Music – Instruments – Electrical musical tone generation
Reexamination Certificate
2001-03-14
2002-02-05
Donels, Jeffrey (Department: 2837)
Music
Instruments
Electrical musical tone generation
C084S635000, C084S484000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06344607
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to a method and an apparatus for producing a compilation of overlapping songs, each song in the compilation having a sequence of repeating beats. The compilation may, for instance, be suitable for recording onto a data carrier such as a compact disc, or for broadcast by a radio station.
It will be understood that by song we mean any musical song or tune, with or without a vocal element, and with or without elements of melody and harmony, where the rhythmic element of the music is characterised by repetitive beats. The invention is especially but not exclusively suitable for compilations of dance music, which is generally characterised by a continuous repetitive sequence of beats. The beat is important for dance music and usually dominates the overall subjective impression provided by the song.
It is well known to manually produce a compilation by “mixing” together a set of individual songs, usually dance music songs, to form a single continuous track in which one song is merged seamlessly into the adjacent song or songs. The resulting compilation comprises an apparently continuous stream of music.
At present, the production of such “compilations” (sometimes referred to as “mixes”) have required many hours work by skilled Disk Jockeys (DJ's). The job of a DJ involves great skill in deciding on the order of the songs, (the “sequence”) and also skill in seamlessly mixing one track into the other. The amount of time and skill needed puts the production of compilation mixes beyond the abilities of most listeners.
We are aware of European patent application No. EP 0932157A1. This document describes an apparatus and method for automatically performing a cross-over between two songs which are played back consecutively. As soon as the start of a pre-determined end part of the first song is detected, this end part is played simultaneously with a pre-determined beginning part of the second song. After play-back of the end part concludes, the play-back continues for the second song only. During simultaneous play-back a fade-out and/or a fade-in may be performed for the end part and/or the begin part respectively.
The apparatus known from EP 0932157 has problems in that it requires, as a pre-requisite, that two songs are provided which include markers for the end part and begin part. Most, if not all songs, can not be purchased with suitable markers allocated to them for use by such an apparatus. It is not taught how such markers are established, and presumably a skilled operator is needed in order to set the markers prior to play back and choose the sequence of the songs.
An object of the present invention is to produce a method and apparatus for the production of a compilation mix of songs which does not require the presence of pre-established markers and provides for greater flexibility.
According to the present invention, a method of automatically producing a compilation mix from a set of songs is provided, the method comprising the steps of:
(a) generating a beat profile comprising a temporal map representing an ideal rate of repeat of the dominant beat for the compilation mix at different points in time over the duration of the compilation;
(b) generating at least one set of song data indicative of the rate of repeat of the dominant beat for each of the songs in the set of songs,
(c) allocating the songs temporally within the compilation mix by processing the song data together with the temporal map, the songs being located temporally with respect to one another such that the rate of repeat of the dominant beat of the compilation approximates that of the temporal map and end portions of adjacent songs overlap.
The invention thus provides a method of automatically determining the sequence of the songs according to their rate of repeat of the dominant beat (the tempo—usually measured as beats per minute) and an ideal temporal map for the resulting compilation. This enables the production of effective compilations with a predetermined overall feel to be achieved from any set of songs.
The invention may include a preliminary step of selecting the set of songs to form the compilation mix from one or more master sets of songs.
The method step (a) may comprise the sub-steps of selecting a beat profile from a set of different predetermined beat profiles. The predetermined beat profiles may be stored within an area of memory.
The beat profile may comprise a quantitative map of the ideal beat repetition rate throughout the duration of the compilation to be constructed. It may comprise a set of beat rate values and corresponding time values for a compilation.
Alternatively, the temporal beat profile may be a qualitative map in which relative values of the beat repetition rate at various time locations in the compilation are provided. For instance, the map may consist of the location in time in the compilation of where the maximum and minimum rates should be, and the change in rate between these points.
The time information in the map may also be either quantitative, i.e. from zero to 74 minutes or qualitative, i.e. from “start” to “finish”.
The beat profile may be stored as a set of pairs of data, each pair consisting of a time location in the compilation and either a quantitative or qualitative value of the beat repetition rate.
The predetermined beat profiles may all be of a predetermined duration. In that case, the method may further comprise the steps of temporally expanding or compressing the selected profile to match the length of the compilation mix that is being produced.
The step of selecting the beat profile may be automatically performed by the method. A beat profile may, for example, be selected at random from a set of profiles.
Alternatively, the beat profile may be entered or selected manually by a user. The method may therefore include a sub-step of requesting a user to enter or to select a beat profile.
The step (b) of generating song data may comprise processing each song that is selected to produce a beat value representative of the rate of repetition of the dominant beat of the song.
Typically, the beat repetition rate (tempo) of a song will remain substantially constant over the duration of the song. The beat repetition data for each song may therefore comprise a step of, for each song, measuring the beats per minute of only one part of the song. This may, for instance, be a start portion, a middle portion or an end portion of the song.
It may also include the step of processing each song to produce a time value indicative of the overall duration of the song from start to finish.
It may additionally or alternatively include the step of identifying the location of any beat drop-outs within each song. These represent points in the song where the beat stops before restarting. For instance, in a dance music song it may be a point at which a drum beat defining the dominant beat stops for a few beats or measures before restarting.
The generated song data may be stored in individual data files corresponding to each song or in a single file.
The beat profile may be used to calculate the value and the temporal position of the minima and maxima beat rates in the profile. Data indicative of the value and position may be stored in a memory. In some arrangements, the temporal map may already be stored in terms of minima and maxima, and so this processing is not required.
The songs may be allocated to their temporal positions within the compilation such that the songs having the minima and maxima beat per minute are located at the point in the sequence corresponding approximately to the position of the minima and maxima of the temporal map.
The remaining songs may be allocated to the remaining positions in the compilation mix to complete the sequence by matching the beat rates of the songs to the temporal profile using a “best-fit” approximation.
The allocation may be made by processing the song data in combination with the temporal map.
It is expected that in many applications of the present invention the duration of the created compilation will be required t
Donels Jeffrey
Hewlett--Packard Company
LandOfFree
Automatic compilation of songs does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Automatic compilation of songs, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Automatic compilation of songs will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2961001