Microsoft Songsmith thingy transformed
p2pnet news view | Cool:- There is, after all, a use for the Microsoft Songsmith.
Johannes Kreidler over in Berlin, Germany, has found it.
Teaching music theory and electronic music at the University of Music and Theater Rostock, Germany, Kreidler was intrigued by the possibilities offered by Microsoft’s otherwise totally useless karaoke thingy.
He used it to put Stock market charts to music.
Check it out.
Lead can indeed be turned into gold.
Brilliant. 
.
(Cheers, James T)
Microsoft Songsmith – Microsoft Songsmith. Unphuknbelievable, January 29, 2009
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February 3rd, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I just about broke out laughing, this was brilliant. Thanks, Jon
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Actually, I never found Microsoft Songsmith’s thing to be “totally useless”.
From a compositional point of view, it’s pretty much like the Auto-Rhythm feature keyboards have had for about twenty years (even down to the General Midi sound quality!)
It’s not specifically even a “karaoke thingy” either. Karaoke machines don’t track incoming vocals and attempt to build (admittedly stereotypical) harmony lines around them.
Gotta take the opposite side here (again) just like with the “she-happens-to-be-a-scientologist-so-we-boycott-her-show” idiocy). If “songsmith” would have been produced by any other company but Microsoft, it would either not been deemed newsworthy, or you’d have thought his was pretty cool from the beginning.
Actually, as much of an open-source/”Free” software advocate as I am, I gotta hand it to Microsoft: their stuff at least tends to be user-friendly to some degree, rather than the overtly “user-hostile” RTFM nonsense in the Linux scene. The GUI interface was invented what, 30 years ago or more, and yet they’re only NOW getting the GUIs to be good in various Linux distros, in favor of intentionally-cryptic, overly terse Command-line usage. Sorry, but the primary reason Linux hasn’t penetrated more on desktop usage etc. is because they ignored the “end-user” experience. Microsoft didn’t, which is one of the few things they’ve actually done right.
Okay, time to wander off again, and wait for the flaming to begin.
Ciao, Y’all!
February 3rd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Hey Henry:
“If ’songsmith’ would have been produced by any other company but Microsoft …”
… it wouldn’t have gotten past first base.
Cheers!