and asking SongSmith to create the music.
The results have been, from the wonderful:



To the horrendous


Funnily enough, I heard about this from Linus torvald’s blog where he wrote:

This may be a shock to everybody, but I have to admit that I'm not generally a huge fan of most Microsoft software ("No, really, Linus? Tell us more!").

But I may have to admit that I was wrong.

No, I'm not talking about Windows 7. I'm talking about Songsmith, which is clearly a true work of genius. Yes, yes, the commercials are painfully cheesy, but when used right the end result is undeniably art.

The thing that convinced me was hearing Billy Idol's "White Wedding" as re-interpreted through Songsmith. Nobody will ever convince me that that isn't just impossibly brilliant. Sheer genius on just an incredible scale. I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome from just clicking "Replay" over and over again.