Soundbite

• DJs want a more rhythm-centric version, perhaps w/ BPM
• create a playlist that goes from song A to song B over the course of a playlist (several requests for this)
• Soundbite does not work on Vista (2 reports of it not working, 1 report of it working)
• More control options for creating playlists - this was interesting and it occurred to me, anyone keen enough to download and install the software would probably also be keen to do some parameter tweaking...
• Make Soundbite for other platforms - Winamp, MS Media Player, Songbird, etc.
• Someone in every single group asked, "How do SB playlists compare to Last.fm/Pandora playlists?" and there seemed to be some expectation that there would a formal comparison of sorts (which I tried to explain is really difficult/impossible)

-- KurtJx - 07 Jun 2008

Sonic Visualiser (also MATCH/Vect, and "SoundBite segmentation plugin")

• We had a fair bit of muffled appreciation, not so many concrete suggestions or comments -- perhaps we showed too many different things at once or did so too confusingly
• Some thought the alignment method would be useful in a studio tool (for comparing and cut/pasting among takes). I know that others have shown interest in this in the past as well
• Some interest in live beat-tracking for DJs etc, and although we were only showing an "offline" method, we had a bit of discussion about the possibilities & limitations & mentioned some of the other work being done at ?
• I was asked whether I thought these visualisation techniques might be helpful in working with amusic people, by someone starting on a project about amusia at Goldsmith's -- unfortunately I failed to get her name -- I think she may be intending to talk to Ben because he's "local"

-- ChrisCannam - 09 Jun 2008

Semantic web (GNAT/GNARQL, and ? with the DBtune wrappers)

• We had really good feedback and interaction overall, apart from the first group that we kind of "lost" I guess.
• One person in each group expressed concerns about "wrong" information that you may get. I answered by stating that it is the same when you want to read news - you go to a particular web-site. In a semantic web context, it is the same: you always get your information from somewhere.
• We had twice the question "But, is it specific to music?"
• Questions about fingerprinting, and GNAT in general - how can you relate an audio file to the corresponding web identifier?
• One "But, doesn't Amazon do all that already?" - I answered that, even if Amazon has a lot of useful editorial information, it could benefit to link to other information sources.
• One question about scale, how many "facts" are on the web already?
• Two people wondered whether we had to enter tag manually, for the browsing-by-tag-in-GNARQL demo. Good opportunity to introduce that, no, they come from many different places.

-- YvesRaimond - 09 Jun 2008

mHashup

• A great deal of enthusiasm; questions on when a web application will be available.
• Many technical questions about the AudioDB setup. Examples include which type of musical features are being extracted with fftExtract and whether the system was capable of matching beat.
• Questions about the comparison to Shazam, Pandora and Last.fm.
• Many interested musicians wishing to test the interface by inputting their own compositions.
• Questions about when pop/rock and other music genres will be available for testing.

-- MichelaMagas - 28 Oct 2008