Live data from Hacker News

Apple Music Sing

apple.com

91–100 of 316 posts

Re: Apple Music Sing

#91
post #15
post #2

My daughter is going to love this. Can anyone make out if songs like this are specially mastered with separate vocal channels? I’m guessing they’re not minus ones that someone else has arranged and played. If these are coming from the original artist it’ll be interesting to know if they’re being uploaded as separate vocal channels or if Apple is applying ML to do voice isolation. Do any audio file formats support sep…

I’m curious to see how they do it too. Presumably if they have Don’t Stop Believing and a separate karaoke karaoke today, they could basically cross fade between them for the adjustment of original singer vocals. And it would work better than trying to remove vocals after the fact. But that would require both versions, synchronizing them, and KNOWING which two tracks went together. Is that easier or harder than getti…

>> Is that easier or harder than getting the labels to just give you a special version with an extra channel for vocals?

Depends on the label and the artist. Could be easier, could be much harder. Sometimes multi-stems just don't exist anymore; were lost, have additional licensing issues; labels are a nightmare to deal with.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#92

Interesting yet very anti-competitive move by Apple. There are lots and lots of existing providers of karaoke tracks: these invest (depending on quality) between several dollars and several hundreds of dollars to record "soundalike" tracks Sales of such tracks do not generate royalties for the original performer, but do pay out to the composer (per track sale and for things like public performance). Apple is now garr…

It seems like just regular old competition to me. Like lightbulb manufacturers pushing out big candle or automobiles pushing horse breeders out of business.

Who Moved My Cheese comes to mind.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#93

It's a cool feature, even if you're just reading along. Our Amazon Echo Show started doing this recently when listening to songs on Amazon's own Music service. I noticed it, thought it was interesting, commented once to the wife, then went back to just listening.

Does it highlight the current word in the lyrics, or just the current line? The new Apple one looks like it's doing it word by word.

As a user/listener I don't really care. But the engineer in me is curious.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#94
post #2

My daughter is going to love this. Can anyone make out if songs like this are specially mastered with separate vocal channels? I’m guessing they’re not minus ones that someone else has arranged and played. If these are coming from the original artist it’ll be interesting to know if they’re being uploaded as separate vocal channels or if Apple is applying ML to do voice isolation. Do any audio file formats support sep…

Native Instruments tried to popularise a four-track format for DJs but it didn’t spread far enough to take hold.

I was disappointed the .stem format never worked out. I actually had high hopes for that.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#96

Is this akin to karaoke? (The word never appears on the page.) > Apple today announced Apple Music Sing, an exciting new feature that allows users to sing along to their favorite songs with adjustable vocals1 and real-time lyrics. Users can already "sing along to their favorite songs" -- this feels like a wasted opportunity in the first sentence to explain the differentiator. It feels like they're misusing/misunderst…

That's funny... within 5 seconds I searched for "Karaoke" and it is suspiciously not mentioned in the page.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not explicit, but from the descriptions it seems to suggest it's performing recognition of the audio streams of what's being sung, and even supports dual streams for duets. Just curious: what in the article makes you think that?

Not OP, but... Look at the list of what Apple Sing includes: Adjustable vocals: Users now have control over a song’s vocal levels. They can sing with the original artist vocals, take the lead, or mix it up on millions of songs in the Apple Music catalog. Real-time lyrics: Users can sing along to their favorite songs with animated lyrics that dance to the rhythm of the vocals. Background vocals: Vocal lines sung simul…

They don't state anything explicitly referring to real-time processing of the songs.

As a matter of fact, calling out "millions of songs in the Apple Music catalog" actually makes it seem like the adjustable vocals will only be available on certain songs that they've added support for.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#98

> and can be enjoyed on iPhone, iPad, and the new Apple TV 4K But the old Apple TV 4K is not powerful enough for displaying text on a TV, even though any old iPhone is? I get that they want to push device and service adoption but they should pick a lane, either push users to upgrade devices, or push to sign up to paid services. Pushing for both at the same time is greedy.

That line stood out, powerful enough for 3D games but not for Karaoke…

3D games don't involve on-device ML.

Using GPU's for ML is not very efficient on low-power devices. Having dedicated ML circuitry is the way to go.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#99

Is this akin to karaoke? (The word never appears on the page.) > Apple today announced Apple Music Sing, an exciting new feature that allows users to sing along to their favorite songs with adjustable vocals1 and real-time lyrics. Users can already "sing along to their favorite songs" -- this feels like a wasted opportunity in the first sentence to explain the differentiator. It feels like they're misusing/misunderst…

I came here with that question, why don't they call this karaoke? Wondered if "karaoke" is trademarked? (or patented?!) It doesn't seem to me likely that they didn't think their audience would know the word "karaoke" at this point, but I don't know.

> …why don't they call this karaoke?

One notable difference is that with Apple Music Sing you're singing to the original track instead of an instrumental reproduction.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#100
post #71
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow I was making shit up but the real invention is actually quite close. "The world's first karaoke machine, the Juke-8, was built by Japanese inventor and musician Daisuke Inoue in 1971. But it is Filipino inventor Roberto del Rosario who holds the machine's patent. He developed the Karaoke Sing-Along System in 1975."

Why are you posting things you made up?

Welcome to the internet, my friend :)
Post reply on HN