Audible Magic's Broad Spectrum: detecting transformed audio
Speeding up...
Social media creators and DJs love to put their own spin on released recordings, and one of the simplest ways is to speed up a track. Speeding up turns a slow tune into an uptempo dance number, and faster music hits the hook or chorus more quickly. The current trend on TikTok, where all pop songs seem to exist only in their sped-up versions, has caused record labels and artists across the spectrum to release official speed ups to capitalize on this phenomenon†, from Benson Boon's Beautiful Things, Iñigo Quintero's Si No Estás, and Tate McRae's Greedy, to Lizzy McAlpine's ceilings, which achieved hit status almost entirely due to the unofficial and official sped-up version on TikTok:
and slowing down...
But altering recordings is not new. In the early days of hip hop, DJ Screw and others reversed the above, slowing down tempi to 60-70 beats per minute to create a mellow, bass-and-lyric-heavy grooving laid-back version of what was normally uptempo music. In the 2000s, Nightcore did the opposite with Eurodance, speeding the tempo up to 160-180 beats per minute, chipmunking the vocals into a happy hardcore style of club music. And DJs as a matter of course beat and pitch-match tracks to keep the energy level or to avoid a jarring change of key. The ability to make these alterations has been democratized by the availability of easy-to-use tools, meaning that anyone with a phone or a computer can produce altered recordings to suit any creative impulse.
and changing the key
That being said, sometimes alterations are done for completely pedestrian reasons. Since at least the 1950s, radio stations have played music faster to fit in more discs per hour and also more commercials and, more recently, uploaders who wanted to bypass content ID systems have been tempted to change the sound just enough that it isn't noticeable to the average listener, but to get it past the automatic filters. Or, in this case of this Weezer track, pitch shifting up a semitone so that guitarists don't have to retune to play along:
The solution: Broad Spectrum
But in all these cases everyone wants correct attribution and, especially where there are royalties due, for the money to go to the proper artists. Audible Magic's standard Audio ID system was designed from the beginning to easily handle pitch shifts and time scalings in the range of a few percent, in addition to resistance to ambient noise, EQ and other channel effects. To identify audio that has been altered beyond that - including modifications far beyond what we see in the wild - customers use our Broad Spectrum service.
Designed to tackle the complex issue of manipulated music, Audible Magic's Broad Spectrum is a significant advance in content identification technology. Unlike most Audio Content Recognition (ACR) systems, Broad Spectrum employs an innovative approach to detect alterations. It gives platforms the confidence that they will be able to identify and attribute content correctly, and also ensures rights holders' content is treated according to their license agreements.
While monitoring what is identified by our system, we see that as much as 50% of the music on UGC platforms is transformed in pitch and/or tempo. While small alterations are more common, a significant number are altered by 20% or more. The current trend at TikTok and other platforms is clear in the data: about 4x more of those with larger alterations are sped up vs slowed down. And changes to pitch alone, while they occur, do not occur as often as playing the music faster or slower, either with or without changes to pitch.
For more than 20 years, Audible Magic has provided B2B solutions in content identification (both music and TV/Film), music catalog fulfillment, and rights administration. Audible Magic powers billions of monthly transactions to serve customers all around the world. Its music identification services are used to help reduce the number of DMCA takedown notices and administer licenses for user generated content (UGC). Broad Spectrum is one of many technological innovations we have pioneered. Contact us to learn more.
– Erling Wold, Chief Scientist and Technologist
† more examples:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4sQRT2zDzaMk92Fw75TZHn
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/37i9dQZF1DX0h2LvJ7ZJ15
New Mobile App Enhances Cinema Experience for the Vision Impaired
Swedish Cinema Uses Audible Magic Content Recognition to Synchronize Audio Descriptions and Spoken Subtitles with Movie Sound Tracks
April 08, 2015 12:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time LOS GATOS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Audible Magic, the leading provider of automatic content recognition software solutions announced that Cybercom Group of Stockholm, Sweden has licensed its technology for Sweden’s “Available Cinema” project, making movie experiences more accessible to those with sight and reading impairments.
Available Cinema, a government project managed by the Swedish Film Institute in cooperation with the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority, enables audiences with any range of vision impairment or dyslexia to enjoy pre-recorded audio descriptions of the screen action and spoken subtitles. A mobile app provides narrative through the user’s earphones, using Audible Magic’s audio fingerprinting technology for frame-accurate synchronization with the movie soundtrack.
Lisa Wacklin, project manager for Available Cinema at the Swedish Film Institute says, “It's a huge change. In the past, audio descriptions were performed live and limited to about 150 movie screenings per year. Now they will be available for more than 150,000 screenings every year in Sweden.”
Cybercom created the Disabilities Platform, consisting of a software development kit, which can be easily incorporated within a mobile app, and separate tools to enable movie post-producers to package ‘fingerprints’ of the movie soundtrack with audio descriptions for app users to download from Sweden’s Cinema Guide server. The Swedish Film Institute intends to make the Disabilities Platform available internationally to movie distributors, broadcasters and organisations representing the vision and reading impaired.
“Working with Cybercom on this project has been truly rewarding,” said Mike Edwards, General Manager EMEA for Audible Magic. “Witnessing the delight of users at the launch is an experience I will not forget.”
“It is a very successful project with great cooperation between our companies,” said Cybercom project manager Magnus Månsson.
Audible Magic is the trusted leader in automatic content recognition (ACR) fingerprinting technologies. The company offers a broad range of hosted solutions as well as hardware and software products that identify audio and video content, synchronize actions between media devices, trigger user interactivity and generate usage reporting. Audible Magic’s customers and partners span technology and media industries and include industry leaders such as Dailymotion, Deluxe Media, Ensequence, Intel, Sling Media, Sony Music and SoundCloud.
Cybercom is an IT consulting company that assists leading companies and organisations to benefit from the opportunities of the connected world. The company’s areas of expertise span the entire ecosystem of communications services. Cybercom’s domestic market is the Nordic region, and in addition the company offers global delivery capacity for local and international business. Cybercom was founded in 1995 and has been quoted on the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm exchange since 1999.
The Swedish Film Institute works to promote film across the board – from idea to finished product, during launch in Sweden and around the world, and by preserving films for posterity in their archives.
The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority (PTS) monitors the electronic communications and postal sectors in Sweden. The Authority provides leadership on consumer and competition issues, efficient utilization of resources and secure communications.
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