Up until now, singers needed to either play an instrument or the help of a professional accompanist to help them realize their musical ideas. With this new technology coming out of Microsoft Research, vocalists need only sing their ideas into a microphone to automatically generate musical accompaniment.

MySong “listens” to any sampled vocal melody, then automatically selects the best chords to go along with the song. Non-musicians can create professional-sounding music by just singing into a microphone connected to a computer with the special software installed. The system is demonstrated in the video below (I know the video is super cheesy, but the technology is still cool). 

Microsoft researchers Ian Simon, Dan Morris and Sumit Basu created the MySong prototype using a Hidden Markov Model and a musical database to figure out what chords will sound best with the vocals. Once the chords are generated, singers can make adjustments to the musical style using a couple of simple sliders in the user interface.

At this point, there aren’t any specific commercial plans for the technology, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it turn up in either musical composition software or even in video games.

[MySong via istartedsomething]

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Here’s a fun way to get satisfy your inner DJ. This little application for the iPhone and iPod Touch uses the multi-touch screen to let you “scratch” audio tracks just like a real turntable.

MixMeister Scratch lets you choose from a bunch of digitized scratch sound effects, then lets you perform some turntable wizardry on any tune you’ve got loaded into your iPhone or iPod Touch. 

Just pick your track, load MixMeister Scratch, and you can start scratching ’til the cows come home. The touch interface also lets you adjust the volume of your tunes as you use your fingertip to “spin” the virtual turntable. I’d love to see this running on a pair of iPhones side by side.

The application isn’t quite ready for download yet (I’m assuming it’ll run on the Apple iPhone SDK, but I’m not certain). But you can sign up to be notified of its availability here.

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You and your significant other might have different tastes in music, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be close with your shmoopy. With this matching pair of MP3 players, you can listen to different tracks, but still be joined at the hip.

The interlocking Lovers MP3 players come together to form a single red heart, but can be played separately when you’re apart. And if you end up breaking things off with your partner, you still get to keep your tunes — a much better solution than cutting the iPod in half.

Just in time for Valentines’ Day to be over, you can grab the pair of 1GB media players from DealExtreme for about $39.

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I’m as addicted to Rock Band as the next gaming geek, but I still wish the strum bar on the game’s Fender Stratocaster felt more like a real guitar string. Now you get your hands on a mod kit which will let you swap out the plastic strum bar with an actual metal guitar string.

Originally a one-of-a-kind guitar mod designed by a guy going by the name A4AJ, it’s now available as a (patent-pending) kit you can install on your own guitar.

The kit includes everything you need to swap out the plastic bar with a playable string, special strum switch, along with several metal strings, springs and even a Fender guitar pick. Yep, with this mod in place and the tension cranked up, you can play the guitar with a pick!

Keep in mind that the kit does not include the guitar or the wood backboard, and requires that you perform some fairly significant surgery (Dremel, drilling and soldering) on your stock Stratocaster — obviously voiding your warranty.

The kit works with the PS2, PS3 or Xbox 360 versions of the guitar and is currently up for auction on eBay with a starting bid of $75. At this point A4AJ hasn’t geared up production on the kit, so you’ll have to have the top bid if you want this one.

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