Music enthusiasts and semi-professional guitar players are in constant need of finding the most accurate chords to songs they like. An easy task for most recent songs we hear on the radio but complicated and almost unrealistic when you seek songs that aren't so familiar to most people.
Try to ‘google’ chords for that one song you absolutely adore and no one knows - you immediately stumble on the fact that there isn’t even a single site offering such service.
Israeli startup utab has solved this problem by incorporating a new algorithm, so smart that it capable of analyzing and establishing a chorded timeline to every song in the world in just under 15 seconds. Regardless of the record quality, release year and music genre.
Utab VP R&D Yotam Laufer demonstrates and reveals how it works. “Pick any song that you like from practically any platform and add it to utab’s database by simply searching in the search box Once added to our database, the server analyzes the song and extracts the chords and tempo from it. The website will then prompt you to the editor and will show you the chords and beats.”
Sounds easy enough, but what about the true capabilities of this algorithm - is it always accurate? Laufer said, “In today's world the fact that you, as an individual, hear 10 different music genres a day, makes our work a bit harder since we need to come up with a ‘one stop shop’ solution for each song we may encounter. I can surely say that analyzing and providing chords for Pop songs is 99% accurate and perfectly synced with the song itself. That said, from couple hundreds metal songs we’ve already analyzed, the algorithm manage to provide a good and reliable results, time after time.”
What’s so unique about this specific algorithm?
“There are plenty of algorithms out there claiming to be the best in what they initially intended to do but from the user perspective, this one is the “jackpot” because of the simple fact it intended to do exactly what users wants - finding the most accurate chords in no time.”
“Music reverse engineering is a hard thing to accomplish.”
The company that created the original code for utab’s algo’ (zplane.development audio technology) utilizes intelligent signal processing solutions, dealing with extraction of high level musical information from the music signal like tempo, rhythm, melody and key.
These features are already incorporated within the chord analyser and in the near future we’ll see much more advanced twik-abilities such as switching from sharp to flat key, showing more advanced chords and tablature containing four or more noted chords and the option to re-analyze certain parts of the song, allowing users to get the best suitable option.
Could this technology, eventually, replace real life musicians?
“As it seems now, not really, no. We need to remember that music wise - there isn’t a substitute to a simple human ear. Our goal is maintaining ultra-low level of errors when it comes to providing the right chords and constantly upgrading our algorithm together with “zplan."
The author is utab Media marketing manager
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on May 10, 2016
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