isolation software for tone matching?anyone achieved it??

H

hellraizer

Member
hey this one just popped into my head

i was doing some digging for some isolation software that would essentially de-mix a completed track

there have been various attempts over the years to varying degrees of success but was wondering if anyone here as managed it with any of the stuff out there?

the implications for tone matching would be amazing.i find every tone i wanna match is never isolated in the track so i never get lucky!
 
hellraizer said:
hey this one just popped into my head

i was doing some digging for some isolation software that would essentially de-mix a completed track

there have been various attempts over the years to varying degrees of success but was wondering if anyone here as managed it with any of the stuff out there?

the implications for tone matching would be amazing.i find every tone i wanna match is never isolated in the track so i never get lucky!
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I don't think it's possible with any software at this time, it's one thing to use some of this software to clean up noises etc, but to completely separate tracks in a mix after it's been all blended together, not a very easy thing to do.
 
For starters,

try DSP_Centercut in WINamp. (in Side mode)

It's an M/S type processing. So basically the mid and side channels are divided.
Since guitars are often panned and you'll get rid of Bass/Snare/Vox etc. (Reverb will still be present in the sides) you'll get closer to the guitars.

Also, you'll probably discover a lot of surprises in your favourite tracks that you may not jhave noticed yet!
 
divide said:
Have a look of theses 2 un-mix videos with SpectraLayers:
SpectraLayers - Dear Prudence unmixing
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That video is pretty much a scam.

It's basically doing an M/S type of thing with a very sparse arrangement. It's no problem extracting a guitartrack if it's only on one side with nothing else on that side only. It won't work at all on denser arrangements.
On top of that, to hide artefacts of the voice and bass "extraction" they keep playing the music track in the background.

If you wanna do things like that MUCH easier and efficiently and loads on top of that check out iZotope RX 2.
 
year2525 said:
That video is pretty much a scam.

It's basically doing an M/S type of thing with a very sparse arrangement. It's no problem extracting a guitartrack if it's only on one side with nothing else on that side only. It won't work at all on denser arrangements.
On top of that, to hide artefacts of the voice and bass "extraction" they keep playing the music track in the background.

If you wanna do things like that MUCH easier and efficiently and loads on top of that check out iZotope RX 2.
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You're wrong, listen to the original track. Though the guitar is mostly on the right side (98%), it's also leaking on the left side (2%). The vocal is not perfectly centred, 40% left 60% right, and the bass is 72% left 28% right. It's all mixed together on all channels at various levels, you cannot just unmix that by removing one channel. What this tool shows is how to take advantage of the spacial location, then extraction is made based on the various ratios.
Plus the multichannel tool is just one among many others; have a look at the second video where harmonic extraction is shown. You cannot achieve such extraction result in iZotope RX2 in any way, because RX2 does not allow parametric tools and non-destructive work (multiple layers). Have a try with the same example for instance, you'll see how problematic it gets without SpectraLayers workflow.

Here's another example:
Restoring an old recording (again it's not about noise suppression but voice extraction)
 
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divide said:
You're wrong, listen to the original track. The guitar is not on one side only, as the vocal, as the bass. It's all mixed together on all channels at various levels. What the tools shows is how to take advantage of the spacial location, then extraction is made based on the various ratios.
Plus the multichannel tool is just one among many others; have a look at the second video where harmonic extraction is shown. You cannot achieve such extraction result in iZotope RX2 in any way... Have a try with the same example for instance, you'll see how problematic it gets in RX2.
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Sorry, man, I stand by what I said.

There is free software that separates M/S imaging (like DSP_centercut I mentioned, which has been available for years).
It's just a clever choice of track in that example, it's able to fool some people, probably.

Do this with a busier mix, where certain frequency ranges/stereo positions are not reserved to one instrument only.

I wish I was wrong, actually!

EDIT: I'm not talking about the other processing tools in that package, I'm talking about this video.
It gives the impression that this software is able to dissect stereo mixes to their stems/instruments, but this ability in this case is highly limited to the conditions of the source material!
 
Hmm some interesting replys there guys well I'm gonna give both the free method and the spectra layer a go and see how I get on...keep the suggestions coming please :)
 
Try Transcribe. But, none of those softs will work 100% if you intend to do tonematch, there will always be part of other instruments. And the guitar sound itself may be affected to by the phase tricks used by the soft.
 
Just keep emailing the guys at Jammit to request whatever songs you want them to get for their app.

Other than the tons of isolated stem tracks all over the net, Jammit is your best bet to get isolated tracks.
 
fremen said:
Try Transcribe. But, none of those softs will work 100% if you intend to do tonematch, there will always be part of other instruments. And the guitar sound itself may be affected to by the phase tricks used by the soft.
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true but worth a shot id say and they could always be tweaked to taste

willowdale said:
Just keep emailing the guys at Jammit to request whatever songs you want them to get for their app.

Other than the tons of isolated stem tracks all over the net, Jammit is your best bet to get isolated tracks.
Click to expand...

i keep hearing that mentioned,what is jammit?sounds cool
 
Narzugon said:
Riffstation looks interesting for a low budget tool. I don't think it'd be good for tone matching in most cases but looks good as a practice tool.

Riffstation - Amazing Guitar Software - It's Guitar Hero for Real!
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Hi guys. I wasn't on this forum when the thread was active. But just wanted to say that I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Here's a few videos showing our guitar track isolation tool - I'm describing it as I'm doing it in the Pink Floyd one.

Pink Floyd - Riffstation - Tutorial #2 - Isolate tool - YouTube
Jimi Hendrix - Riffstation - Isolate Tool - Example #1 - Jimi Hendrix - YouTube
The Strokes - Riffstation - Isolate Tool - Example #2 - The Strokes - YouTube

We built it principally for killing the gutar track so you can jam along like in this video (Dream Theater - Lines in the Sand Solo > Martin G @ Riffstation plays the solo from Lines in The Sand from Dream Theater - YouTube

In terms of using it for tone matching, it really depends on how clean we can pull the guitar from the track. It varies a lot depending on how dense the mix is and also the stereo positioning of instruments. In terms of the debate about demixing, I've been working on the problem for 10 years and have one of the first patents on it dating back to 2004 and I can categorically say that it is not possible to derive the actual multi-tracks, as they would have been, from a stereo mix. But, it is possible to derive very accurate approximations of individual tracks from a mix depending on the mix parameters. Unfortunately, it varies drastically from mix to mix.

In terms of tone matching, you can try it yourself with the 30 day free trial of Riffstation. Let me know if you have tried it, I'd love to hear the results :)
 
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