MET-lab

Welcome to the Music Entertainment Technology laboratory home page.

The Music and Entertainment Technology Laboratory (MET-lab) is devoted to research in digital media technologies that will shape the future of entertainment, especially in the areas of sound and music. The MET-lab's primary research focuses on the following music and entertainment applications:

  • Music production and playback technology: The iPod and digital downloads have changed when and where we experience music. In the near future, the impact of digital technology on how music is produced ated and performed will be even more dramatic.
  • Machine listening and music information retrieval: Computers are great at recording, editing, and playing audio, but they can’t tell you much about the sound itself. How can we teach machines to really listen? Can they help organize our ever growing personal music collections?
  • New music interfaces: It generally takes years to learn to play a musical instrument. This research looks at creating simpler and more intuitive interfaces that enable people to start making music without prior experience.

The MET-lab is also heavily involved in outreach programs for K-12 students and hosts the Summer Music Technology program, a one-week learning experience for high school students.

MET-links for 2009-06-10

Web Applications

Online Activities for Learning and Listening

Web-based, cross platform games designed to illustrate pscyhoacoustic concepts to K-12 students and collect human evaluation data. These games introduce players to problems in speaker identification and musical timbre recognition through interactive interfaces that encourage learning through experimentation.

Current Games:


Hide & Speak...Try It Out!*

ToneBender...Try it out!*

*-These activities are under constant development and may not be available at this time. Please check back soon!

More information on each game follows...

MoodSwings PUBLIC BETA (NEW!)

Updated 25 March 2008

MoodSwings is a collaborative "game with a purpose", designed to enable the collection of continuous mood ratings of musical excerpts through a fun and engaging activity. You play with others across the internet with the goal of agreeing on current mood of a song within a grid defined by valence (happy vs. sad) and intensity (energetic vs. calm). The more you and your partner agree, the more points you receive!

NOTE: The game currently works best with Firefox, which can be downloaded here.

Click here to play the MoodSwings PUBLIC BETA! (anonymous user registration required)

Syndicate content