Research and Developments of a Multi-Modal MIR Engine for Commercial Applications in East Asia1

This article describes the research and development of an efficient Music Information Retrieval (MIR) engine that is embedded in a karaoke software package targeted for Asian people’s need of music retrieval. The MIR engine has a multi-modal interface that allows queries by singing, humming, tapping, speaking, and writing. In particular, we discuss the design philosophy, technical barriers, and performance evaluation of such an engine, as well as its current and potential commercial applications. Feedbacks and feature requests from users, which greatly influence our future work, are also addressed