Smule, Inc.

Ari Lazier

Perry Raymond Cook

Tom Lieber

Turner Evan Kirk

Jeffrey Christopher Smith

Robert Hamilton

Amanda Chaudhary

Despite many practical limitations imposed by mobile device platforms and application execution environments, vocal musical performances may be captured and continuously pitch-corrected for mixing and rendering with backing tracks in ways that create compelling user experiences. Based on the techniques described herein, even mere amateurs are encouraged to share with friends and family or to collaborate and contribute vocal performances as part of virtual 'glee clubs.' In some implementations, these interactions are facilitated through social network- and/or eMail-mediated sharing of performances and invitations to join in a group performance. Using uploaded vocals captured at clients such as a mobile device, a content server (or service) can mediate such virtual glee clubs by manipulating and mixing the uploaded vocal performances of multiple contributing vocalists.

Coordinating and mixing vocals captured from geographically distributed performers

In some examples, a system includes a first portable computing device that audibly renders a backing track, captures and pitch corrects a vocal performance of a first user, and transmits the first user's pitch corrected vocal performance. The system may also include a second portable computing device including a data communications interface that receives the first user's pitch corrected vocal performance, an audio transducer that audibly renders a mix of the backing track and the first user's pitch corrected vocal performance, a display for concurrent presentation of lyrics temporally synchronized with a vocal score and the backing track, a microphone interface that captures a vocal performance of a second user, and pitch correction code executable on the second portable computing device to pitch correct the second user's vocal performance in accord with the vocal score to produce a composite multi-vocal performance.

Pitch correction of multiple vocal performances

Despite many practical limitations imposed by mobile device platforms and application execution environments, vocal musical performances may be captured and continuously pitch-corrected for mixing and rendering with backing tracks in ways that create compelling user experiences. In some cases, the vocal performances of individual users are captured on mobile devices in the context of a karaoke-style presentation of lyrics in correspondence with audible renderings of a backing track. Such performances can be pitch-corrected in real-time at a portable computing device (such as a mobile phone, personal digital assistant, laptop computer, notebook computer, pad-type computer or netbook) in accord with pitch correction settings. In some cases, pitch correction settings include a score-coded melody and/or harmonies supplied with, or for association with, the lyrics and backing tracks. Harmonies notes or chords may be coded as explicit targets or relative to the score coded melody or even actual pitches sounded by a vocalist, if desired.

Pitch-correction of vocal performance in accord with score-coded harmonies

Notwithstanding practical limitations imposed by mobile device platforms and applications, truly captivating musical instruments may be synthesized in ways that allow musically expressive performances to be captured and rendered in real-time. In some cases, synthetic musical instruments can provide a game, grading or instructional mode in which one or more qualities of a user's performance are assessed relative to a musical score. By constantly adapting to such modes to actual performance characteristics and, in some cases, to the level of a given user musician's skill, user interactions with synthetic musical instruments can be made more engaging and may capture user interest and economic opportunities (e.g., for in-app purchase and/or social networking) over generally longer periods of time.

Synthetic musical instrument with performance- and/or skill-adaptive score tempo

Synthetic musical instrument with performance-and/or skill-adaptive score tempo

Using signal processing techniques described herein, pitch detection and correction of a user's vocal performance can be performed continuously and in real-time with respect to the audible rendering of the backing track at the handheld or portable computing device. In some implementations, pitch detection builds on time-domain pitch correction techniques that employ average magnitude difference function (AMDF) or autocorrelation-based techniques together with zero-crossing and/or peak picking techniques to identify differences between pitch of a captured vocal signal and score-coded target pitches. Based on detected differences, pitch correction based on pitch synchronous overlapped add (PSOLA) and/or linear predictive coding (LPC) techniques allow captured vocals to be pitch shifted in real-time to 'correct' notes in accord with pitch correction settings that code score-coded melody targets and harmonies.

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San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Ari Lazier