Do you love music?
Have you ever thought of blending your favorite tracks to create something unique? Now, a cool new app named Mixboard lets you do exactly that!
It’s a tablet application designed by the talented team at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Center for Music Technology. The best part is, you don’t need any musical or editing experience to create the songs of your dreams!
The Director of the Center, Professor Gil Weinberg, and his students have been working on this mashup tool for a long time.
Now, the technology has finally matched their vision. By using artificial intelligence (AI), the app can mix and match artists that you might not naturally pair together, finding the best parts of each song for your mashup.
“We believe everyone can be creative with music,” Weinberg said.
How does it work?
To create your personal mashup, you just have to drag and drop up to four songs from either Spotify or the Mixboard music library.
You can place them into vocals, bass, chords, and drum segments for up to 32 bars. It’s like a fun puzzle, and you can watch as the app mixes your song choices together in seconds. Once it’s done, you can download and share your unique track with friends.
Raghavasimhan Sankaranarayanan, a Ph.D. student in music technology, worked on nearly every part of the project, from the web interface to creating a brand-new iOS app.
The AI plays a big part too, making sure everything sounds just right. It takes care of the technical bits, figuring out song tempo, keys, and music stems (parts of the song).
It can even stretch the sound to match the tempo or adjust keys to make sure both songs are in the same key. It’s like having a virtual DJ!
Is it easy to use?
To find out if Mixboard was easy to use, the researchers asked people to try it out and give their feedback.
A total of 45 people aged between 18 and 27 got to play with the app for half an hour. Afterward, they chatted with the researchers and answered some questions about their experience.
The results were promising, and most people loved their time with the app.
What’s next?
The researchers plan to make the app even better and are considering making it a commercial product.
But they’ll need to figure out some legal stuff about music licensing first. But the main goal of Mixboard is to make music production accessible and fun for everyone.
“Listening to the mashups get better with each tweak to our algorithm was amazing,” said Nitin Hugar, a music technology master’s graduate.
“Mashing up unlikely songs like an Indian track with African beats and jazz chords was so much fun, and often sounded better than we thought!”
So, the next time you imagine your favorite tunes blended together in perfect harmony, remember that it’s not just a dream. With Mixboard, it could be your next hit track!
