Microsoft Research Songsmith

[Lemur]

Please, dear God, tell me this is a joke ... it must be a joke ...

I watched the whole video. I am unclean.

[LeftEyeNine]

Please, dear God, tell me this is a joke ... it must be a joke ...

I watched the whole video. I am unclean.

I'm taking every bit of what comes from you with a pinch of salt from now on.

[Husar]

I'm taking every bit of what comes from you with a pinch of salt from now on.

Video doesn't load so far but the description sounds nice.
And something else I noticed, the video is available in .mov format as well, but it doesn't seem to load any faster.

[Lemur]

I'm taking every bit of what comes from you with a pinch of salt from now on.

As well you should, but it looks like this is for real. Yikes! Gadzooks! Balderdash!

Video doesn't load so far but the description sounds nice.

The video is ... scary. Truly terrifying.

[LeftEyeNine]

I've watched the video.

Microsoft's promotion department is still living their 80's.

[drone]

This could be one of the signs of the end times. With this tool, boy bands across the world can generate background music for their songs, without the tryouts, financial support, and musical expertise of the recording industry. The resulting glut of low production pop music will be devastating.

[Husar]

AWESOME!

I just saw the video and apart from the somewhat disturbing thing that I thought .mov was apple Quicktime and it played in WMP it was absolutely great!
I absolutely want that now and I hope I can get one of those nice green Microsoft coffee cups together with it.

Expect some cool songs from me soon.

[Lemur]

Wait ... wait a minute ... where did the video go? There was this freaky thing with a man who wanted to sell glow-in-the-dark towels learning to sing from his daughter ... where is it? Did they take it down out of shame? It was amazing and horrifying, all at once!

I should have downloaded the vid when I had the chance. Does anyone have it?

-edit-

Oh, thank goodness, someone was smart enough to archive it on YouTube. I was afraid this cultural document would be lost.

-edit of the edit-

Oh. My. God. There's a whole bunch of them.

[Husar]

I obviously downloaded the .mov file.

And why would I delete such a piece of art?

Oh and the coffee girl is actually cute. No seriously.

[Lord Winter]

So now you don't even have to be creative to make music anymore. Brilliant!

[Crazed Rabbit]

It makes me pine for the rational and reason-ruled days of the Jerry Seinfeld ads.

Seriously though - what? Really? Why? Why must you make a weird product and then make truly terrible commercials? What have we done to deserve this, Microsoft?

CR

[Husar]

It's called innovation people, apparently Microsoft wants to be the spearhead in the voice recognition and analyzation department.
And an ad with a cute girl cannot possibly be horrible anyway.

[Subedei]

Scary, yet funny. I would like to know how much they payed to the advertisement company for making fun of MS products?

[LittleGrizzly]

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry... in the end i did a bit of both!

[Ramses II CP]

Pale, generic muzak does not equal music. This is a tool of darkness and evil.

...but I would really, really like to hear what a death metal growl might produce...

[Quietus]

Amusing novelty, but it doesn't add to, supplant, detract or take away from any other music (good or bad ) .

What are the odds, a made up song will sound exactly like a preexisting, copyrighted song...?

[Whacker]

Now what *I* want is for Gorebag to download this and have a go at it, record the output, and post.

[LeftEyeNine]

Now what *I* want is for Gorebag to download this and have a go at it, record the output, and post.

Agreed and craving for it. I can even organize a demonstration.

[Reverend Joe]

*sigh*









...Well, at least it isn't Apple.

[Xiahou]

Songsmith? No thanks, I still prefer the Poopsmith.

[naut]

My mind has now been reduced to mush.

[Lemur]

• Roxanne (The Police)
• Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts' Club Band (The Beatles)
• Just What I Needed (Cars)
• Wonderwall (Oasis)
• Creep (Radiohead)
• I Heard if Through the Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)
• Tom Sawyer (Rush)
• White Wedding (Billy Idol)

God help me, there are more. I don't need any more proof that Microsoft intends to destroy all music everywhere.

-edit-

This may be the worst of the worst, although that's some stiff competition;

• Beat It (Michael Jackson)

[AggonyDuck]

I thought Runnin' with the devil was the worst, but I think that Beat It might just win the title.

[Xiahou]

Crazy Train sounds pretty awesome.

[drone]

Crazy Train sounds pretty awesome.

Ozzy on Polka, a drug I don't think even he has tried...

[Lemur]

I see the dreaded MSM has caught on to the comedy goldmine that is Songsmith:

SongSmith has been widely panned as inferior to Apple's popular virtual music kit GarageBand, but internet wits have discovered an alternative use for the programme and its musical limitations: creating dreadful reworkings of existing hits.

When the vocals of famous songs are run through the software, the backing tracks it adds are so unlikely that the end results often turn out as surreal reinventions of the originals.

Dozens of Songsmith reinterpretations have been posted on YouTube, including a hillbilly version of Billy Idol's White Wedding, The Beatles classic Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as if performed by a plodding hotel quartet, and a techno take on Wonderwall by Oasis.

Many of the videos have been viewed more than a hundred thousand times. The reaction from commenters has been mixed, with most appreciating the absurdity of SongSmith's efforts while others protest the "massacring" of their favourite tracks.

"Proof that computers shouldn't be allowed to make music," wrote one. Another said: "After you hear a few, your brain implodes into a sludge, and they start to sound bad-good. Or good-bad."

Beneath the dance version of Wonderwall, one commenter wrote: "This is a distinct improvement on the original."

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

The Songsmith versions of real songs seem satanic.

[Quietus]

Beat It (Michael Jackson)

Guh, better than the original, like the Cars song.

Enter Sandman's the best one I've heard so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmC28cXWqLc

Woot, what will it calculate next....

[Pannonian]

Barack Obama Speech (Chicago, IL)

[Beskar]

None of the links work.
"This video has been removed due to terms of use violation. "

But I did find this - Intergalatic by Beastie Boys