Innovative content-based music management tool
The raised expectations of consumers about music browsing have set new requirements on developing advanced content-based technologies. For instance, audio search involves a time consuming procedure where it is difficult to find similarities among sounds. Answering these needs, the CUIDADO project employed new innovative tools and methods and developed pilot applications, such as the Music Browser. Built on the grounds of content-based technology this is a complete music management tool for large collections of songs. Unlike most contemporary music browsers, this novelty is more than a title-based browser offering the user more advanced capabilities than explicitly stating what is sought. Moreover, the Music Browser allows development of musical paths and automatic compilations as well as consistent music play-lists. The software suite comprises suitable tools, systems and modules for sound similarity search, constraint based music selection, personal keyword use and user's profiling. More specifically, an editorial metadata management tool allows editing of information on the artists of titles in huge databases. Another tool offers increased capabilities of automatically computing extractors on the titles of the database. The Music Browser also includes two query systems. One is used to issue highly complicated queries on titles and artists. The other has the potential to provide users with similar songs in respect to selected parameters such as timbre, genre, energy and tempo. Furthermore, a robust play-list generation panel is also included enabling development of rule-based play-lists. Potential users are music labels for systematic exploitation of catalogues and music portals for proposing personalised play-lists. In addition, it is suitable for use by radio stations for scheduled music programs that fit audience preferences. The tool also addresses the needs of the entire electronic music distribution business. Furthermore, copyright societies could also benefit as it allows effective control of illegal copies of music titles.
