Playing music with a friend can be great fun, but often we people either lack the confidence to do so or have no available acquaintances to meet up and play together. Wouldn’t it be fun to play with an AI that matches your style of play?
Yoo AI to boost audio technology innovation
Last month, HAKUHODO i-studio and Yamaha were exhibiting their experimental installation “Duet with Yoo” at the SXSW event in Austin, Texas. With their AI Music Ensemble System, they want to offer a solution for people who wish to play music together with an artificial partner.
Yamaha has a track record of being a pioneer at the front of technological innovation in the sphere of making music and offering artists new ways to express themselves and play. Unlike the AI system that translates dance movement into music, which we reported about earlier this year, Project Yoo has a focus on enriching the experience of the artists by matching their play and allowing them to interact directly with their artificial counterpart to enhance their performances.
Demo installation at the SXSW 2018
With the projected video in front of the player, the experience also becomes visual, but while that is nice, it’s not the focus. The major point here really is on playing together with a machine which analyses your performance in real time and creates a harmonized ensemble. In the demo setup, they used a Yamaha Disklavier piano as the instrument and let people try it out.
The video below was provided to us as footage material of the demo, and in it you can see Ayaka Matsui, who is the Director of Strategy Consulting at btrax, trying out the “Duet with Yoo” at the SXSW. The btrax team is working together with HAKUHODO i-studio and Yamaha as communications partner. Thanks a lot for the opportunity and making an effort to capture this video for our readers!
YouTube: Duet with Yoo: The Yamaha AI That Plays Music with You (SXSW Footage)
Photo credit: HAKUHODO i-studio / Yamaha
Source: Press release / btrax
