A few months ago, I was approached by a group at Microsoft Labs to help with the user-experience and user-interface for Microsoft Songsmith.  Songsmith is an application – written in WPF, and exclusively for Windows – that allows you to sing into your computer’s microphone, and it “magically” creates the backing musical track to your song.

Songsmith generates musical accompaniment to match a singer’s voice. Just choose a musical style, sing into your PC’s microphone, and Songsmith will create backing music for you. Then share your songs with your friends and family, post your songs online, or create your own music videos.

Songwriters can use Songsmith as an "intelligent scratchpad" to work with new melodies, quickly turning your scratch recordings of new ideas into richer, deeper explorations. Musicians can also play instruments right into Songsmith, instead of singing.

I was brought in to redesign their interface which looked like this:

And ended up looking like this:

 

Using Microsoft Expression Blend, the redesign took about 6 days, which included a few round of revisions.

Songsmith has been getting a lot of press, both good and bad:

• Microsoft’s Songsmith makes music using PC
  http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/395195_msftsong08.html
• Mr. Microphone 2.0: Microsoft Songsmith Puts Even the Worst Lyrics to Music
  http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/microsoft_songsmith_mr_microphone_20.php
• SongSmith: Brilliant And Awful
  http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2009/01/songsmith_brilliant_and_awful_1.html
• CES 2009: Record your own hit songs with Songsmith
  http://on10.net/blogs/nic/CES-2009-Record-your-own-hit-songs-with-Songsmith/

Inspired some “interesting” remixes:

• http://gizmodo.com/tag/songsmith?refId=0
• http://www.wrongsmith.com/

And inspiring some great Tweets via Twitter.  Here are some of my favorite “flame-tweets”:

from AppleHacks: @chartier Thanks, I’m on my way to jail. I watched that songsmith ad, walked outside and punched my neighbor in the face.

from Ipotr4: ‘What does it feel like when your heart throws up? ‘Cause I think that’s what just happened. Thanks Songsmith!’ http://tinyurl.com/6wd28j

from chockenberry: That fricken’ Songsmith video is the new Rickroll. I want to rip my ears off every time…