Torley & Microsoft Songsmith BUTCHER The Final Countdown

2009-01-31

I sheepishly declare I've teamed up with that bastion baby of bad auto-music, Microsoft Research's Songsmith, to bring you the above atrocity. It couldn't have been done any other way. Back in the day, I found Band-in-a-Box fairly impressive, but people, this is no Band-in-a-Box. It's not even Bland-in-a-Box. More like HEINOUS CRAP THAT SEEPS THROUGH THE BOX AND MAKES A MESS ON YOUR FLOOR!

Enough TMI.

I'd say "enjoy", but that would be a LIE.

{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }

Summer Seale 2009-01-31 at 10:11 AM UTC

Torley,

You totally owe me a new keyboard. I literally spewed coffee over it when I heard you starting to "sing" this morning… =)

Sahoni 2009-01-31 at 12:13 PM UTC

You are so brave Torley for trying Songsmith… just looking at the UI alone makes me VERY afraid!

thattagen 2009-01-31 at 3:22 PM UTC

Oh man, it's so terrible it's hilarious!

Dizzy Banjo 2009-01-31 at 4:50 PM UTC

LMAO

thats the only thing i can say !!

L M A O !

Dedric Mauriac 2009-02-02 at 1:53 PM UTC

Why does this remind me of Wii Music? Perhaps the one Wii Game that I actually went back to the store on my niece and nephews behalf to get their money back. However, I think i'm going to play around and see how bad of a song I can come up with.

charlene siemens 2009-02-03 at 1:26 AM UTC

If you enjoyed Torley's "song" ;) here's the classic Songsmith meets David Lee Roth:

http://music.metafilter.com/2943/Runnin-With-The-Songsmith

Torley 2009-02-08 at 2:03 PM UTC

Hahaha thanx for listening to such a butchered piece of crap!

@Summer: "sing" with the quote marks is right!

@Sahoni: Thing that shocked me most was how the preset styles didn't have more modern polish. It's not hard, Apple Garageband has many loops that are sound inspirational (and are used in chart-topping hits).

@Dedric: My only exposure to Wii Music was in a store, where I soon found it boring to keep waving the remote. I craved a real keyboard. I guess it teaches some semblance of rhythm, but richer melodicism seems to be a stretch. (The EGM review came down on it too.)

@charlene: I didn't know you could embed music into a metafilter story, either. HA HA!

Melissa Yeuxdoux 2009-02-22 at 1:39 AM UTC

How funny… and your falsetto wasn't that bad!

Of course, one of the things that makes Songsmith so hilariously cheesy is that it can't tell whether you want a minor key or the related major, and it seems to doggedly go for the major (here A rather than F# minor). I think Songsmith is going to go down in history alongside Microsoft Bob–and how I wish that it would run under WINE so I could join the fun!

Torley 2009-02-27 at 2:32 PM UTC

@Melissa: Oh, it gets worse form there. Trust me. Hahaha, yeah, it has all the reekings of a Bob-like product — someone should do a Microsoft product graveyard. Do you remember their comic chat thing too? It had some kewlness, but dang, I just have this irrational loathing of Comic Sans!

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