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Comment by hamburglar | Hacker News Reader

I agree with “show don’t tell” as a general rule for effectiveness in cases like this, but I find it really hard to believe anyone is going to read this and not immediately grasp what is meant by “with adjustable vocals and real-time lyrics”. Obviously you can already sing along, and the question about how this makes it better is answered within the same sentence.

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I don't know, @hamburglar -- judging by just the comments in this thread, it wasn't so obvious to others.

And "real-time lyrics" is _already_ in Apple Music.

In your/Apple's defense, the photo they included is pretty clear what's going on. Important to note the footnote on the page -- this isn't even full-fledged karaoke: "The vocal slider adjusts vocal volume, but does not fully remove vocals."

I'm being nitpicky for sure, but that's kind of what HN and similar forums are for. Especially when it's Apple, which I hold to a pretty high standard for product marketing.

     And "real-time lyrics" is _already_ in Apple Music.

Currently, Apple Music lyrics are synced to the current line of lyrics (if the lyrics metadata supports it)

This new feature appears to sync the lyrics to the current word of lyrics, which is what karaoke usually does. Not sure how big a deal that is to folks looking to do their own vocals.

I'm curious about how they're doing that word-for-word timing. Hardcoded metadata? ML? Is it a simple interpolation based on the existing line-by-line timing?

The metadata exists in special karaoke recordings, but assuming they're using original recordings not created/modified for karaoke, they'd have to create it on the fly:

I'd guess it's done using the same speech-to-text system used by voice assistants, which can certainly show the words it hears in near-realtime -- and way more quickly when it already knows what words it's listening for.

By the way, karaoke often highlights individual syllables, not just whole words.

License agreements often forbid things similar to “adjustable vocals.” It would be interesting to learn if this is achieved with technology, like automatic stemming, or through partnership agreements that provide vocal tracks separately for adjustment.

Wouldn't a programmed solution fall afoul of that licensing ?

Normally it’s important for karaoke that the singer’s voice is amplified to (above) the volume level of the song, and from the description they don’t seem to provide that.

What’s the reasoning behind leaving out the word “karaoke”?

When I hear karaoke I think 90s looking machine with a tethered microphone, or equally old music videos with ugly subtitles. True or not, it is possible they just want to have full control of the image of their service.

Another thing is that when you sing a foreign song, the karaoke also means to read the foreign subtitles in your own language. It's an extra meaning they might want to avoid, I assume this is not a feature they have.

Perhaps it implies use in a commercial karaoke bar setting which often are dubious for licensing music.

It also might imply perfect vocal removal, which they aren’t guaranteeing.

Probably because Apple doesn't want it advertising to look like:

"Hey we just added a cultural pastime as a feature!"

There are some that could twist this feature into "Apple profiting off of cultural appropriation".

At a guess:

1) Perhaps they don’t want to trigger a different licensing model (on either the music or the lyrics) that applies specifically to karaoke devices and venues. Just a guess, not a music lawyer, but all sorts of unexpected terms apply to music licensing (such as streaming TV services not being able to use music from the original TV broadcast) 2) Perhaps they don’t want to associate with the karaoke “brand” which some users might perceive as kitschy or low-quality (have you ever seen a karaoke video?)

I suspect the second is exactly right. Apple is extremely careful about how their products are perceived as elite and cool and it’s easy to imagine their marketing department thinking the word “karaoke” just evokes an uncool or unsophisticated vibe.

You might be right, but I gotta say that deliberately avoiding the word karaoke feels incredibly insecure and uncool to me if that is the reason.

Potentially trademark issues?

Obvious. Make this look like a more original feature. Redefine the concept on Apple's terms. Have people pay attention to the novelty of it being done automatically, rather than manually in a catalog with lyrics that look like they belong on a CRT screen.

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