For audiophiles and tool fans

[Jerseyprophet]

I recently got in the good graces of some neat developers and musicians that are working on a project plug-in for ProTools (the leading/most powerful recording and mixing software - most used).

This plugin allows you to literally break down recordings (provided they are directly ripped from the official CD or an exact duplicate -- .wma rips, especially those then converted to .mp3 format won't work) to the tracks when recorded before being compiled and bumped out.

I loaded in the first CD I had lying around my computer at home, which was Tool's 10,000 Days. I was able to load a track from it, which I picked The Pot (since who ISNT fimiliar with the track and I wanted to play with someone that I knew note for note - and can play the drum tabs).


Before I tell you what I found, I wanna point out that when my former band recorded our demo, one song with the most complex verses and bridges had 9 tracks. Doubled guitar for fatness and we doubled the vox for an ambience to it. Thats 9 tracks, for 4 musicians in the band playing in the song.


The Pot broke down like this:

http://www.zikinf.com/logiciels/gfx/...s/protools.jpg










141 Tracks. One-Hundred-Forty-One tracks. For anyone reading that isn't a musician, recording junkie or audio geek like me -- understanding what a track is is simple.

[Song] - all the tracks together, though seperately EQ'd and mixed
-Track - Lead Vox
- Track 2 R. Guitar
- Track 3 - Drums
- Track 4 - Bass
etc.


The first 5 Tracks were:
[Song]
- Track 1 Kick Drum Center
- Track 29 Kick Drum Left/Rear

(notice the tracks went 1 to 29 and we're still on SEPERATE MIC'ING OF THE KICK DRUM)
- Track 30 Crash Cymbol
- Track 31 Crash Cymbal from across the room (I think, it's very distant)

etc. -- you get the idea.

141 tracks.



At some point you have to consider Tool as more than musicians. You have to just consider them artists -- as in Davinci artist type.

And I wonder what the studio engineer did before he committed suicide having to master all of these tracks. Guess thats why it took them 3 years for this album officially from statement of release.

[Jerseyprophet]

Cliffs notes: Tool put an insane amount of effort in to recording one song, much more than any other artist on the market.

[TheKobainGuitr]

No wonder i love that song.

[Alleya]

I
At some point you have to consider Tool as more than musicians. You have to just consider them artists -- as in Davinci artist type.

...

[Howard Roark]

that's so sick, this new guy started working here recently and tool is his one and only band pretty much, road trips for concerts etc

anyway he got me listening to 10,000 days and lateralus again, as i'm more of an old school fan who considers Aenima THE best album of all time (sure I like various songs better by tool and other artists, but in terms of strength of an album, i will put this one against any other album by any other artist, ever)

ill show him this, cuz he kinda blew me away by saying that most people liked lateralus or 10,000 days, at least tool fans he knew. i thought this was preposterous as i didn't feel that they played as strongly as aenima, although i like some songs on the latter two albums better than a couple songs on aenima


i'm curious though, is aenima as complex? i'm not very musically trained (i know what a track is though lol) but there is just somthing very powerful about that album

At some point you have to consider Tool as more than musicians. You have to just consider them artists -- as in Davinci artist type.

...

I swear, no one likes tool just a little, they either looooooove them, or hate them/don't care, and the love is often bordering on obsession/religious adulation

[Plow]

The real question here is can you separate out a guitar track that can be made to work for guitar hero without just muting the whole song when you screw up?

[Jerseyprophet]

If anyone is interested, I'm able to seperate individual tracks with this nasa-level powerful plug in that isn't fully developed yet, which means not even on the market yet.


Guitarists? Like a certain song? I'll extract JUST the guitar line you need to practice to.


I can also do some SERIOUS fucking remix's with this shit. I can mix the guitar from I dont know, whatever, Godsmack with the drums of the new rhianna "song"'s drums if I wanted.

[Howard Roark]

you may want to check out flaming lips' zaireeka album

im curious how it breaks down as it is intended to be played on 4 cd's (on 4 players simultaneously) although the 4 tracks (think im using the wrong word here heh) together as a single song are available on certain singles from the Soft Bulletin era

[Kaisha]

I'm curious as to how the plug-in works. If someone ever told me there was a plug-in that would break down a song into its individual components, I'd have called them crazy; the amount of algorithms (for splitting instruments apart from each other on a single track), sounds/pattern recognizers required would be insane, is this the real deal?

If so, that's damn cool, would be the ultimate karaoke (and Guitar Hero custom tracks)-tool if so.
(rip the damn vocal tracks out of any piece)

[Kooldac]

Wow. That is incredible.

[Jerseyprophet]

Well my friend, vocal isolation - which you're referring to, has been around for a very long time and can be even a plug-in for winamp.


You'll need to do some researching thru google, but this will get you started;

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=vo ... gle+Search


The technology has been around for a long time. It measures certain high and low peaks for a baseline, then finds the x-factor, which 90% of the time is the vox. Not 100%, but will definately dead-en the vocal track in most .mp3s. I use it when I DJ at the bar to mute vocals when I mix. Blows peoples mind.

Although, side note - my favorite album of all time, Sneaker Pimps "Becoming X" has a software encoding called "DJ Killer" Technology (google it for a definition/history) that wont allow me to use my Talk-Over ability on my mixer or vox isolation to ....talk over the songs.



Now. The way THIS plug in works is:

Think of the song as a compiled piece of software. This plug in DE COMPLILES the tracks from one universal one.

When you listen to a song, you arent hearing 1 track or 1 song or 1 file, however you want to word it. You're hearing multiple tracks that were hmm.."lined up" together to fit and form the song. Bands dont record in a big room with a mic in it like the beatles or elvis did. They record the drums first (usually, my band did....no pressure on the drummer >.> lol), then the bass overlays, then the guitar, then vox. That way, an engineer or producer can individually control the volume of EACH portion of the song. The crash cymbol to the guitar, everything is EQ'd individually then layered (mastered and mixed using industry words) into one track that is then bumped to a CD as the song you hear.

You bake the cake before adding Icing right? Think of the lead guitar, vocals, piano - anything that isn't core rythem or melody to be the icing.


So on a real, officially produced album - you're getting a duplication from the record label and the tracks are still there -- just ..... zip filed together. This plug in unzips them like winzip if that makes sense?


Did this help you understand? It's confusing because a song number on an album is also refered to as a track - though most DJ's will call it a cut instead to avoid this confusion.


That's why bands like Tool and Pink Floyd sound so diluted and often shitty live. They put SO MANY tracks (which could be sound effects, or in trent reznors case the sound of a damn toilet flushing - I think he called that track 9 lmfao) that when they play live you hear just 4 instruments and they sound "weak". You're used to hearing 4 vocal layers of Maynard singing not just 1. He uses 2 microphones if you Youtube Tool live for a reason. It isn't artisic presence as you'd think. It's cause he sounds watered down live.



Think Kelly Clarkson. Remember that "Since you been goooooone" vocal line? She can hit some nice notes, sure - but that girl does NOT have that sort of volume or projection. You're hearing about 10 Kelly's singing that. Oh, it's all her, sure -- but its multiplied to add volume. THATS tracking.

[archibaldcrane]

Well my friend, vocal isolation - which you're referring to, has been around for a very long time and can be even a plug-in for winamp.

Um, holy shit would this have been good knowledge for the last documentary I was cutting. We had a ton of music from this one artist that we would use as ambience for background, but his fucking voice would come in at the worst times - such a headache.

[Jerseyprophet]

If you have trouble isolating his vox in the .mp3 or whatever version you have, try ripping the actual cut off the official real CD THEN trying to isolate it.


It's not hard =) How do you think I did the Massive Attack / Tool DJ solo I did in the last mix I made for the forums? I isolated and looped the opening of "Angel" to mix the guitar riff of "Stinkfist" on it.

Gentleman, this is the tip of the iceberg. If you're interested in what else I could show you as far as playing with sound let me know.

Go to the thread I made, probably about 3-4 pages back by now, called MTV Cribs: BG edition. First post has a pic of my computer with 2 mixers. One of them is the Hercules DJ console. I have it attached to my PC via USB cable and the computer thinks its an actual external sound card. On the back of the mixer is an insane amount of outputs including 1/4 inch -- allowing me to then daisy chain in my DJ Amp and pump 3000 amps to 55" subwoofers and EIGHT 10" tweeter speaker cabinets. My computers sound system will make pictures fall off the walls -- AND let me phyiscally manipulate mp3's as if they were records actually in front of me.


And it costs.....40 bucks? Maybe?


The world of music is open to us all my friends. Explore =)

[Howard Roark]

massive attack and tool... brb ruined my pants

im guessing u have ur mixes available on ur myspace? cant follow the link at work but i love a good mashup (usually crunk vs retro but ya) ps can u link to that thread? kinda dont wanna scan thru all 1018 of ur posts lol

if not np

[Jerseyprophet]

God. I read your post and saw the 1018 and automatically assumed you were saying I talk alot - -then I looked to the right of my screen and realized I really have posted that much.


Fuck I need less hobbies like music and get myself a girlfriend ; ;


Here, give me five minutes and check this thread again. I'll rehost the mix and give you a link bud.

[Jerseyprophet]

Howard: 12 minutes, 10 seconds in to it you'll hear it. I did that with looping, vocal isolation (there's a minimal breathing/melodic backup vox track on Angel when I chose to loop it) and my fingers on the digital turntables. and I did sort of cheat a LITTLE - I used auto beat match to line up the beats per minute of both songs - but hey, advantage of being a digital DJ, fuck you you old school turntablists

Looped the Angel beat and scratched the Tool riff. The best part was it didn't matter if I messed it up or missed the opening note, it was so distorted noone could tell anyway.

http://www.mediafire.com/?7gu9pjg92n1

[Kooldac]

great stuff. I will prolly explore this a lot more in the next couple weeks when i'm not busy. I could really use this to isolate the bass tracks to help me learn songs easier. I'll prolly shoot you a PM at some point if I have troubles.

[archibaldcrane]

Lol JP got banned in the last 15 mins?

[Howard Roark]

uh is it me or did jerseyprophet not have the uraggntcfgt marrocca's half an hour ago before i went to lunch...

also thanks^^

EDIT:

Lol JP got banned in the last 15 mins?

IBTL.....

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=28339&p=892449#p892449

this did it

[Kooldac]

>_______>;