Yamaha Corporation, creator of audio equipment, instruments, and synthesizers including the immensely popular voice synthesizer series known as Vocaloid, announced yesterday that it is developing an automated song generator called VOCALODUCER, which will automatically compose a song, given lyrics and a few basic parameters. It sounds like pretty soon anyone can be a Vocaloid song producer in no time!

Creating a Vocaloid song requires a voice, a melody, and accompaniment. People composing songs with VOCALODUCER will have the library of Vocaloid characters at their disposal when choosing a synthesized singer. This includes male and female voices, both ranging from forceful to sweet and childish in tone quality.

The melody line is created by a computer program based on user input in three categories: rhythm, pitch variation, and chord progression. There are approximately 18,000 different melodies that the program can produce based on different combinations of these items.

Then, all that’s left are the lyrics and the accompaniment, which can be chosen from a database of about 30 styles, including pop, rock, and dance music. The sound engine that supplies the accompaniment is the same one that’s used in Yamaha’s electronic keyboards. Then, users simply enter their lyrics (up to 50 Japanese characters in length, including numbers and kanji) to receive a song that is between two and eight bars in length. Before submitting their specs, users can choose to specify how the song is sung and then add effects, such as reverb, upon its completion.

Understandably, the algorithm that creates these songs will not be available for installation on individual computers. Instead, the software will be offered as a service, meaning that the program which produces the music will be stored on Yamaha’s own servers. VOCALODUCER users will be required to submit their song specifications over an Internet connection and download the results.

A release date for VOCALODUCER has not yet been announced, but there are already plans to expand the library of accompaniment styles and vocal templates, as well as to develop software which will support English and Chinese lyrics. Anyone living in the Tokyo area who wants to preview the upcoming digital composer should try going to Makuhari Messe in Chiba over the next three days (October 23-25) for the Autumn Web & Mobile Marketing Expo, where a sample of the program will be on exhibit.

Something tells me we’ll be seeing a lot more Vocaliod music on the free market in the near future, but I wonder how it will compare to the quality of practiced song producers’ previous works. Will this automatic composer be able to make maestros out of all of us, or will the Vocaloid music market become bogged down with musical muck?

Source: PC Watch via Jin115 (Japanese)

Additional resource: Yamaha News Release (Japanese)

Image: Crypton