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Pitch Perfect Karaoke 201

Posted by CmdrTaco from the advancing-audio-processing dept.
BuffJoe writes "The folks paid to make newer and improved karaoke machines have discovered a way to make even the most tone deaf singers sound great with a new technology for perfect-pitch karaoke!" Make your cracks about Karaoke if you like, but read the article- there are hooks for scoring singing, correcting pitch, and more. Should also make those Karaoke parties a little more tolerable.
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Pitch Perfect Karaoke More

Pitch Perfect Karaoke

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  • Obligatory Simpsons Quote: (Score:5, Funny)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:22PM (#3273252) Homepage Journal
    "Thank you NASA"

    • Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote: (Score:5, Informative)

      by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportlandNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @07:16PM (#3273576) Homepage Journal
      FYI "Thank you NASA" is from an episode of the Simpsons where bart, milhouse, ralph, and nelson form a boy band. Of course they can't sing, but there voices are fed through a box and "fixed". You know change tampo, pitch, etc.
      so it is Ontopic, should be funny. Just because you don't get the reference does not make it off topic.
      Now if I had said "The Simpson are going to antiartica...next year this year Brazil" that would of been an off topic simpson reference.
      • Just for the record antiartica is the evil Antarctica
      • What the article says it fixes is that the music speeds up - slows down - etc. to match the singer.

        This can still have horrendous results.

        This vs maybe adjusting the music, but also adjusting the sound of the singer so that the singer stays in tune.

        This would be like the simpson rig, and would be truly impressive technology.

      • It's not rocket science. A local karaoke here actually has a system that can change your voice with preset template, including male voice to female voice. You know, it's very important for geeks group whose failed to invite female partner. :)

        My friend can actually sing with beautiful female voice, while the female voice thru mine is awful - the technology doesn't work for me. :(

  • This thread ain't over (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Till the fat lady sings Karaoke!
  • Karaoke sound systems provider Taito Corp said on Tuesday it had teamed up with a U.S. professor and chipmaker Analog Devices Inc on technology that could give even the most tone-deaf crooner perfect pitch.

    First Bubble Bobble, then Bust a Move (or Puzzle Bobble to some), now a pitch-perfect Karaoke system... Go Taito!

    Maybe now I'll actually sing Karaoke.

  • pitch correction is nothing new (Score:5, Interesting)

    by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:25PM (#3273275) Homepage
    The Antares Autotune has been available in rack form for quite a while... You'd be surprised how many rock acts lean a little too heavily on that device to clean up their live vocal performances...

    hell Rosie O'donnel thanked the device in her christmas CD (although c'mon... in-tune/key bad music is still bad music)

    *Shrug*

    E.

    • Re:pitch correction is nothing new (Score:5, Informative)

      by kin_korn_karn ( 466864 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:39PM (#3273377) Homepage
      Digidesign's Pro Tools studio softwarehas had it for longer than the Antares has been around. I think the first mac versions did it. Hence the careers of most MTV staples.

      For example, if you know what to listen for (hard 'edges' to notes on vocals) you can hear it all over Britney's music. It's also being used as a vocoder-type effect (synth filtered by voice) on some recordings. The song on Kid Rock's hit CD that he sang on (it was country sounding) used it extensively.
      • One interesting quote from the article:

        MIT's Vercoe, who lauded Taito for finding a way to bring the sound synthesis technology to market, said pitch correction with Csound had been demonstrated long ago. It could even convert a spoken voice into melody, in real time.

        "It's in the technology. You just have to switch it on," he said.

        This makes me think that Vercoe did NOT ship the pitch correction "switched on." My suspicion is that this is due to IVL's patents. IVL [ivl.com] is a Vancouver, BC company that has been marketing formant-preserving pitch shifters for quite some time now. IVL's technology is licenced by Digitech and TC Electronics, among other companies. One of IVL's patents makes claims on the idea of pitch shifters that automatically harmonize and correct pitch.

        Personally, I think that IVL's claims in this area are somewhat tenuous. They have taken a pitch-shifting algorithm that they did not come up with (the algorithm in question was originally from a Computer Music Journal article in the late 1980's), and added a few features that ARE obvious to those "skilled in the art." Still, it sounds like Vercoe didn't want to take any chances. It seems like Vercoe provided a pitch output from the pitch shifter, and let Taito do what they want with it. Nice way to sidestep any legal issues.

        Antares uses the same basic algorithm as IVL. Both companies have their own proprietary pitch detection algorithms.

        It is interesting to see that Extended Csound is still up and running. I thought that it was pretty much dead in the water since 1999 or so. Hmmm...

      • Vocoder can be made subtle (Score:4, Informative)

        by yerricde ( 125198 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @08:04PM (#3273808) Homepage Journal

        For example, if you know what to listen for (hard 'edges' to notes on vocals) you can hear it all over Britney's music. It's also being used as a vocoder-type effect (synth filtered by voice) on some recordings. The song on Kid Rock's hit CD that he sang on (it was country sounding) used it extensively.

        Popular songs that have used a vocoder effect with hard transitions between pitches:
        • Cher - Believe (but boycott Cher because she supports perpetual copyright [wikipedia.com])
        • Kid Rock - Only God Knows Why (country-ish rock)
        • Eiffel 65 - Blue (the song rumored to be about homosexuality: "I'm in need of a guy, I'm in need of a guy")

        However, use of the vocoder on some other songs is more subtle. Sometimes, the vocoder's pitch is set halfway between the pitch the slut is actually singing and the pitch that her producers want her to sing, which produces a much less synthetic perception. (Following a single voice's pitch is straightforward: square-root the signal to restore the fundamental, apply a 4th order low pass filter to remove harmonics, and count sign changes. If you want to know more, mail me [mailto].)

        Oops! I did it again. I just described how to do something that probably infringes a dozen patents worldwide.

    • ahh, the CHER effect....damn her.

      dude.
    • Probably the best way to hear if a band is using auto-pitch correction is to listen for the sound that Cher uses on her voice in that "Do you believe in love" song.

      Linkin Park uses an auto-pitch corrector a lot too, as well as Willa Ford in her song "I wanna be bad".

      I'll never understand why they just don't do it right, or get someone who can sing. It's like riding a bike - once you learn how to pick it out, you'll never evaluate a singer the same way again.
      • "I'll never understand why they just don't do it right, or get someone who can sing. It's like riding a bike - once you learn how to pick it out, you'll never evaluate a singer the same way again."

        i dont mind people using it so much when all they are doing is correcting minor, minor, errors in what would otherwise be a perfect take...

        but, ever since that damn cher song (and probably a little before that) people have been cranking the settins to hard tune a voice purposely using it as a vocal effect...its so OVERUSED it makes me sick...although, the funny part is that the biggest cluprits are the country music sluts. they milk that shit for all its worth.

        dude.
    • Pitch correction boxes are beat (no pun intended).

      They work "sort of ok" for simple harmonies, but as soon as you try them with complex harmonies they kind of suck. Plus they push the voice to the pure tempered tones, which is unnatural for a sliding instrument such as the voice. A natural voice (like a violin) will lean microtones off from the tempered pitch in the desired direction of the tendency tones. The result of pitch correctors is a very artificial sound.
      • Software pitch correctors (at least, the Antares Auto-Tune 3 plugin I use) let you manually set pitch correction for different notes to achieve this intentional inaccuracy.

        Further, Auto-Tune is midi controllable, so (though I don't have it in front of me right now to check) I'd imagine it responds to midi pitch bend controller information.

  • Wow! Imagine the future! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Kraegar ( 565221 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:26PM (#3273285)
    Early versions will adjust the pitch, future versions will go beyond that! Just think, someday I can "sing" the words along with the music, and due to their nifty software it will sound exactly as if I had the CD in.... Wait, if it sounds the same, why not just put in the CD? Doesn't this whole thing take some of the point out of it? I mean, bad singing included, that's the fun of Karaoke... laughing at people who try to sing along but suck...

    • Re:Wow! Imagine the future! (Score:4, Funny)

      by Wiseazz ( 267052 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:41PM (#3273396)
      Agreed. Karaoke is also supposed to be painful for the non-drinkers... this encourages drinking to numb the senses.

    • Just think, someday I can "sing" the words along with the music, and due to their nifty software it will sound exactly as if I had the CD in.

      Defendent:
      alias Kraegar
      Prosecutor:
      United States,
      Hilary Rosen, RIAA,
      et al
      Charges:
      Distribution of Method for
      Circumvention of Copyright
      Pursuant to DMCA

    • Finally, somebody hit the nail right on the head.

      People who go out to Karaoke bars a lot (the regulars) tend to be fairly good singers, and the thing that keeps them coming back (and running up big drink tabs with their friends) is the chance to show off what good singers they are.

      If the performances are masked to hide pitch errors, you negate the opportunity for those poor slobs to stand out from the crowd for three and a half minutes, and they will stop going, leaving the bar with nobody but the sloppy drunks who think they know how to sing "Friends In Low Places" but can't remember any of the verses.

      The purpose of running Karaoke is to make money, not to make perfect music. The people considering buying a system like this might want to keep that in mind.

  • ...for all of the manufactured boy bands out there. Remember the Party Posse on the Simpsons?

  • This technology is swell (Score:4, Funny)

    by nucal ( 561664 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:27PM (#3273302)
    but now everyone sounds like Stephen Hawking [pbs.org].
  • Taito Corp, those of us that have girlfriend who love to sing kareoke...we salute you...
  • Eventually, he said, Taito may use the technology to reconfigure a singer's errant tones to the proper pitch, without otherwise altering the sound.

    Forget Karaokee bars... They need to give these to many recording artists!
  • If you compare human voice to any music instrument out there, you probably agree with me when I say that human voice beats them all. Just think about your favourite singer. Although this karaoke thing is "cool", I don't believe technology itself can ever produce such emotionally rich voice that the best singers have. It's not just about singing technically properly - it's about emotions also.
    • I've heard people express emotion from a guitar. I've heard it from a saxophone. I've heard it in the trombone solo in a slow jazz song. Hell, I've heard it from computer-synthesized tones (care to disagree? listen to track 9 of the album Ovalprocess by Oval. About halfway through is a combination of tones and disconnected sounds that is so expressive it amazes me every time I hear it).

      There's some great voices out there, but it is not the sole vehicle for musical emotion. The scale may have a finite number of notes, but there are infinite variations possible.

  • Two turntables and a pitch correcting microphone (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tomy ( 34647 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:31PM (#3273324)
    We're close to having technology so good that it will require no talent whatsoever in order for people to make music. Just go out in the street and find attractive people to dance around and pose as singers.


    Wait, this has already happened.

  • Does this mean Britney won't have to lip sync anymore?
  • ~Every time you are near?
    ~Just like me, they long to be
    ~Close to you

    ~Why do stars fall down from the sky
    ~Every time you walk by?

    Everybody sing along! Kareoke is wonderful, ever since I got my Taito PerfectPitch 9000!

    ~Just like me, they long to be
    ~Close to you.
  • Something good came out of Brittney Speare's career! Now maybe I can be a teen idol pop start too!

    :D
    BlackGriffen
  • At first this technology [eventide.com] was used to make the chipmunks, then used for Barbara Striesand to record and album in only one take. Later it found it's true calling in making fake boy bands [New Kids] sound like they can sing. Who says technology isn't making life better!!

  • you too can sound like Cher (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dickens ( 31040 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:35PM (#3273352) Homepage
    and all the others now using auto-tune boxes as an effect. You can set these things to quantize to a diatonic scale and just "snap" from one pitch to another not allowing any slide at all. I'm sure you've heard it.

    I'm also sure you've not heard it when the thresholds are set a little looser.

    It was kinda neat the first time I heard it, but jeeze.. it's getting old.

  • What's the point? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Vic ( 6867 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:35PM (#3273358) Homepage
    Half the reason for going to Karaoke is laughing at how bad your friends and other bar patrons are at singing. If it corrects this for you, ya might as well just play the jukebox and lip-sync...

    -vic
  • Can we all pitch in and get one of these for Brittney Spears?
    • I wouldn't normally post about this, but your sig makes it too ironic to pass up. Not only did you spell the "Britney" part of Britney Spears wrong, but you've obviously never heard of a company called Antares. Try a google search on them, as your sig so rightly suggests. You might just find that pitch correction technology has been around for a long time, definitely long enough for anybody who needs it to have gotten it already.

      :)

  • You know what this means..... (Score:4, Funny)

    by GodSpiral ( 167039 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:35PM (#3273362)
    girl bands with bigger breasts and more ass shaking!

    Although this sounds good at first, unfortunately, radio play will be swamped by the promotional music ventures :(
  • Didn't they used to make games like Double Dragon?

    Most 80s video game makers are now, believe it or not, in the karaoke business.

    ...Really.
  • 'Should also make those Karaoke parties a little more tolerable.'

    Now wait just a minute here, I don't know where you are from friend but Karaoke is the hottest thing to do! Why, who wouldn't enjoy listening to their favorite songs being decimated by their half-drunk friends? I can think of nothing I'd rather be doing on a Wednesday night at Bill's Kill 'n Grill!
  • correct me if i'm wrong, but i thought the fun of karaoke was laughing at your friends when they suck.
    how will this help?
  • The Backstreet Boys have been using it for years.

  • Don't leave your earplugs yet... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by daoine ( 123140 ) <`moc.oohay' `ta' `3101hdaurom'> on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:39PM (#3273382)
    It doesn't quite have the full effect as one might be lead to believe. Looks like they've got tempo adjustments, which is good for the speed demons; and key calibration (which is nice, letting all those altos sing Diana Ross now) but they're basically adjusting the music coming out, rather than the vocal input.

    Thus, bad karaoke is still bad karaoke. Good for all of us with pitch, we'll still impress. :)

    Adjusting the voice on the fly is going to be a different problem -- it would probably be easiest solved by hard coding the Hz at each given moment of a song (with some fuzzy boundaries) and then running the mic input through.

    But what fun is that? How can we be impressed by the guys who can sing A-Ha's 'Take on Me' if everyone can do it?

  • Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
    In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

    There was funky drunken kids from funky Collegetown
    They were smoking tokes up, they were taking bong's down
    It's an ancient Chinese art, and everybody knew their part
    Common friend don't be a stiff, just start singin' from the hip

    Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
    In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

    There was funky Developer guy, who doesn't get out much
    He said, here comes the new tech, let's code it on
    He took the mike, out of the stand, started swaying with the band
    A sudden comotion made him stiff, now he's into a brandnew rip

    Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
    In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

    uh-oh-uh-oh...(repeat 4 times)

    Everybody was Karaoke singing, those lyrics went by as fast as lightning
    In fact it was a little bit fright'ning, but they kept up with expert timing

    uh-oh-uh-oh...Karaoke singing, uh-oh-uh-oh... had to be fast as lightning...

    uh-oh-uh-oh...(repeat 3 times) code on code on code on
    uh-oh-uh-oh... yeah yeah, uh-oh-uh-oh... ***slashdotted out***

    -YoGrark

    "No Gnu's is not necessarily good gnu's"

  • What about variations? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaseStudy ( 119864 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:42PM (#3273399) Homepage
    Sure, this corrects people who are off-key, but what about those of us who intentionally change notes or tempo? I don't want to have my choices vetoed by vocoder.
    • Sure, this corrects people who are off-key, but what about those of us who intentionally change notes or tempo? I don't want to have my choices vetoed by vocoder.

      Don't use vocoder.

      Man, that was simple.
      • Well, duh. But if people have the choice, then almost nobody will use it. The people who know they suck, and care about it, don't sing in the first place.
      • Sure, this corrects people who are off-key, but what about those of us who intentionally change notes or tempo? I don't want to have my choices vetoed by vocoder.

        Don't use vocoder.

        Man, that was simple.

        Well, yes, if you can figure out which of the 87 buttons on the remote turns off the vocoder.

        On a slightly unrelated note, this reminds me of a story I heard about the Star Trek (TOS) episode with the green-skinned woman: no matter how much makeup they put on her, the films always came back with ordinary flesh color. When the producer finally gave up and went to the film processing crew about it, the answer was, "Oh, you wanted it green? We thought that was a lighting problem!"

  • At a recent comedy show, one of the acts had a one of the new Karaoke mics. This thing hooked directly to the PA system and the TV. It appears the device would display a few scenic pictures with typical power point style cuts between them. On the background they had two lines of text for the songs and it would highlight the words about the same time they should be sung. Once a song was finished, a score was shown which was always very high and appeard to have nothing to do with the talent of the singer. Aparently the device does allow new songs to be downloaded and it cost about US$500. If you want to comedy Karaoke, just remember its time to move on to something else when people start leaving the room.
  • What makes this any different than the machines Britney Spears, N'Stink, The Backdoor Boys, etc. use?

    • Britney Spears, N'Stink, The Backdoor Boys, etc.

      what? no name-mangle for Britney Spears?

    • For voice corrections that all the boy bands do, they tape their singing and the engeneer sits down and listens to it over and over with a little graph of adjustment/time. if the singer is sharp or flat (or worse) the engeneer adds a little curve to the graph and the recording is pitch shifted by that ammount at that time. Done very carefully, yes you CAN clean up anything.

      This new machine proposes to take the engeneer's seat as well as the processing equipment's. It will most likely read a signal telling what pitch the singer should be at and analize the incomming signal from the mic and based on a comparison of the two shift up or down.

      One problem I have always noticed with live, real-time pitch shifting (NOTE: not auto-correcting, simply pitch shifting) is there is a delay, a millisecond or two, but enough to be audible. Methinks adding all the analysis time into the mix will add a little more delay and the singing will sound off! Hopefully they'll get it running smoothly...even if it takes all the fun out of Karaoke.

      • ...it would be more fun to add a synthesizer and a vocoder to a karaoke machine, esp if one person was trying to play the right notes while the other was singing, but who knows what i'm talking about...
  • Did I mention that I killed someone last Saturday while singing karaoke? :)

    I was in The Royal, Hartlepool, and after a few drinks and the prompting of a few lady friends I decided to sing American Pie...big mistake.

    So, I sang the song, I sucked but i didn't care - its good fun either way, then we left the pub (quickly I might add). To our surpise the entire road outside had been blocked off and the area was swarming with police cars and ambulances.

    What had happened was, around the same time I was singing, someone threw themselves out of the thrid floor of the pub. I have since been branded the karaoke killer so I welcome any device that will reduce the number of song related deaths caused by muppets who cant sing doing karaoke :)

    On another note if your in the vicinity of the Royal in Hartlepool, UK (Church Street), I will be doing a repeat performance on saturday.

    Song requests to chris@wickedbass.net!
    • You make joke, but apparently [newsoftheweird.com] Karaoke bars in Manilla have stopped playing Frank Sinatra's "My Way" because of the amount of violence and death that ensues.

  • bad singing=fun (Score:2, Insightful)

    by daanger0us ( 473406 )
    Hearing people make fools out of themselves because they can't sing is part of the fun. At least for the first 10 min or so.
  • A friend of mine lives in a flat upstairs from a Karaoke bar. As one of the few places in town in range for broadband we drag our PCs over there for LAN parties and such. Friday and Saturday nights usually end up in battles between our stereo equipment and theirs. There are no winners... only causalities. Something like this could really save lives.
  • ...of what I've been saying about some of the more "talent-challenged" in the top 40 music industry..."You can clean up anything in the studio."

  • Yoko (Score:5, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:52PM (#3273461)
    Yes, but can it fix Yoko Ono's voice?

  • Isn't that what makes Karoke fun? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dcigary ( 221160 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:52PM (#3273464) Homepage
    I mean, seeing how bad some people sing? I've only been to a Karoke bar once or twice, but that was certainly part of the fun: Seeing someone up there completely butchering "Hotel California".

    • Having high-pitched, untrained female voices intermittantly scream into microphones (which seems to occur at least once at most karaoke events) isn't funny. It's just painful. Physically. Bad male singers are merely laughable.

      However, a pitch bender isn't the solution I'd prefer for these people. Personally, I'm thinking tasers :)

  • NOT perfect pitch! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gmaestro ( 316742 )
    Perfect pitch [ucsf.edu] is commonly used to describe absolute pitch:

    an intriguing behavioral trait involved in music perception and is defined as the ability to recognize the pitch of a musical tone without an external reference pitch

    For example, a professor at my beloved alma mater [unt.edu] was able to identify a pitch by referring to its frequency in Hz! The phrase describes someone at a different end of the musical spectrum than the idiots at which this product is aimed.

    -jason [gmaestro.org]

  • Also available: Voice Impersonator (Score:4, Informative)

    by Mad Bad Rabbit ( 539142 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @06:54PM (#3273472)

    There's also a team in Spain developing Voice Impersonator [google.com] Karaoke technology.

    Now singers can morph their own bland and off-key voices into a full rich Elvis (or anyone else for whom a digital voice template has been computed). Why be yourself, when you can be The King!

    Thank'uh ver' much. Can yall' get me sum barbecue 'n diet pills...

  • Hydrogen beer rampage in Tokyo! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    (1999, Tokyo) The recent craze for hydrogen beer is at the heart of a three-way lawsuit between unemployed stockbroker Toshira Otoma, the Tike-Take karaoke bar, and the Asaka Beer Corporation. Mr. Otoma is suing the bar and the brewery for selling toxic substances, and is claiming damages for grievous bodily harm leading to the loss of his job. The bar is counter-suing for defamation and loss of customers.

    The Asaka Beer corporation brews "Suiso" brand beer, in which the carbon dioxide normally used to add fizz has been replaced by the more environmentally friendly hydrogen gas. Two side effects of the hydrogen gas have made the beer extremely popular at karaoke sing-along bars and discotheques.

    First, because hydrogen molecules are lighter than air, sound waves are transmitted more rapidly, so individuals whose lungs are filled with the nontoxic gas can speak with an uncharacteristically high voice. Exploiting this quirk of physics, chic urbanites can now sing soprano parts on karaoke sing-along machines after consuming a big gulp of Suiso beer.

    Second, the flammable nature of hydrogen has also become a selling point, though it should be noted that Asaka has not acknowledged that this was a deliberate marketing ploy.

    The beer has inspired a new fashion of blowing flames from one's mouth using a cigarette as an ignition source. Many new karaoke videos feature singers shooting blue flames in slow motion, while flame contests take place in pubs everywhere. "Mr. Otoma has no one to blame but himself. If he had not become drunk and disorderly, none of this would have happened. Our security guards undergo the most careful screening and training before they are allowed to deal with customers," said Mr. Takashi Nomura, Manager of the Tike-Take bar.

    "Mr. Otoma drank fifteen bottles of hydrogen beer in order to maximize the size of the flames he could belch during the contest. He catapulted balls of fire across the room that Godzilla would be proud of, but this was not enough to win him first prize since the judgment is made on the quality of the flames and the singing, and after fifteen bottles of lager he was badly out of tune."

    "He took exception to the result and hurled blue fireballs at the judge, singeing the front of a female judge's hair and entirely removing her eyebrows and lashes, and ruining the clothes of two nearby customers. None of these people have returned to my bar. When our security staff approached Mr. Otoma, he turned his attentions to them, making it almost impossible to approach him. Our head bouncer had no choice but to hurl himself at Mr. Otoma's knees, knocking his legs from under him."

    "The laws of physics are not to be disobeyed, and the force that propelled Mr. Otoma's legs backwards also pivoted around his center of gravity and moved his upper body forward with equal velocity. It was his own fault that he had his mouth open for the next belch, his own fault that he held a lighted cigarette in front of it, and his own fault that he swallowed that cigarette."

    "The Tike-Take bar takes no responsibility for the subsequent internal combustion, rupture of his stomach lining, nor the third degree burns to his esophagus, larynx and sinuses as the exploding gases forced their way out of his body. Mr. Otoma's consequential muteness and loss of employment are his own fault."

    Mr. Otoma was unavailable for comment
  • I saw real-time pitch correction a few years ago on Tomorrows World, too late guys
  • Great, but isn't the point of karoke that you stink and can't make it as a pro singer? I dunno, this kinds strikes me like Led Zeppelin on CD -- those hisses and pops and scratches from the vinyl are part of the music, man!

  • This was already out decades ago... (Score:5, Funny)

    by MongooseCN ( 139203 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @07:18PM (#3273585) Homepage
    It's called "beer". If you have enough of it everyone sounds great at a karaoke party.

  • I have a karaoke story to tell,

    There was a spell in my life about 2 years ago where I spent 6 months straight, 7 days a week, 7 martini's a night at what has been named the best karaoke bar in san jose by the san jose metro.

    I popularized such forgotten hit's as Yes we have no Banana's by Spike Jones, To dream the impossible dream from
    Man of La [winamp.com]
    Mancha, and brought new flair to Baby Got Back by Sir Mix Alot. In the
    beginning I was a scared lone singer up on stage, my voice was terrible and I
    was afraid.


    I began to conquer my songs, one at a time. I would come in before any of the
    other singers and start around 6:00. Each song I conquered represented a fear,
    so in essence, I was conquering my fears.


    I had a buddy that taught me the ways. Our whole thing was we were
    "The Rat Pack" We got other singers into this clique and sort of set
    the place on fire not only with our alcohol finely tuned voices, but with our
    stage presence and showmanship as well.


    The rat pack ended when Frank Sinatra had a kid. I miss those harmonic
    days of bliss long since past.


    So drawing from what I know makes or breaks a karaoke superstar, and applying
    it to this comment, I honestly have to say that I don't think this will totally
    help all people. You still have issue's with stage fright, crowd response,
    the singers harmonic vocalizations and how well they dance around and put on a
    show.


    There is also somewhat of a joke in karaoke. Sometimes people TRY
    and sing off key or tempo. It's what you do with a song that makes people laugh
    or clap. Not just how well you sing.


  • IVL Technologies does this too... (Score:3, Informative)

    by Lynchenstein ( 559620 ) on Tuesday April 02, 2002 @07:42PM (#3273702)
    There has been many products like this over the past several years. One of the ones that I have had the opportunity to use was the Korg iH. It is based on the technology developed by IVL [ivl.com] (a company from my home town of Victoria, BC, Canada. WOO!)

    Anyway, way back when I was working at a music store in Victoria we got a few of these in. They never really sold very well, but were pretty amazing if you knew how to use them. Found a review [sospubs.co.uk] of the iH on Google.

    IVL does some very neat stuff. Check out their Web site [ivl.com].
  • This assesses singing skill mathematically," Kitamura said.

    Great. Now, if we assess everything mathematically, we'll eventually live in a perfect world, right? I don't see any flaws in this logic, do you?

    If I could get a mathematician to rate my movies for me, cook my food and write my laws for me, I'd really be living the high life. Mathematicians are definitely God's most perfect creatures.

  • I've found a cattle prod has much the same effect and costs far less. Also had some success with a baseball bat.
  • What is the point of karaoke?

    Having never done it myself I would guess thusly:

    *to sing along to a famous/popular song, and in the process test your voice amongst a jury of your peers (most likely trashed of their nuts and laughing their asses off)

    Introducing this technology to karaoke has no point.

    You may as well mime along to the original CD
  • Here's how this thing works.

    First, they play a song with the vocals removed so that someone can sing along, like standard karaoke.

    Now, here's how this new technology works. Once that someone starts singing, their microphone is automatically turned off, and the original vocal tracks are added back in.

    I hear it sounds great!

  • The machine automatically corrects your voice to make it sound good, and at the end of a song it scores you on how well you did?!

    In other news... Konami anounces "Singing Freaks 1st Mix" :-)

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