EMusic and Relatable Team to Offer Open Source Audio Recognition Solution

Relatable (www.relatable.com) announced on Tuesday that Emusic.com ( www.emusic.com) has completed signaturing its catalog of about 125,000 MP3s using TRM, the open source audio recognition technology developed by Relatable. TRM derives a unique audio signature for each song by analyzing the first 30 seconds based on 34 audio characteristics. TRM can work with any audio file format and creates the unique signature in a fraction of a second.

These signatures are then added to the online database, MusicBrainz (www.musicbrainz.org), along with any available metadata for the song. This technology allows unsigned bands to add their songs to the database and ensures that an interested listener will be provided with information about their band.

The Open Source FreeAmp MP3/Vorbis player is supported by Relatable. Individuals who use this player while connected to the Internet, will organically update the MusicBrainz database with the audio signature of the songs they listen to. According to Patrick Breslin, founder and CEO of Relatable, the database is growing at a rate of 15,000 tracks per day.

In the first stages of the project, Emusic supported the development of the FreeAmp player by employing three of the engineers working on it. Unfortunately, budget cutbacks caused Emusic to axe the project in July of this year. Relatable hired Issac Richards, who is described as, "the resident Linux geek in charge of the Linux portions of FreeAmp" on the FreeAmp website (www.freeamp.org), and joined EMusic as a co-sponsor for the final stages of the project.

The hope is that by open-sourcing the TRM and FreeAmp codes, and by providing unrestricted access to the MusicBrainz database, the music industry will have a definitive standard with which to organize music and thus improve the consumer experience. Emusic hopes that the addition of this technology will help to promote the sale of legitimate digital downloads. In addition, Relatable offers TRM based software, which presents music suggestions to consumers based upon their preferences. Industry-wide adoption of the TRM code would make Relatable's software particularly powerful.

"TRM helps us with our efforts by providing us with the accurate data we need to create a personalized music experience that allows online music enthusiasts to find the music they're looking for, and assist online music companies such as Emusic in introducing artists thatmeet users' individual musical interests," said Breslin.