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Apple Music Sing

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Re: Apple Music Sing

#291

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> The at-home karaoke experience is pretty horrible As long as you have a 0 latency Mic setup then just that and YouTube searching Karaoke versions with AdBlocker works beautifully.

This is what my wife and I do, it’s pretty flawless. YouTube + Mic & mixer to a separate speaker. It’s the only way, and YouTube has the best karaoke. Routing the mic through your AV setup _will_ result in a delay which’ll make for a horrible experience. So don’t bother. Get a cheap mixer and a decentish Shure mic, a single active studio monitor and you’re away.

On YouTube are you getting the original recordings with the vocals removed? Or it doesn’t matter to you?

Re: Apple Music Sing

#292
post #112

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Seems like it is powered by: > [...] an on-device machine learning algorithm that can process music in real time Their latest apple TV includes the A15 which includes a 'neural engine' for ML, and this is also included in their latest iPhone / iPad, so that might be part of it.

The divide in expectations is funny. Non-Apple-user: "ML stuff? Must be 'in the cloud'." Apple user: "ML stuff? Must use a special chip in the device."

And then there's me, asking why do we even need ML for that. :D

Re: Apple Music Sing

#293
Impressive that they seem to have worked out the licensing, which is usually much more expensive for karaoke (presumably some sort of "public performance" license) than for personal listening/streaming.

So when can we get an Apple Arcade Rock Band/Guitar Hero type game that includes vocals, guitar, bass, keyboard and drums and works with any song on Apple Music?

And how about an automatic Dance Dance Revolution/Just Dance/etc. with the entire Apple Music catalog?

Re: Apple Music Sing

#294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a hard time understanding what they are offering as well and came here to find out. Is this for people in the same room? If so, maybe some vague reference to karaoke is merited. Is it for sharing with other people over the internet? edit: ultimately I could care less (but not by much) about using it; I am just curious about what they offer and how they compete.

Yeah, even if executed well, who is this for? I know the last thing I want is for some random person to sing the song we're all listening to given that most people can't sing. I find myself usually telling the kids in the car to pipe down and let the artist sing. So I'm really interested in understanding the demo for this feature.

The fact that you're aware that most people can't sing well is evidence that lack of singing ability in no way deters people from singing along to their favorite songs. You've kind of answered your own question: "most people" are probably the target demographic.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#295
post #135
post #82

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Cause Karaoke has cheesy or corny perception. Have you ever seen those cringe looking karaoke CD compilations of famous songs. They always look cheap. And if Apple knows anything is how to market / rebrand the same old shit and sell it to the masses at really marked up prices for profit.

Interestingly they don't even use the word カラオケ even in the Japanese press release, even though karaoke is massively popular in Japan. https://www.apple.com/jp/newsroom/2022/12/apple-introduces-a...

It's probably if they use the word カラオケ, that might cause inherent expectation of what services would feature, like mic echo, scoring, ranking, etc., that's most of major karaoke apps, even on mobile platform would feature.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#296
post #277

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Removing or lowing the volume of the song is definitely a modification.

According to other comments, it's being done on-device.

Ok, still, does that hold up in court? It’s just a technicality. Vidangel has tried a bunch of loopholes and they’ve all been closed.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#297

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Karaoke is where some other artist performs and records the song, without vocals, in the style of whoever popularized the song. This Apple feature seems to be where the same popular recording gets used, which has vocals, and then some magic processing reduces the vocals. There has always been software to sorta-kinda suppress vocals from existing recordings, but it usually ends up sounding like trash (artifacts of all…

> Karaoke is where some other artist performs and records the song, without vocals, in the style of whoever popularized the song. No, this just isn't what the word means, either popularly or in technical usage. I can't find any dictionary that restricts karaoke to covers, and if anything the dictionary emphasizes non -covers: > an act of singing along to a music video, especially one from which the original vocals ha…

I'll admit that I'm coming at it from a Western perspective: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke#Production_methods

I agree that it's not what the word inherently means, but it's the typical situation (which is effectively like meaning) where I am (USA).

Re: Apple Music Sing

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karaoke is where some other artist performs and records the song, without vocals, in the style of whoever popularized the song. This Apple feature seems to be where the same popular recording gets used, which has vocals, and then some magic processing reduces the vocals. There has always been software to sorta-kinda suppress vocals from existing recordings, but it usually ends up sounding like trash (artifacts of all…

> Karaoke is where some other artist performs and records the song, without vocals, in the style of whoever popularized the song. that's more the definition of "cover" than "karaoke" (which is a live sing-along at a bar or at home)

I see where you're going, but I disagree that "without vocals" would exist anywhere in the definition of "cover." It's all a simple Venn diagram, though. There are covers, and there are karaoke versions, and Western karaoke is usually the intersection.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karaoke is where some other artist performs and records the song, without vocals, in the style of whoever popularized the song. This Apple feature seems to be where the same popular recording gets used, which has vocals, and then some magic processing reduces the vocals. There has always been software to sorta-kinda suppress vocals from existing recordings, but it usually ends up sounding like trash (artifacts of all…

This not remotely true. There are plenty of karaoke songs that are the original recording from the original artist. At least in Japan, where the word "karaoke" originates

Touché. I was looking at it through a Western lens, as I imagine this Apple press release also is, in avoiding the term. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke#Production_methods

Re: Apple Music Sing

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Karaoke is where some other artist performs and records the song, without vocals, in the style of whoever popularized the song. This Apple feature seems to be where the same popular recording gets used, which has vocals, and then some magic processing reduces the vocals. There has always been software to sorta-kinda suppress vocals from existing recordings, but it usually ends up sounding like trash (artifacts of all…

Is it? I've never taken karaoke to mean covers. Often it is the original soundtrack with the vocals suppressed (sometimes well via remastering and sometimes poorly with an equalizer). To me karaoke is just signing to music, which is exactly what this is. I found it very strange that they avoided that word.

> To me karaoke is just signing to music, which is exactly what this is. I found it very strange that they avoided that word.

Apple's footnote disclaimer says "does not fully remove vocals" and "kara" means "empty/void" so it kind of makes sense to avoid using such an absolute term to describe something that isn't.

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