MUMBAI: A team of international researchers have developed a groundbreaking audio software that could help music lovers searching for music on the Internet.

The new Mpeg-7 specification will automatically extract and classify audio signals, says a PTI report. According to the researchers, such metadata, as it is called, can be used to tag audio files so they can be more accurately picked up by search engines equipped to handle this kind of information.."Such software would be useful not only for delivering a new generation of musical instruments, but also for designing special effects for cinema and TV, or for the management of databases in specific applications, such as sounds of animals, engines and boats," lead researcher Vinet says.

Vinet, who is scientific director at the Paris-based Institute for Music/Acoustic Research and Coordination (IRCAM), was part of the team that included researchers from universities in Spain and Israel, along with companies such as Oracle and Sony. The EU-funded project was called Cuidado.

The packages they developed consisting of a music browser, an online sound palette and sound authoring software Can analyse and index sound according to the digital patterns displayed by each particular song.

To do this, the researchers developed a number of techniques for capturing specific qualities from audio files, such as timbre, energy and rhythm. This system goes far beyond the methods used online by the music industry.