Microsoft Songsmith is a tool developed by Microsoft Research that automatically generates musical accompaniment to go along with your singing.
As magical as this sounds, the actual end result is your own personal cheese music orchestra. It's not surprising though, given the production treatment that Microsoft gave their commercial for the product.
In its made-for-TV musical, a daughter shows her father how Microsoft Songsmith can change their lives into a High School Musical alternate reality. It's difficult to tell if this was made tongue-in-cheek or genuinely bad, given that it's Microsoft. The actors are even using Songsmith on a Mac, even though the software is only for Windows.
(Ab)using Microsoft Songsmith
What's more interesting than using this software, is misusing this software. As soon as Microsoft released this product onto the internet, videos sprouted up on YouTube that utilize the software for purely comedic outcomes. One popular method, is to reinterpret popular songs using this software. The results are disastrous.
Someone even used the software to add accompaniment to a speech by Barack Obama.
Even if the software produces extremely cheezy music, it still is a pretty awesome piece of technology. You can download a demo from Microsoft. You'll need a Windows-based PC, however, so if you're on a Mac you'll have to stick to GarageBand's AutoTune plugin.
