Microsoft’s latest attempt to introduce music software is turning into a big joke. Microsoft SongSmith is software that allows users to sing a song into their computer, and software will create the instrumentals for you. Talk about sucking any semblance of creativity out of composing a song!
Anyways, Telegraph has a whole article today talking about how SongSmith is becoming a source of “comedy gold.”
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.
Surreal is right. For some odd reason, almost every SongSmith track I’ve heard ends up sounding like elevator music. For example, check out this rendition of “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky. Horrendous and hilarious all at the same time!
January 30th, 2009 at 8:03 am
Perfect example of Mac “If we didn’t invent it, it’s crap” attitude.
January 31st, 2009 at 4:32 am
Perfect example of PC “Innovative technology beats actual functionality” attitude.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Well I was a Microsoft user for many years, and a Mac Addict for the last few monts… In my golden years I played the guitar in a band… so from time to time I like to just play a bit with music… Garageband is awesome! But remember it is using hardcore synthesizers and sampled loops to output your instruments…. for some reason, all the Songsmith songs I’ve heard are using the crappiest General Midi soundcard instruments…. I’d like to see how a song generated in Songsmith sounds after “rendering” the midi and applying all the vocal enhancers included in Garageband…. Unfortunately I got rid of my Bootcamp partition and have no way to try Songsmith… but that’s an interesting test…. Those apps might not be competing…. but they could be different tools for different achievements…. just my 2 cents…. but one thing is for sure: Songsmith’s add is the worst thing I’ve seen in years!