Google lets you make an opera with Blob Opera

It’s a funny sight: the four Blobs ready to sing you an opera. Google’s Blob Opera project is a bit crazy, but it’s not just for fun: it’s a project that stole the show at the Google I/O conference, because the blobs work with machine learning.

Blob Opera

Blob Opera has been around for some time, but now it has got a special holiday repertoire. Unfortunately, the Christmas carols are already gone, but there is a New Year’s song called Auld Lang Syne. The blobs can sing because of the enormous amount of data they have processed: machine learning.

It is an experiment, so you are challenged to discover for yourself how it works. If you don’t do anything, the Blobs will keep singing the song over and over, but there’s also a start/stop button if you’re tired of the polyphony. There is also a playlist button and you can choose multiple backgrounds and songs, in addition to making your own opera with the funny creatures.

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real singers

It’s a bit bizarre, of course, but it’s a playful way to show what data can mean. Four opera singers recorded no less than 16 hours of vocals (tenor Christian Joel, bass Frederick Tong, mezzo-soprano Joanna Gable and soprano Olivia Doutney).

You don’t end up hearing their voices, but you hear the blobs singing what the algorithm thinks opera sounds like, based on everything they’ve picked up from the real opera singers. Yet another model is used to actually make them sound good in harmony.

Google machine learning

The blobs don’t sing real words, but just a kind of sounds, which nevertheless seem as if they belong in a real opera. Very nice on a holiday like New Year’s Day to entertain yourself with a song that might just become your 2022 soundtrack. Don’t forget to click ‘make it a New Year’s Eve party’.

And, are you planning to do some research? We are curious what you think. Leave your opinion below this article.