Pitch-correction of vocal performance in accord with score-coded harmonies

摘要

Despite many practical limitations imposed by mobile device platforms and application execution environments, vocal musical performances may be captured and continuously pitch-corrected for mixing and rendering with backing tracks in ways that create compelling user experiences. In some cases, the vocal performances of individual users are captured on mobile devices in the context of a karaoke-style presentation of lyrics in correspondence with audible renderings of a backing track. Such performances can be pitch-corrected in real-time at a portable computing device (such as a mobile phone, personal digital assistant, laptop computer, notebook computer, pad-type computer or netbook) in accord with pitch correction settings. In some cases, pitch correction settings include a score-coded melody and/or harmonies supplied with, or for association with, the lyrics and backing tracks. Harmonies notes or chords may be coded as explicit targets or relative to the score coded melody or even actual pitches sounded by a vocalist, if desired.

主权项

1. A method comprising:
using a portable computing device for vocal performance capture, the portable computing device having a display, a microphone interface and a communications interface; responsive to a user selection, retrieving via the communications interface, a vocal score temporally synchronizable with a corresponding backing track and lyrics, the vocal score encoding (i) a sequence of notes for a vocal melody and (ii) at least a first set of harmony notes for at least some portions of the vocal melody; at the portable computing device, audibly rendering the backing track and concurrently presenting corresponding portions of the lyrics on the display in temporal correspondence therewith; at the portable computing device, capturing and pitch correcting a vocal performance of the user in accord with the score-encoded vocal melody to produce a first version of the user's vocal performance; and at the portable computing device, pitch shifting at least some portions of the user's captured vocal performance in accord with the score-encoded harmony notes to produce at least a second version of the user's vocal performance, wherein the audible rendering at the portable computing device is in real-time correspondence with the user's vocal performance and mixes either or both of first and second versions of the user's vocal performance with the backing track.