Instant Mix for Music Beta by Google

Music Beta by Google was announced at the Day One Keynote of Google I/O 2011. This service allows users to stream their music collections from the cloud to any supported device, including a web browser. It’s a first step in creating a platform that gives users a range of compelling music experiences. One key component of the product, Instant Mix, is a playlist generator developed by Google Research. Instant Mix uses machine hearing to extract attributes from audio which can be used to answer questions such as “Is there a Hammond B-3 organ?” (instrumentation / timbre), “Is it angry?” (mood), “Can I jog to it?” (tempo / meter) and so on. Machine learning algorithms relate these audio features to what we know about music on the web, such as the fact that Jimmy Smith is a jazz organist or that Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade are similar artists. From this we can predict similar tracks for a seed track and, with some additional sequencing logic, generate Instant Mix playlists from songs in a user’s locker.

Because we combine audio analysis with information about which artists and albums go well together, we can use both dimensions of similarity to compare songs. If you pick a mellow track from an album, we will make a mellower playlist than if you pick a high energy track from the same album. For example, here we compare short Instant Mixes made from two very different tracks by U2. The first Instant Mix comes from "Mysterious Ways," an upbeat, danceable track from Achtung Baby with electric guitar and heavy percussion.