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Apple Music Sing

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Re: Apple Music Sing

#111

Post by 9dev »

jaywalk wrote: post #97
imchillyb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’d guess it’s more probable that lots of songs simply have no lyrics at all, so the claim „all songs in the Apple Music catalog“ would be factually wrong.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#112

Post by Closi »

GaryPalmer wrote: post #103
imchillyb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why would you need a dedicated chip for any of that?

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.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#113

Post by smeej »

joegahona wrote: post #5

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…

Can you link your iPhone to your Apple TV to amplify your own voice over your TV's sound system?

Then it would seem even more like "Apple Karaoke."

Re: Apple Music Sing

#114

Post by unethical_ban »

yunohn wrote: post #25
hamburglar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with “show don’t tell” as a general rule for effectiveness in cases like this, but I find it really hard to believe anyone is going to read this and not immediately grasp what is meant by “with adjustable vocals and real-time lyrics”. Obviously you can already sing along, and the question about how this makes it better is answered within the same sentence.

What’s the reasoning behind leaving out the word “karaoke”?

Obvious. Make this look like a more original feature. Redefine the concept on Apple's terms. Have people pay attention to the novelty of it being done automatically, rather than manually in a catalog with lyrics that look like they belong on a CRT screen.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#115

Post by notpushkin »

imchillyb wrote: post #68
notpushkin wrote: post #55

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…

> 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.

I think this only requires pre-making two audio files per track, and simultaneously streaming these.

Real-time lyrics, Background vocals and Duet view are all nice features too, but the hardest part processing-wise is analysing how loud you sing into the microphone. It's just karaoke with a good UI.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#116

Post by soylentcola »

ghostpepper wrote: post #74
colmmacc wrote: post #11

This looks really cool, and it'll be interesting to see how artists and producers react. Presumably the tracks need to be mixed for the format with dedicated vocal track. Although it's possible to isolate vocals some of the time from mixes, using stereo separation (the vocals are often the only component that is 100% center mixed), filtering, and even AI techniques ... none are perfect. I wonder if this will have the…

Wait, there are Karaoke machines that can transpose songs?

Most DJ software these days has tempo/key adjustment as well as hooks to connect to subscription karaoke services (basically Spotify for karaoke). Unless I had a business with a ton of old school gear, that's how I'd run a karaoke company nowadays. No worries about licensing/rights for songs, updating your collection with the autotuned robot song of the week, and easy to connect a laptop/mixer to an existing sound system or your own PA.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#117

Post by nkozyra »

colmmacc wrote: post #46
nkozyra wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of file formats support this, but they're generally for DAWs and not for a final mix. In order to support volume the file would have to be packed with each individual track. Almost assuredly this is just ML-assisted frequency separation.

AAC is already interleaved multi-channel. Two-channel L/R is obviously very common for music, but spatial audio and Dolby Atmos comes with more channels (up to 128, which can be arranged and binned into "beds"). 5.1 (6 channels) and 7.1 (8 channels) are also common for video. Having dedicated/isolated vocal tracks as a channel very trivial in the format. I'd expect this is how it's done, and not ML, because Apple hav…

Channel and spatial/binaural tracks I'd expect, but separated tracks for instruments/vocals is a lot more time consuming and the kind of thing that studios/producers/masterers would bluster at enough that I wouldn't expect it to come close to giving Apple the volume they'd likely want.

It absolutely could be done, I just think that Apple would want very good coverage and studios would be very slow to provide this format.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#118

Post by quenix »

JohnBooty wrote: post #93
whistl034 wrote: post #85

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.

It's done the line for two years now. Now it looks like the current syllable in the word.

Re: Apple Music Sing

#119

Post by boredemployee »

notpushkin wrote: post #75

People will definitely rip no-vocal versions out of there (if they are good quality, that is). I see some pretty neat implications: - Young artists can (illegally) use beats by popular producers. Young producers can listen to various tracks and better understand some techniques that were shadowed by vocals before. - More bootleg remixes of popular tracks. Things that weren't possible by just slicing and sampling the…

i tried spleeter already and while it works "ok" in the best case, this sounds like a game changer if true: https://youtu.be/e_SW1AeCQNU

Re: Apple Music Sing

#120

Post by whiddershins »

notpushkin wrote: post #115
imchillyb wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. I think this only requires pre-making two audio files per track, and simultaneously streaming these. Real-time lyrics, Background vocals and Duet view are all nice features too, but the hardest part processing-wise is analys…

They say it supports millions of songs so I doubt that’s how they are doing this.

They are likely using a sophisticated ML version of what old karaoke machines did, and removing the vocals in real-time.

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