[HN Gopher] Apple Music Sing
___________________________________________________________________
Apple Music Sing
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 372 points
Date : 2022-12-06 15:02 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| drooopy wrote:
| Do they really have to give a name to every new hardware and
| software feature they come up with? Especially when the feature
| in question is just karaoke.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I love karaoke, but I wish we could switch to a system with
| better visual cues.
|
| For example, anyone remember those Disney sing-a-longs with the
| bouncy mickey mouse icon? IMO, the icon really helps communicate
| timing information; you can tell what's coming by the speed and
| arc of the icon. I'd love to have that system with a wider
| variety of music.
|
| There's also RockBand's approach, which displays scrolling
| syllables to be sung when they cross a white line. It's a bit
| harder to read, but I'd take it over traditional karaoke.
| romanovcode wrote:
| They should introduce "Discover Weekly", "Release Radar" and
| "Enhanced Playlists". Why are the recommendations lacking so much
| behind Spotify? That's the only reason I can't switch over and I
| would love to.
| yunwal wrote:
| I find both Apple Music and Spotify's recommendation services
| pretty much awful after a few months of use. They both
| eventually end up pushing the same stuff and recommending me
| songs by the same artists I'm already listening to.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| Apple Music has custom play lists, which it updates every week.
| One of them is the "New Music Mix", which is sort of a
| combination of Spotify's "Release Radar" and "Discover Weekly"
| play lists. Apple also has other mix play lists, which are
| updated weekly: things like "Favorites Mix", "Chill Mix", and
| "Get Up! Mix". Finally Apple Music has custom "radio stations",
| which are endless playlists based on your listening history. (I
| believe Spotify also had stations, but I never used them much.)
|
| I switched from Spotify to Apple Music about a month ago,
| mostly because I wanted music in Dolby Atmos. (Not all songs
| are in Dolby Atmos, but many are, and they sound far superior
| on my AirPods to anything without it.) After transferring my
| Spotify playlists to Apple, I've found that the experiences are
| pretty similar. There are a few things I like better about
| Spotify (e.g., it has better support for non-Apple platforms
| like Linux and Windows), but I prefer Apple now. If you're
| curious, I'd recommend a free trial.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I switched to Apple Music for a couple years and recently
| switched back to Spotify. Two main reasons:
|
| 1. The Apple Music desktop app is utter garbage. Other than
| performance issues and crashing, which happened to me almost
| daily, the UX is a decade behind. It's dead simple things...
| like the artist's name on the currently playing track isn't
| even a link.
|
| 2. Spotify's recommendation engine is outrageously better
| than Apple's. With Spotify I find new music that I actually
| like almost weekly, with zero effort at all. All Apple does
| is pigeonhole you with whatever you've listened to recently,
| I had a day where I listened to "lo-fi chill" music and
| that's all it recommended to me for _weeks_.
| caconym_ wrote:
| I wish that before working on this they had fixed the long-
| standing bug where Apple Music playback on the Apple TV 4K (and
| possibly other versions) disables the screensaver, making it
| impossible to use on any OLED TV without risking burn-in.
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| > 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.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| > But the old Apple TV 4K is not powerful enough for displaying
| text on a TV, even though any old iPhone is?
|
| Honestly, it might not be. My Apple TV 4k seems slow as
| molasses with performance more like an AMLogic 905.
|
| Not sure if it's because it doesn't have enough RAM, the flash
| is slow or the CPU is just way under powered. Yes, they
| advertise it as an A12Z or whatever, but it's a binned part
| that wasn't acceptable for a phone.
| acdha wrote:
| That sounds like you may have defective hardware or something
| else like an overheated environment forcing it to throttle.
| On a standard unit everything built-in is snappy.
| js2 wrote:
| I have owned nearly every generation of Apple TV. Other than
| the original model, I wouldn't describe any of them as slow
| as molasses. On the contrary, they are consistently the
| fastest streaming devices I've owned, and I'm comparing to
| things like Roku (built-in to a TCL), FireTV, and Android TV
| across a number of devices (Shield Pro, Hisense U6G, Zidoo
| Z9X). (Technically the Zidoo uses Android, not Android TV.)
|
| I currently own all three generations of the Apple TV 4K. All
| of them are snappy devices.
|
| Now that said, I use them for streaming video only, both a
| variety of services as well as use Infuse for streaming from
| my NAS.
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| >they are consistently the fastest streaming devices I've
| owned,
|
| As someone that works on set top box / streaming chips, I
| don't think you realize how low that bar is :P
|
| The prev gen ATV 4k is clearly superior, I'm not disputing
| that. But 'snappy' is a relative term. I expect a lot more
| out of a device sporting the chip it has. I regularly get
| input lag, stalled apps (that the system cannot recover
| from for some time), bursted input (like it doesn't
| debounce queued remote inputs after stalling)
|
| There are systems level issues that remain unaddressed, and
| I speculate they are due to hardware bottlenecks somewhere
| .
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, I switched from a Shield to the prior gen of Apple TV
| 4K in part because the Shield was often laggy as hell (also
| the UI layout was a mess, also the damn ads, also it was
| significantly buggier) and AFAIK that's about the most
| powerful non-Apple box on the market. ATV's way better on
| that front. Frankly a low-end-but-not-quite-bottom-end Roku
| machine feels snappier and more-reliable than the Shield
| did (though not as good as the Apple TV)
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Im a big shield fan, I don't feel like other boxes can
| touch its range of audio and video codecs. I did replace
| the default launcher with fLauncher so that I no longer
| had ads.
| ricardojoaoreis wrote:
| That line stood out, powerful enough for 3D games but not for
| Karaoke...
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| 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.
| js2 wrote:
| > any old iPhone is
|
| The note at the bottom reads: "Apple Music Sing will be
| available on all _compatible_ iPhone and iPad models as well as
| the new Apple TV 4K ".
|
| Maybe it requires the Neural Engine that was added with the A11
| and opened to third-party apps with the A12. (Sep 2018).
|
| But that should still allow the Apple TV 4K (second generation)
| which uses the A12.
|
| iPhones/iPads with the A12 or newer are the iPhone XS/XR, iPad
| Mini (5th generation), iPad Air (3rd generation), and iPad (8th
| generation). The iPhone SE (2nd generation) uses the A13 so
| that should be compatible too.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| More likely they're falling victim to their own insistence that
| the past doesn't matter and OS fragmentation.
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I'm noticing this trend out of Apple on nearly all of their
| devices. I understand it, but worried about where it's trending
| towards.
| mihaaly wrote:
| Probably some would choose not to upgrade devices and not to
| sign up to services and then they could put their greed where
| it belongs.
|
| I am getting fed up by the user hostile attitude of producers
| and providers, maybe I will just keep my money or spend
| elsewhere.
| mihaaly wrote:
| ... it is very peculiar that when I write a less than
| flattering thing about Apple, even when it is just partly
| relevant, certain people start to downvote my opinion. Only
| when it is about Apple btw, do not happen about something
| else.
|
| Weird kind of devotees.
| zorrolovsky wrote:
| > either push users to upgrade devices, or push to sign up to
| paid services. Pushing for both at the same time is greedy.
|
| Pushing users to upgrade devices is unethical and harmful.
| Apple does it all the time and they should be held accountable
| for that.
|
| Discarding old devices and creating new ones destroys the
| environment and increases pollution. The best device is the
| device you already own!
|
| Their successful business strategy results in environmental
| destruction and other issues. Wh
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > Pushing users to upgrade devices is unethical and harmful.
| Apple does it all the time and they should be held
| accountable for that.
|
| Huh. Long-time Apple user and my experience is they're really
| good about supporting older hardware, including when that
| hardware can't support the newest features. Usually (not
| always, but usually) if an older device doesn't get a
| feature, it's because it _can 't_, but they keep getting
| updates anyway, just without the features they cannot
| support. That's the trade-off for more features being local-
| only or local-mostly rather than "cloud".
| brookst wrote:
| Apple products have longer lifespans than competitors'[0].
| There's just a secondary market, which is more
| environmentally efficient. It's a very different world, so
| it's understandable that people not in the Apple ecosystem
| see "buy a new iPad" as synonymous with "throw old iPad in
| trash." But that's not what happens at all. The actual
| devices go on being used for a very long time.
|
| But ignoring that for a moment, are you proposing that
| companies shouldn't improve hardware because it leads to
| software features that don't work on old devices, which leads
| to old devices being thrown away? That doesn't feel right to
| me.
|
| [0] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/18101614243
| 4.h...
| reaperducer wrote:
| I wish that Apple would expand its recycling intake
| program.
|
| During the lockdown, I had several Apple products that I
| wanted to bring to the store for disposal, but Apple wasn't
| taking any devices at all.
|
| Then, once the restrictions were lifted, I found out that
| only one of the six Apple Stores in my area takes devices,
| and it was an hour away.
|
| It seems to me that every Apple retail location should take
| back devices.
| brookst wrote:
| Very much agreed. That seems like something easy to fix.
| surewe wrote:
| I'd imagine/hope that it's also supported on the previous
| generation, just that they'd rather advertise its usage on the
| new one.
|
| Edit: per the bottom of the page...
|
| > Apple Music Sing will be available on all compatible iPhone
| and iPad models as well as the new Apple TV 4K.
|
| :/ maybe they do ML to process stuff on-device, per other
| comments' speculation, that justifies requiring the newer
| model?
| pilsetnieks wrote:
| iPhone 8 that is the oldest supported for iOS 16 has an A11
| chip; the second gen 4K has A12. The first gen 4K has an A10X
| chip - maybe it needs the "Neural Engine" that first appeared
| in A11 but the 2nd gen does have it.
|
| In addition, the Apple TV is plugged in, it doesn't have to
| limit its power for battery reasons.
| crazygringo wrote:
| 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.
|
| So I wouldn't be surprised if it relies on a particular
| hardware chip that the older Apple TV simply doesn't have. That
| has definitely been the case for everything Apple has launched
| with regards to Spatial Audio.
| layer8 wrote:
| They may also use ML to sync the lyrics to the vocals,
| meaning they don't need prior timestamp metadata for the
| syllables.
| patentatt wrote:
| I hope they don't do this. It would be so wasteful to have
| every end user device running an ML model every time a song
| is played. Just run the model once in the datacenter and
| then distribute the time stamp metadata.
| notpushkin wrote:
| > 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?
| akiselev wrote:
| iOS > Settings > Accessibility > Live Captions (beta) >
| Toggle Live Captions
| Thorrez wrote:
| That makes sense when there's audio that Apple hasn't
| seen before. With Apple Music Sing, it makes more sense
| to do that processing once in the datacenter.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _it makes more sense to do that processing once in the
| datacenter._
|
| Since Apple is all about on-device processing with so
| many of its features, going back-and-forth to the data
| center doesn't seem to be its style these days.
|
| That's more of a Google thing.
|
| And no one can accuse Apple of telling its advertisers
| that you start your day with Funky Cold Medina.
| notpushkin wrote:
| There's a reason Apple's preferring on-device processing:
| user privacy. This doesn't make sense for music (stems,
| lyrics) since it's not listener's data.
| nvrspyx wrote:
| > There's a reason Apple's preferring on-device
| processing: user privacy.
|
| Is that the actual reason though? My personal impression
| has been that it's a combination of reasons that benefit
| Apple. The increased user privacy being a nice bonus for
| users, but not the primary reason:
|
| 1. Producing phones powerful enough for on-device ML both
| justifies the high price point to the general public and
| is a good marketing point (along with increased user
| privacy)
|
| 2. Avoid backend infrastructure costs. Why spend extra
| money on servers, maintenance, and compliance when they
| can just offload the work to the devices themselves since
| they're capable?
|
| 3. Bonus: The unplanned obsolescence for new features
| like the one announced is also a side effect that
| benefits Apple.
|
| I do not get the impression that Apple's primary focus is
| to benefit users and their privacy.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| >There's a reason Apple's preferring on-device
| processing:
|
| It makes it so you have to buy new devices sooner.
|
| The privacy thing is a nice side-benefit and PR thing,
| but let's be realistic here.
|
| EDIT: Just to remind everyone, we are _literally_ in a
| thread about a new device feature that is trivial to do
| in the cloud, which Apple chooses to do on-device, which
| makes it _only_ a feature for its newest generation of
| products...
| meibo wrote:
| Android has had on-device captions long before Apple did.
| Thorrez wrote:
| There's no extra back and forth. You have to fetch the
| songs from the datacenter in the first place, right? So
| you fetch the additional data at the same time.
|
| If Apple wanted to support this for user-provided mp3s
| then on-device would make sense. It doesn't sound like
| they support that though.
| imchillyb wrote:
| 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 simultaneously can
| animate independently from the main vocals to make it
| easier for users to follow.
|
| Duet view: Multiple vocalists show on opposite sides of the
| screen to make duets or multi-singer tracks easy to sing
| along to.
|
| ------
|
| The part of the article where they state these things
| explicitly...
| jaywalk wrote:
| 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.
| brookst wrote:
| It's hard for me to imagine they'd do something special
| to support "millions of songs" while excluding others,
| since the entire catalog is ~100m songs.
|
| My guess is that it's entirely dynamic. It's hard to
| imagine the complexity of doing batch processing to
| render each song in the library, and maintain that as new
| songs are uploaded, and update the renders for software
| improvements. Better to just do it realtime.
|
| And since classical, instrumentals, esoteric ambient
| stuff, death metal, etc, will probably not be supported
| by the algorithms, I think the "millions" refers to those
| that can be processed in realtime.
| snotrockets wrote:
| They do something special: get the necessary sign offs
| from legal. Apple's license for some content may bar it
| from being used that way (that's another reason for doing
| it on device: could be different situation as far legal &
| licensing are concerned)
| brookst wrote:
| Sure, and a good point. I should have said they wouldn't
| do anything special on a song-by-song basis for millions
| of songs. It's not like someone's pushing the button for
| each song, or building a list of songs. Those that meet
| the criteria will be included, whether that is 10 or 10
| million of them.
| 9dev wrote:
| 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.
| GaryPalmer wrote:
| Why would you need a dedicated chip for any of that?
| Closi wrote:
| 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.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| 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."
| notpushkin wrote:
| > 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.
| whiddershins wrote:
| 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.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Even if they're using ML, I don't imagine they'd do it
| on-device. They don't even do voice recognition on-device
| by default.
| Closi wrote:
| > [Apple says it is] relying on an on-device machine
| learning algorithm that processes the music in real-time.
| The tech builds on Apple's noise-cancellation expertise
| and other developments it's made for FaceTime, the
| company said.
|
| Source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/06/apple-music-is-
| getting-a-n...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Ah, I stand corrected! I wonder why they took that
| approach...
| Closi wrote:
| Not sure - although I would imagine that it would
| effectively double the storage and bandwidth/data
| requriement for Apple Music in general if they had to
| send two files with equal bitrate.
| notpushkin wrote:
| I stand corrected as well!
|
| Wonder why they take this approach though, as it is
| clearly over-engineering (if I correctly understand that
| the goal is just to make vocals volume adjustable).
| dperfect wrote:
| Maybe it's licensing? I can imagine copyright holders
| being squeamish about Apple processing, _permanently
| storing_ , and _serving_ heavily altered versions of
| their music. The difference is silly and pedantic, but by
| processing it in real-time during playback, one might
| argue it 's just a filter effect like EQ.
| incanus77 wrote:
| > I think this only requires pre-making two audio files
| per track, and simultaneously streaming these.
|
| That's the understatement of the century. "this only
| requires [...] simultaneously streaming these"
| notpushkin wrote:
| Well, it is indeed tricky but not requires-dedicated-chip
| tricky :-)
| klipt wrote:
| Don't movies already have stereo sound? Is going from two
| audio channels to four really that difficult?
| artursapek wrote:
| As usual, orange site users automatically assume the worst of
| other people
| busymom0 wrote:
| Just like they don't allow always on display for iPhones prior
| to the latest 14.
| pwthornton wrote:
| I am not convinced it won't work on multiple models. They don't
| actually provide a list of supported devices. The language here
| is unclear.
|
| At first, I thought it meant that this only was on the current
| Apple TV 4K, but then I thought it might just be marketing
| speak to get people to buy Apple TVs.
|
| But maybe the jump from the A12 to the A15 does provide
| something that makes this possible. The only thing I can think
| of is the neural engine (although that first debuted in the
| A11).
| jahewson wrote:
| It's just marketing copy. They're reminding everybody that
| there's a new Apple TV 4K, not that this feature won't work on
| the old one.
| alewi481 wrote:
| It seems that limiting new headline software features to the
| latest hardware release is the direction that Apple is going
| lately. The most recent examples that comes to mind are the
| always-on display in the new iPhone 14 and the hover mode in
| the new iPad Pro.
| dagmx wrote:
| Listing always on display as just a software feature is odd.
| It's very much a function of both software and hardware.
|
| It requires new screens and display controllers that can
| refresh at much lower rates, and stronger guarantees of burn
| in prevention.
|
| Like sure, you could do it on an older screen but you'd burn
| through battery much quicker and potentially damage the
| device in the process.
|
| This is true for Android devices as well.
| brookst wrote:
| You think it's a coincidence that the first iPhone with AOD
| is also the first one with a LTPO display? If so, why did
| Apple wait until the 14? If it's just an artificial
| limitation, wouldn't it have made more sense to do for the XS
| or the 7 or whatever? It's generally preferable to pull
| revenue forward, not hold it back for years.
| MBCook wrote:
| The old Apple TV 4K can show lyrics today. I'd fully expect it
| to get this feature. Probably the HD as well.
|
| This seems like it might be Apple's standard thing of just
| promoting whatever their newest products are in all
| communications.
| soggylaundry wrote:
| > just promoting whatever their newest products are in all
| communications.
|
| ...which leads to users upgrading their devices
|
| I mean, it's not a bad marketing strategy when most people
| who can afford an apple device already have 1+
| smohnot wrote:
| It uses an "on-device machine learning algorithm that processes
| the music in real-time." Perhaps it doesn't work as well on the
| old Apple TV? Or just an excuse.
| fundad wrote:
| With the FTC watching Apple so hard it's funny to see
| contrarians like "meh impossible that it's a hardware
| limitation"
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| What's worse is that the Apple Music app on Mac doesn't even
| have lyrics (and is ridiculously bad in many other ways). It
| feels like they are slowly abandoning the platform.
| ultrarunner wrote:
| It does in the MiniPlayer
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Have you used an Apple Silicon macbook of any version?
| THey're clearly NOT abandoning the platform, because they are
| kick ass.
| kemayo wrote:
| ...it does have lyrics. Look for the lyrics button in the
| top-right of the window.
| acdha wrote:
| It does support Lyrics: Control-Command-U will toggle
| display.
|
| If you use the Help menu's search feature it will direct you
| to the "Show Lyrics" option, too.
| cschep wrote:
| What if the top comment wasn't the MOST cynical take possible
| at any given time? :D
|
| What is cool about HN though is that maybe an Apple engineer
| will show up anonymously and give us the low down about why. In
| my short experience at Apple there were plenty of problems but
| NOT shipping things to customers to make money was not even
| remotely one of them. Bending over backwards on ancient radars
| to support the iPhone 6 sucks up an enormous amount of time!
| notpushkin wrote:
| 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 track would suddenly be
| possible, too.
|
| - Better music stemming / demixing ML models. I believe right now
| the baseline is Spleeter by Deezer [1], which is pretty good but
| leaves so much room for improvement.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/deezer/spleeter
| ShamelessC wrote:
| If it's realtime, and you are mixing vocals and other separated
| tracks back together on-the-fly, the actual separations don't
| need to be _super_ hiqh quality, as the mixing will mask most
| deficiencies.
|
| The reason I say that is because I suspect they are doing this
| with a neural net.
| notpushkin wrote:
| I think a neural net would be an overkill here. If you are
| doing the mixing on device, I think the algorithm could be as
| simple as just overlaying two tracks.
|
| Splitting tracks on-device would probably use a neural net,
| but I don't think they're doing that.
| smoldesu wrote:
| How does this enable anything that wasn't possible before?
| notpushkin wrote:
| Perhaps I'm missing something, but without a remix pack, how
| would you take vocals and overlay those on top of a
| completely rewritten track for example, or bite a particular
| sample from the track that only plays with vocals on top?
| smoldesu wrote:
| There are a couple ways. The method most musicians have
| used since the mid-90s is phase cancellation, where you
| take an instrumental and use it to cancel out any sound
| that isn't instrumental (a-la noise-cancelling). In more
| dire scenarios, people would split the stereo tracks and
| cancel them against one another, which actually worked
| fairly well if you had a DAW precise enough to pull it off.
|
| Then in the mid-2000s there were a few attempts to use
| algorithms for this (that mostly failed) and circa-2015 we
| started to see machine-learning based options like Spleeter
| and Demucs. This is what Apple is implementing here, and
| it's been freely available for years. It's not really novel
| for anyone who isn't writing their music on an iPhone.
|
| I mostly ask because I've spent the past 2 or 3 weeks
| working on a remix album, and haven't really had trouble
| finding stem separation tools that work well.
| boredemployee wrote:
| 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
| notpushkin wrote:
| Sounds impressive! Would be nice to compare it with what
| Spleeter does.
| layer8 wrote:
| I wouldn't expect the ML-based real-time vocals removal to be
| high-quality enough for those use cases. It's a really
| difficult task, and it doesn't have to be high-quality to be
| adequate for karaoke. The press release also says "The vocal
| slider adjusts vocal volume, but does not fully remove vocals".
| hunter2_ wrote:
| Back in the day, we just took a channel differential (L minus
| R) with one channel high passed so the difference didn't have
| all the bass eliminated.
|
| Tons of reasons it sucked: stereo reverb on vocals wouldn't
| cancel out, other instruments panned dead center (or at least
| highly correlated) would cancel out along with the vocal, and
| early MP3 encoders often sounded better in "joint stereo" or
| "intensity stereo" mode (assuming low/mid bitrates) which very
| reasonably gave more bits to the center and fewer bits to the
| sides, so the differential sounded like hot garbage.
|
| Exciting to see that this technique has been replaced with ML.
| hoherd wrote:
| Stemroller[1] is another audio track separator, based on
| demucs[2]. The demucs GH page has an accuracy comparison table
| with spleeter, demucs and others.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/stemrollerapp/stemroller
|
| [2]: https://github.com/facebookresearch/demucs
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Your comment reminded me of ...And Justice For Jason, where
| people fixed the bass guitar volume of the Metallica album by
| taking the individual channels from Rock Band.
|
| https://www.loudersound.com/news/metallica-and-justice-for-a...
| bambax wrote:
| There are many services or apps/plugins that can do this. I
| think the promise Apple is making isn't necessarily that it
| will be better, but that they will have done it prior for many
| songs in their catalog, so that the stems are immediately
| available.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| Perhaps that is why it's not available on Mac.
|
| Of course people can still rip it off an iPhone/iPad through
| the "analog hole" via the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter
| hrrsn wrote:
| djay Pro AI has had this feature for a while now -
| https://www.algoriddim.com/neural-mix
|
| It works pretty well on Mac
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| But Djay Pro doesn't work with Apple Music (the streaming
| service) or Spotify.
|
| It does work with music you have purchased on iTunes.
|
| So it's an IP issue. It also works with the higher tiers of
| TIDAL or SoundCloud - https://help.algoriddim.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360012493060-W...
| notpushkin wrote:
| Or just using a jailbreak? (unless Apple Music uses some
| hardware DRM)
| flappyeagle wrote:
| That's the sound of Apple completely taking over the East and SE
| Asian market
| brap wrote:
| To anyone wondering how this will work, since the post didn't
| say:
|
| > The feature won't see users switching over to music tracks that
| already have the vocals removed, however. Instead, it's relying
| on an on-device machine learning algorithm that processes the
| music in real time, Apple says. The algorithm isolates the vocals
| from the rest of the song, allowing users to adjust their volume
| accordingly using a new slider button in the Apple Music app.
|
| (TechCrunch)
|
| I wonder how well this will work. Especially when some songs
| apply all sorts of wacky effects on vocals. Sometimes it's not
| even clear to a human what should be considered vocals and what's
| part of the instrumental. The context matters too. Maybe they're
| using the lyrics as a signal?
| copperx wrote:
| If this becomes popular, Apple will ask artists to optionally
| submit instrumentals along with their tracks.
| ddoolin wrote:
| What I really want is lyrics on CarPlay. I'm sure there would be
| a ton of huffing in here about distracted driving, but...well, I
| don't care! I'd really just use it for confirmation of a word or
| phrase on a small handful of songs myself. It would be great for
| passengers, though.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Apple should put 3 M2-ultras in the next Apple TV and see what
| happens as it turns into a game platform.
| madelyn-goodman wrote:
| I"m curious if artists can opt out of their songs being included
| in those that have these capabilities. This seems like another
| way that a streaming service is exploiting artists to me. It's
| cool technology definitely, but there are some problematic
| implications for sure.
| Rallen89 wrote:
| I'm sure the contracts they signed were long and covered every
| contingency
| throwaway743 wrote:
| There's gotta be a way to do this with youtube captions and audio
| deskamess wrote:
| Amazon Music has this, right?
| colmmacc wrote:
| 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 real killer feature of
| professional karaoke ... the ability to transpose the song into a
| more convenient key for the singer. Apple have had this
| capability in Logic Pro's pitch shift and it's pretty good even
| on polyphonic music. Some Karaoke platforms use midi and midi-
| like formats and synthesize the instruments to do it, but I'd be
| surprised to see that here.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| Wait, there are Karaoke machines that can transpose songs?
| soylentcola wrote:
| 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.
| batesy wrote:
| Serato just released Stems, which allows DJs to isolate drums,
| bassline, vocals in the tracks they are playing live. The algos
| are getting pretty damn good.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2Wy9szxU3A
| CrypticShift wrote:
| And this is real-time (Like the apple sing). So it is a game
| changer for DJs (usability-wise)
| soylentcola wrote:
| I remember seeing something like this in VirtualDJ the last
| time I fired it up and updated a few years ago. Only noticed
| because they'd remapped the high/mid/low EQ knobs on my old
| Numark controller to remove bass, drums, vox, etc.
|
| Wasn't what I was looking for initially but it was
| surprisingly good compared to the older "vocal remover" type
| plugins I remember having for Winamp et al back in the day.
| If I ever actually DJed anymore it would definitely be useful
| for mixing tracks.
| Closi wrote:
| > Presumably the tracks need to be mixed for the format with
| dedicated vocal track.
|
| Nope - it's using ML.
|
| Source: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/06/apple-music-is-
| getting-a-n...
| jguimont wrote:
| > Apple Music Sing will be available on all compatible iPhone and
| iPad models as well as the new Apple TV 4K.
|
| Does this means that only the newest version of the Apple TV 4K
| can run this? I have a old 4K, what does it mean for it?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| This could _really_ revolutionize amateur music.
|
| Having easy access to instrumental versions of millions of tracks
| will be huge for remixers, people recording vocal demos, etc.
|
| ...well, maybe.
|
| I'm sure you won't be able to export the vocal-less versions out
| to an audio file directly.
|
| But you should be able to turn off the vocals and capture the
| resulting audio by the usual means: loopback audio drivers,
| analog capture, etc. It's still a step, but it's going to be
| fairly easy and the resulting file should be quite clean.
|
| (It's also going to revolutionize the singing I do alone after a
| few glasses of wine but that's not super impactful to anybody but
| me)
| paxys wrote:
| Extracting vocal tracks from songs is something that is done
| trivially in all audio mixing software out there. This is
| hardly a "revolution", especially considering Apple isn't even
| going to let you export the results digitally.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| It's been a while since I played around with that, but I
| remember the results not being super clean.
|
| Is that still the case?
|
| I am assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that Apple has access to
| multitrack versions of some songs and that for these tracks
| it will be able to remove the vocals in a pristine way.
| yunwal wrote:
| Sounds like they're doing it with ML just like everyone
| else (hence not supporting devices with old chips).
| MBCook wrote:
| It's not what this is for, but I've often thought it would be
| kind of nice to be able to just put Apple Music in a
| "instrumental" mode.
|
| The easy way would be if it knew which tracks were instrumental
| or not and only play those. The GREAT way would be if it just
| played everything but knew how to remove the all vocals by
| playing just the backing track.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| I feel bad for Smule, which is a pretty awesome app. This
| features seems to offer much of that capability natively (minus
| the community.)
| vlunkr wrote:
| Here's a question, is it copyright infringement to serve modified
| versions of a song? We know that attempts to censor movies have
| not held up in court, how is this different? Did all the
| publishers agree to this in their contract with Apple?
| lilyball wrote:
| They're not serving modified versions of the song.
| vlunkr wrote:
| Removing or lowing the volume of the song is definitely a
| modification.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| IANAL, but Apple Music already pays people per stream, and this
| type of modification wouldn't result in additional people
| needing to get paid, so that at least eliminates a whole class
| of issues.
| fuzzy2 wrote:
| Good, now maybe Spotify will up their lyrics game. It's sometimes
| great but often mediocre at best.
|
| I also really miss the days when Singstar was a thing, or even
| UltraStar, the open source "clone".
| [deleted]
| nabaraz wrote:
| Add a camera and we have a TikTok?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The free version is using YouTube like we do in our family.
|
| The downside during voting season is that Disney songs are
| interrupted by rape allegations that 6 year olds ask about.
| jefft255 wrote:
| So... Karaoke? Why do I have to read all of this to understand
| that they mean Karaoke?
| codazoda wrote:
| Weird that this is new. I've seen it multiple times over the past
| few months. Maybe I got opted into a test group or something. I
| activated it by accident several times and ignored it because I
| primarily use Apple Music when I'm driving.
| codazoda wrote:
| Yeah, you're right, I may have just seen regular lyrics and
| this adds some features (alternate singing positions and
| speed). So, it's an enhancement to the existing lyrics feature.
| timmytokyo wrote:
| You may be referring to the lyrics feature, where lyrics are
| displayed as the music plays. Apple Music has had that for some
| time.
| MBCook wrote:
| Apple doesn't tend to do that. They don't unofficially beta
| test things with groups of users like Google or Facebook might.
|
| If you've had access, my guess is a mistake was made and you
| were not supposed to be on the magic list.
|
| Very cool.
| Not15CharsLong wrote:
| 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 garroting these middlemen using technology, and most
| likely using this capability as leverage in negotiating with
| recording artists ("hey, give us a 14-day exclusive on
| iMusicOrWhateverWeCallItThisWeek, and we'll kick back an
| additional point on residuals").
|
| This is bad news for the existing providers, and barely good news
| for anyone else.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| 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
|
| Commercial karaoke establishments will still need to pay for
| the licensed versions if they want to be legal. That doesn't
| change.
|
| People who _don 't_ want to do that already had tons of options
| - Adobe Audition and tons of other software can remove/reduce
| vocals.
|
| So I don't feel like this changes the commercial picture too
| much? I feel like this will mainly affect at-home singalongs.
| Not15CharsLong wrote:
| Commercial karaoke establishments are, outside Japan and
| Korea, not very relevant.
|
| The at-home market in the UK, on the other hand, is pretty
| significant. None of these households know how to operate
| Adobe Audition or something similar: they just want to sing
| along with whatever is on the telly*.
|
| There are lots of companies catering to that market. In fact:
| in the past, Apple was more than happy to allow them on their
| platform, to fill in the gaps left by Apple's inability to
| negotiate certain agreements.
|
| In the past year or so, Apple has gotten more and more
| restrictive with regards to "soundalike" content. And we now
| know why... Is this inevitable? Possibly. Is it fair? Maybe.
| Is it yet another cottage industry that Apple strangulates?
| Definitely.
|
| *And yes, this is a very simplistic caricature by choice. Of
| course UK consumers are more sophisticated, but...
| hbn wrote:
| How is that anti-competitive?
|
| In what cases to we continue to use a slow, antiquated process
| to do a task when an automated technology comes out that can do
| it faster and/or better?
|
| Sure, I could pay a contractor to go through my files to find
| and replace every instance of a text string with another text
| string. Or I could use sed. It's not anti-competitive for sed
| to exist.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| 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.
| therusskiy wrote:
| Spotify released this feature to some users this summer:
| https://sea.mashable.com/entertainment/20715/spotifys-new-ka...
|
| Though I have no idea how to get into this beta test.
|
| This is a killer feature for me as I am trying to learn to sing.
|
| There are some services online that use AI to split tracks into
| instruments and vocals that do hell of a job, but trying to
| combine them with written lyrics again is a pretty painful
| experience.
| alkonaut wrote:
| Still no trace of that feature for me either. Is it officially
| launched?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Nice way to make karaoke dead easy for those with iPhones
| sudhirj wrote:
| 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 separate tracks with level
| info?
| peatmoss wrote:
| I assume this comes along with "Mastered for iTunes" / "Apple
| Digital Masters" ah least in part. I think if it's only
| available for limited tracks, we'll know they went the full
| separate-the-vocal-track route. If it's everything, then I bet
| they augmented with ML.
| copperx wrote:
| We know that artists submit lyrics, but if they enable
| syllable-by-syllable highlighting for every song, it's
| probably ML.
| MBCook wrote:
| 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 getting the labels to just give
| you a special version with an extra channel for vocals?
|
| Hopefully someone digs in and finds out once this is released.
| lostgame wrote:
| >> 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.
| treis wrote:
| This is more or less just a Karaoke machine. Presumably Apple
| is getting the music from the same place they do.
| iicc wrote:
| >Can anyone make out if songs like this are specially mastered
| with separate vocal channels ... or if Apple is applying ML to
| do voice isolation
|
| "Coupled with an ever-expanding catalog that features _tens of
| millions_ of the world's most singable songs "
|
| "The vocal slider adjusts vocal volume, but _does not fully
| remove vocals_ "
|
| Based on the quantity and results it's ML like Spleeter
| (https://research.deezer.com/projects/spleeter.html).
| MBCook wrote:
| Oh good catch on that last bit. I missed it when reading
| through.
| rockostrich wrote:
| My guess is that they're doing it through ML. The old "cancel
| out the left track with the inverted right track" trick is
| probably good enough, but I don't see why Apple wouldn't take
| it one step further.
|
| > Do any audio file formats support separate tracks with level
| info?
|
| I don't know what file format audio engineering software uses
| to store all the track info but my guess is that it's akin to a
| zip file containing a flac for each track.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > The old "cancel out the left track with the inverted right
| track" trick is probably good enough
|
| I've never had this produce good results. It removes major
| parts of the music, while also not fully removing the vocals.
| lostgame wrote:
| I found out about this by having a poor headphone jack
| connection on a cassette walkman as a kid.
|
| I would actually take that and record out from that to
| another tape, so I could have 'instrumental' versions of the
| songs.
|
| And, no - it doesn't work very well at _all_ ; it sounds like
| a poor 64kbps MP3 with bizarre artifacts and; yes - many
| missing instruments.
| [deleted]
| nkozyra wrote:
| 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.
| colmmacc wrote:
| 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 have already been driving mixing and end to end
| workflow with studios for Spatial audio and mastered for
| iTunes.
| nkozyra wrote:
| 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.
| colmmacc wrote:
| Apple need the labels either way. They can't just go
| creating new derived works without a license, and the
| artists and producers would far prefer to avoid the
| artifacts of something that is overly automated.
|
| It's already become pretty common for studios and labels
| to make stems available (stems are full multi-track files
| that can be used with a DAW) to industry insiders and
| even the public sometimes. There's a community of
| remixers, samplers, even a small cottage industry of
| YouTubers who work with these regularly. It wouldn't take
| them more than a few minutes per track to annotate which
| channel is vocals.
| munificent wrote:
| It makes a lot of sense for an audio file format to support
| multiple tracks when each track is intended to target a
| different output device (left and right speakers, etc.)
|
| It makes less sense when the intent is to mix those tracks
| together and send them to a single output device. Producers
| and audio engineers want full control over that mixing
| process because it's almost never just a simple sum. They
| are doing audio compression (sometimes multi-band), dynamic
| EQ, saturation, limiting, etc. They wouldn't want to give
| that up, because it's an essential part of making a good
| sounding recording.
| the_other wrote:
| Native Instruments tried to popularise a four-track format for
| DJs but it didn't spread far enough to take hold.
| lostgame wrote:
| I was disappointed the .stem format never worked out. I
| actually had high hopes for that.
| rfreiberger wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is the same as the DJ apps that remove
| vocals and other instruments but there seems to be a surge of
| apps that have this feature. It's impressive how well some of
| these work and I believe they are mostly based on an open source
| project (I can't recall the name).
| bluedino wrote:
| I want to see how well this does with Yellow Ledbetter
| bfung wrote:
| If you have 3 year olds, get ready for more baby shark and let it
| go.
| bcrescimanno wrote:
| I'm excited for this feature. My brother purchased a small
| karaoke machine for my daughter for her birthday this year. It
| connects to her iPad via Bluetooth; but, so far, she's only been
| able to use her regular iTunes library for music. This is because
| the "karaoke music service" pushed in the box for the and
| available on the app store was a subscription for $19.99 PER
| WEEK.
|
| I don't care if their audio processing to drop the volume of the
| lyrics isn't perfect. It will give my daughter the whole Apple
| Music catalog to sing along with and without the side of price-
| gouging.
| whistl034 wrote:
| 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.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| 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.
| quenix wrote:
| It's done the line for two years now. Now it looks like the
| current syllable in the word.
| passwordoops wrote:
| The real question is, which Karaoke app was recently rejected by
| app store reviewers for vague violations prior to this release?
| rsynnott wrote:
| Does it have an option to enable blocky white-on-blue text, and
| some sort of incredibly fiddly and awkward UI, for that authentic
| karaoke experience?
| darknavi wrote:
| Anything less than a bury, cheesy, bouncing ball that follows
| the current lyric is failure.
| ghostpepper wrote:
| The ball is so distracting, much easier to sing by reading
| each lyric completely and then feeling out the beat
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Gotta have the completely unrelated 80s/90s stock video footage
| playing in the background too.
| heydenberk wrote:
| This is The Onion's "we're thinking printers", but for karaoke
| machines. What a world.
| closetkantian wrote:
| This is so pointless that it made me start questioning reality
| and wondering if it was April Fool's Day.
| rsynnott wrote:
| ... I mean, karaoke's pretty popular. This might actually make
| me switch to Apple Music.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| Yeah.. I don't have loyalty to who streams me music so which
| app offers the most extras I will just get that one
| ffgh wrote:
| Either I'm burnt out or jaded and cranky but I thought the
| same.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| > "Apple Music's lyrics experience is consistently one of the
| most popular features on our service,"
|
| I do this ... but because I have _no_ idea what that phrase was,
| not because I 'm singing along.
| amelius wrote:
| Microsoft had this awesome research project called MySong. This
| reminded me of that.
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/mysong-auto...
| causality0 wrote:
| Is there a reason they're not calling it karaoke other than mind-
| boggling pretentiousness?
| deluarseo wrote:
| joegahona wrote:
| 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/misunderstanding what "sing along" means, and the real
| feature enhancement here is that users now have the ability to
| suppress vocals in songs. (Which is kinda cool.)
|
| I get that this is a press release, but "show don't tell" would
| go a long way in announcements like this, even (especially?) if
| it's not available yet.
| l0c0b0x wrote:
| That's funny... within 5 seconds I searched for "Karaoke" and
| it is suspiciously not mentioned in the page.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Yes, it's karaoke, but Apple can't brand that as its own.
|
| https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-made-this
|
| While I have zero interest in karaoke, I imagine it's
| devastating for a bunch of karaoke apps that are now going to
| see new sales evaporate. I don't think it's cool for the
| company to just take over a market, or a smart thing to do when
| their app store monopoly is a political football. I guess
| they're relying on antitrust enforcement being more of an idea
| than a practical reality these days.
| planede wrote:
| Karaoke usually implies no or suppressed vocal channel in the
| audio mix, doesn't it? It's "sing along" as it's still the
| original mix, I suppose.
|
| edit: I missed the "adjustable vocals" in the list of features.
| No idea then. Footnote says "The vocal slider adjusts vocal
| volume, but does not fully remove vocals."
| yannikyeo wrote:
| Its not "yet" Karaoke. Missing one "key" feature, with karaoke
| machine one can adjust the key of the song up or down to be
| able to sing along. Apple Music Sing appears to only adjust the
| vocal volume up or down.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| 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.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _...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.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Everyone I know would call that karaoke. And I assume will
| when telling their friends about this new feature.
|
| If I search for Apple Sing on google news, the first 5
| articles all call it "karaoke-like" or just "a karaoke
| feature".
|
| Whatever reason they have for not saying the word karaoke,
| I don't think it's that it's not what most people consider
| karaoke.
| Destitute wrote:
| When I think karaoke, I think microphone. It appears this
| makes no use of a microphone or captures the singer's
| vocals in any way, it just isolates the instrumental
| tracks and eliminates or reduces the vocal track.
|
| A microphone (and ideally having your own vocals mixed
| with the audio output) is the core feature of karaoke,
| not playing an instrumental version of the song.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| And yet most media coverage I can find of the Apple Music
| Sing release uses the word karaoke to describe it,
| thinking that will be clear to their readers. I would
| feel safe saying your opinion is a minority one.
|
| But this has become a pretty silly "debate".
|
| Me, I'm still curious why Apple did not use the word
| karaoke, and do not myself think it's becuase they don't
| think people will consider it karaoke, but I understand
| you do, cool.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Which will be your phone in version 2, with a little
| software magic to retune discordant voices prior to the
| reverb.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| The whole point is that you can sing with it, which
| implies it can capture your voice in some way, even if
| you aren't holding a microphone.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| Singing with something doesn't imply anything about
| capture. It's just saying that I can sing along to songs
| without the original vocal while I'm washing the dishes
| in the kitchen or whatever.
| bombcar wrote:
| Some "karaoke versions" of songs you can find are literally
| the same recording with the audio unmixed. Carefully
| listening can pick up some of the vocals from the other
| microphones.
| Destitute wrote:
| Doesn't appear to be karaoke because I'm assuming it doesn't
| take your voice and throw it into the mix.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| IANAL but Karaoke has been trademarked in different decades
| in different countries. Most of those trademarks are
| considered "Abandoned" according to the few databases I
| skimmed in a brief search, but that covered only a couple of
| countries.
|
| I think most US courts would see "karaoke" as a generic word
| today, but I don't know about courts outside of the US, and
| Karaoke is still seen as a part of the "trade dress" of a
| couple specific US corporations even if they can't entirely
| protect that trademark, they are still allowed to fight for
| it. At least a couple seem to still exist primarily as trolls
| for lawsuits today.
|
| According to the toy aisle of US stores, "Sing" (and "Sing
| Along") is the only real generic English term in use, and
| very few (no?) current toys use the word "Karaoke", so I'm
| guessing those trolls are still winning in the US, for now.
| (Again, I don't know about the rest of the world, and toy
| branding is an anecdotal source at best, but still an
| interesting proxy view in how much large companies assume
| they will be sued.)
| rodiger wrote:
| Total speculation, but maybe Apple focus grouped it and saw
| karaoke has some corny/cringy implicit associations so they
| wanted some distance
| racl101 wrote:
| 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.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > 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.
|
| They're also pretty good at taking a product that is about
| 75% of the way to being great, and pushing it that last
| bit. Hell, that's arguably _why_ they are so successful.
| They 're not really inventors, they are perfectors.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Interestingly they don't even use the word karaoke 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...
| battles wrote:
| Apple literally owns a show called Carpool Karaoke
| nsonha wrote:
| what do you expect from a company that invented the pencil?
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Disagree. The reason is that they would get laughed out of
| court if they tried to trademark karaoke, whereas now they
| own one of the most common words in the English language.
| If you had or were planning to make an app called 'Sing
| along' or 'Sing with me' or suchlike, get ready for a scary
| legal letter from Apple's trademark lawyers.
| Y-bar wrote:
| Even to an introvert like me, the cheesiness and being
| corny is part of what makes karaoke so good, it has an
| automatic atmosphere where you are allowed to do badly
| because we can all laugh at ourselves.
|
| Polish and perfection makes this less appealing to me.
| Makes it feel up-tight and a bit snobby.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| for me, I can't sing along if it's not close to the
| original because my brain remembers every tick of the
| original and wants to match the key of the original as
| well.
|
| Also, I had a friend who got addicted to Smule which is
| an online sing duets with random strangers. It uses auto-
| tune so that anyone can enjoy themselves. I never tried
| it but he said it was amazing and he got a ton of joy
| from it.
|
| Me, I like the idea that I can show off my amazing
| singing skills so if this auto-tunes everyone then that
| will go away. On the other hand, it's always been
| frustrating that box style karaoke places rarely have a
| large selection of western music (most of them are
| targeting the subset of their local market that would
| actually to got a box style karaoke place). My hope is
| that with this more of them will support just using the
| room as a place to use this service and then my friends
| and I can sing from a larger variety of songs.
| spfzero wrote:
| They're adding it to Apple Music for no extra cost this
| time though.
| puglr wrote:
| I spent a couple years on the YouTube Music team, adjacent to
| the folks who handled the nightmare that is music rights and
| licensing.
|
| It was explained to me that the reason YouTube didn't offer a
| karaoke feature -- despite having licenses to a lot of lyrics
| -- is that karaoke is considered a separate license.
|
| Even if you license both the recording and the lyrics,
| combining them into a karaoke feature isn't on the table by
| default.
|
| I personally have no idea how accurate that is, but this was
| the scoop I got from those in a position of authority.
|
| If it is indeed true, then perhaps that is a factor in
| Apple's decision not to use that word.
| ramses0 wrote:
| It's "simply" an "AI" EQ preset adjuster using the existing
| licensing/sale/broadcast rights. /s
| kapp_in_life wrote:
| Probably because they're trying to push the "Apple Music
| Sing" branding, even though everyone will call it karaoke
| anyways.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Sing Different.
|
| It's what the marketing machine at Apple does.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Yes, it is; not clear why they didn't just say that.
| rodgerd wrote:
| Possibly they don't want to clash with people who sell actual
| karaoke games, either on Apple devices or elsewhere.
| hunter2_ wrote:
| 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 sorts) compared to just having a
| karaoke band re-perform the song (although the talent and
| production quality can be dubious with the latter). Presumably
| the innovation here is not having vocal suppression sound so
| bad.
|
| Aside: and then there are popular artists who release an
| instrumental version, or stems from which an instrumental
| version can be trivially created, but this is so extremely rare
| as to not even be on-topic for a conversation about broad
| availability.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| Sound separation is incredible lately, even the free options.
| I'm sure Apples tested their model against songs likely to be
| sung. I'm sure it sounds great.
|
| The real surprise is that the artists are ok with this, they
| must be getting compensated.
| kevincox wrote:
| 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.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Often it is the original soundtrack with the vocals
| suppressed (sometimes well via remastering and sometimes
| poorly with an equalizer)._
|
| Properly licensed karaoke tracks are covers, because
| licensing custom remixes of original tracks is prohibitive.
| There are sites where you can buy stems/backing tracks of
| any song you can think of, which are reproductions by
| talented musicians.
|
| https://www.karaoke-
| version.com/custombackingtrack/wham/last...
| TillE wrote:
| There are tons of cases where you'll hear covers instead
| of a licensed original, because paying Harry Fox (ie,
| just the songwriter) is cheaper.
| jessriedel wrote:
| The fact that most karaoke audio tracks are performed as
| covers for financial reasons does not change how the word
| karaoke is used in actual language.
| simondw wrote:
| That feels like an accidental, not essential, property of
| karaoke. I doubt anyone who enjoys karaoke would reject a
| track recorded by the original artist because it _wasn
| 't_ a cover by someone they'd never heard of.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _That feels like an accidental, not essential, property
| of karaoke._
|
| Regardless of whether you believe it's an "essential
| property", that karaoke music often sounds cheesy is one
| of several reasons Apple wouldn't want Apple Music Sing
| to be associated with it.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > 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)
| jessriedel wrote:
| > 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 have been electronically
| eliminated.
|
| https://www.dictionary.com/browse/karaoke?r=75&src=ref&ch=di.
| ..
|
| It's true that in practice most karaoke audio tracks are
| covers for financial reasons, but that doesn't change what
| the word means. Most tables have four legs, but six-legged
| tables are still tables.
| gfxgirl wrote:
| 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
| misterprime wrote:
| The at-home karaoke experience is pretty horrible. Companies
| put a high price tag on access to limited catalogs with hit and
| miss quality. Oftentimes, the musical bed is low quality midi
| music and the lyrics may or may not be timed properly.
|
| I'm thrilled to see this announcement and will likely buy my
| first Apple TV because of it and switch my Pandora subscription
| to Apple Music.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| > 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.
| flyrain wrote:
| I did that before. Just frustrated by missing Karaoke
| versions of many songs
| jadbox wrote:
| any specific recommendations for a setup?
| silisili wrote:
| This is exactly what I did for the wife and kid. Works
| beautifully, unlimited catalog.
| beaker52 wrote:
| 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.
| mikestew wrote:
| As an exercise for the reader: see if you can count the
| barriers-to-entry for the average person in this
| suggestion, and then contrast and compare to Apple's
| offering.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Speaking as someone who doesn't have an Apple Music
| subscription, I think I'll take my chances with YouTube.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Counting ad-blocking as a barrier to entry on HN is
| probably unfair.
| mikestew wrote:
| Absolutely, which is why I specified "average person". I
| think most anyone on HN could figure it out. But that's
| not what Apple is shooting for, I don't think.
|
| At the end of the day, I just didn't want come right out
| and say "rsync, ftp, something something Dropbox". :-)
| YokoZar wrote:
| Most "karaoke versions" of songs are by cover bands.
| sixothree wrote:
| 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.
| racl101 wrote:
| 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.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I find myself usually telling the kids in the car to pipe
| down and let the artist sing._
|
| It seems that your kids are the intended target.
|
| Kids love to sing along with music. You've already
| discovered that.
|
| You must not have 10 to 12-year-old girls. Put a couple of
| them in a room, and eventually they'll start singing.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Yeah, the huge number of "sing-along versions" of movies
| on Disney+ make it pretty clear what at least _one_ major
| target market for this is. See also: the overwhelming
| majority of home-karaoke devices that are purchased. Most
| of the market 's shitty overpriced devices that barely
| work, aimed at kids. This replaces those with something
| way the hell better, on a device that also does a bunch
| of other stuff.
| spfzero wrote:
| Karaoke is the best activity I do with my parents in-law when
| I visit. They love it. It's kind of fun, actually. The
| equipment they have is old and they have special CDs with the
| songs and lyrics, really low quality. Apple Sing through
| AppleTV, with voice search, would be a huge improvement.
| billforsternz wrote:
| You could care a little bit less but not a lot less?
| Inevitably (doing the math) that means you must really care a
| lot right?
| hamburglar wrote:
| 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.
| yunohn wrote:
| What's the reasoning behind leaving out the word "karaoke"?
| wingerlang wrote:
| When I hear karaoke I think 90s looking machine with a
| tethered microphone, or equally old music videos with ugly
| subtitles. True or not, it is possible they just want to
| have full control of the image of their service.
|
| Another thing is that when you sing a foreign song, the
| karaoke also means to read the foreign subtitles in your
| own language. It's an extra meaning they might want to
| avoid, I assume this is not a feature they have.
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| WXLCKNO wrote:
| 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."
| cal85 wrote:
| Why are you posting things you made up?
| l0c0b0x wrote:
| Welcome to the internet, my friend :)
| dagmx wrote:
| Wikipedia says the patent for karaoke machine is held by
| a man in the Philippines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro
| berto_del_Rosario?wprov=sfti...
|
| It also says that Karaoke in Japan is predated by sing-a-
| long programs in the US.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karaoke?wprov=sfti1
|
| Besides that I assume any patent from the 70s is now
| expired.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Potentially trademark issues?
| dagmx wrote:
| Perhaps it implies use in a commercial karaoke bar setting
| which often are dubious for licensing music.
|
| It also might imply perfect vocal removal, which they
| aren't guaranteeing.
| factsarelolz wrote:
| Probably because Apple doesn't want it advertising to look
| like:
|
| "Hey we just added a cultural pastime as a feature!"
|
| There are some that could twist this feature into "Apple
| profiting off of cultural appropriation".
| rhplus wrote:
| At a guess:
|
| 1) Perhaps they don't want to trigger a different licensing
| model (on either the music or the lyrics) that applies
| specifically to karaoke devices and venues. Just a guess,
| not a music lawyer, but all sorts of unexpected terms apply
| to music licensing (such as streaming TV services not being
| able to use music from the original TV broadcast) 2)
| Perhaps they don't want to associate with the karaoke
| "brand" which some users might perceive as kitschy or low-
| quality (have you ever seen a karaoke video?)
| hamburglar wrote:
| I suspect the second is exactly right. Apple is extremely
| careful about how their products are perceived as elite
| and cool and it's easy to imagine their marketing
| department thinking the word "karaoke" just evokes an
| uncool or unsophisticated vibe.
| yunwal wrote:
| You might be right, but I gotta say that deliberately
| avoiding the word karaoke feels incredibly insecure and
| uncool to me if that is the reason.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| 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.
| layer8 wrote:
| Normally it's important for karaoke that the singer's voice
| is amplified to (above) the volume level of the song, and
| from the description they don't seem to provide that.
| joegahona wrote:
| I don't know, @hamburglar -- judging by just the comments in
| this thread, it wasn't so obvious to others.
|
| And "real-time lyrics" is _already_ in Apple Music.
|
| In your/Apple's defense, the photo they included is pretty
| clear what's going on. Important to note the footnote on the
| page -- this isn't even full-fledged karaoke: "The vocal
| slider adjusts vocal volume, but does not fully remove
| vocals."
|
| I'm being nitpicky for sure, but that's kind of what HN and
| similar forums are for. Especially when it's Apple, which I
| hold to a pretty high standard for product marketing.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| And "real-time lyrics" is _already_ in Apple Music.
|
| Currently, Apple Music lyrics are synced to the current
| _line_ of lyrics (if the lyrics metadata supports it)
|
| This new feature appears to sync the lyrics to the current
| _word_ of lyrics, which is what karaoke usually does. Not
| sure how big a deal that is to folks looking to do their
| own vocals.
|
| I'm curious about how they're doing that word-for-word
| timing. Hardcoded metadata? ML? Is it a simple
| interpolation based on the existing line-by-line timing?
| thakoppno wrote:
| License agreements often forbid things similar to "adjustable
| vocals." It would be interesting to learn if this is achieved
| with technology, like automatic stemming, or through
| partnership agreements that provide vocal tracks separately
| for adjustment.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Wouldn't a programmed solution fall afoul of that licensing
| ?
| manmal wrote:
| This is not only about vocals suppression, but also about
| visualizing timing (displaying when each syllable should be
| sung). Many songs have weirdly timed bridges where it's not
| clear when singing will resume. And some people are just not
| good at timing - having a visual timing clue will help there.
| danjc wrote:
| Maybe the word "karaoke" sounds too old school for the target
| demographic.
| smeej wrote:
| 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."
| dehrmann wrote:
| My guess is it's not licensed for public performance, so they
| don't want to give anyone any ideas.
| imwillofficial wrote:
| It's not that Apple services lack polish, they are usually great.
| It's that they feel incongruent.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Apple services sometimes seem incongruent because they are.
| Other times they're experiments (which can and do fail), or
| windows into far larger projects. For example, QuickTime for
| Windows 3.0 was a product of porting significant chunks of pre-
| NeXT MacOS to x861, which was eventually leveraged for Carbon2.
|
| 1
| http://preserve.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.17/17.01/20...
| 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_(API)
| simonw wrote:
| I was just thinking the other day that what I really want is
| pretty much Duolingo for singing lessons.
|
| I'd love to get better at singing, but not quite enough to
| actually find, schedule and pay for singing lessons from a human
| teacher.
|
| But I'd happily do 15 minutes a day with a Duolingo-style app,
| especially if it could guide me through exercises to help me sing
| better.
| rsynnott wrote:
| An obvious name for such a product suggests itself.
| ssharp wrote:
| There are a lot of apps that having singing lessons. Yousician
| may be the most popular.
|
| I'd equate being able to speak a foreign language to singing in
| key. That's what the apps will be able to help with, at least
| from what I've seen. If that's what you're looking for, that's
| a good place to start. However, there is a lot of technique to
| make your voice sound pleasant and interesting beyond just
| singing on key. I'm not sure if that apps really help out there
| that much like an actual vocal coach could.
| simonw wrote:
| Right, I'm not expecting anything that comes close to a vocal
| coach - but I'm not dedicated enough to seek one out. I want
| to spend 15 minutes a day and get incrementally better with
| some pretty generic tips.
| danjc wrote:
| Discovered moises.ai recently which uses ML to separate songs
| into separate tracks for vocal, bass, drums, guitar.
|
| I was skeptical but it works surprisingly well.
| manv1 wrote:
| This is going to be another new way for people to generate
| content for TikTok. Great idea, actually.
|
| How does the mic situation work? Will you need a USB mic? Can you
| use a BT headset?
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| I would assume it uses the phone's built-in mic but you can
| switch to a BT mic at the OS level (as with any app)
| widowlark wrote:
| In my opinion, Apple should be more focused on improving their
| streaming sound quality and wireless spec. support. This does
| nothing for me.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| This sounds cool. I was in glee club in Junior High, that would
| be almost 50 years ago, and haven't really sang since. On the
| rare occasions when I have our house to myself, I sometimes
| partake in Apple Fitness+ dance exercises - I really don't want
| anyone seeing that. Now I have the option to sing, in a non-
| embarrassing setting!
|
| This Music Sing service might also be really good at parties.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Sounds a lot like vocalremover.org
| felideon wrote:
| This will be a huge hit to Karafun's subscriber base. I've paid
| for a couple of months before. Having this as part of my Apple
| Music or One subscription would give me no reason to ever
| subscribe to it again, assuming feature and library parity.
| gw67 wrote:
| Is this powered by MusicXmatch or is a competitor?
| CrypticShift wrote:
| I'm kind of disappointed at the priorities of these streaming
| services. I guess I'm not in the mainstream, music-consumption-
| wise.
|
| After all, it makes sense. If you want to engage subscribers to
| your service, what else would you do? How most people engage with
| recorded music? Well, they just... sing along...
|
| I'm also curious (like some on this thread) how they are
| technically separating the vocals. Is this yet another
| proprietary music format that artists have to mix/master to?
| (Like spatial audio)
| kevincox wrote:
| I'm honestly more surprised the other way. I can't believe it
| took this long for them to offer even a basic karaoke
| experience. I thought this would be an obvious feature.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| This is awesome. I am sure my child will love it. I would have
| when I was a kid.
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