On the implementation of melody recognition on 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers

This paper presents practical issues and considerations when implementing melody recognition on 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers. The underlying melody recognition system (also known as query-by-singing/humming system) allows the user to sing or hum a segment of a melody to the microphone and the system can retrieve the intended song in a timely manner. Performance evaluation based on 192 clips shows that the system has a satisfactory top-1 recognition rate of 92% out of 20 candidate songs in the database. This system demonstrates the feasibility of microcontroller based melody recognition for music retrieval, which can be used extensively in consumer electronics such as melody-activated interactive toys, query engines for MP3/VCD/DVD players and karaoke machines, and so on.