Music labels releasing multi-tracks from recording sessions?

Waffleness

Waffleness

New member
Unsure which forum this was best at home in, but anyway...

..As a matter of interest, do you think there is capacity for music labels to release their artisits tracks in mutli-track form? This would be for remixing and experimenting purpose for the fans. For example releasing the bass, guitars, vocals, etc on their own?

Muse are an English band (not sure how big they are in the US?) but they released one of their albums with the lyrics removed. It wasnt an official release, but could be found on the web. Ive also seen singular tracks off it appear places, so it must be avaliable from some where.
This was very interesting for me, as I like instrumentals, and it gave each of their songs a new perspective. Why doesnt this kind of thing happen more often? And if it does, is there a place where you can find the individual tracks from an album?

I am unsure if there are legal issues with this, but I cant see why there would be?

I suppose you can argue that artists want to release tracks "as they invisioned them" and dont want some amatuer messing around with them.... but I think it would be a lot of fun :)
 
I have thought of this also think it would be very cool. At the very least its a way for record lables to make more money. The drawback of course would be copyright and potential bootleging of products. As in someone using their tracks and recording new vocals or trying to release a "ew" mix under real bands name when it is not...that kind of stuff.
Jim
 
Waffleness said:
Why doesnt this kind of thing happen more often?
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#1 As jmorris says, the legal issues can be a bitch; just getting all sides to agree (songwriters, performers, engineers, producers, publishers, labels, distributors) can be impossible (contrary to Internet lore, not everybody is a small band of mopheads releasing independently.)

#2 Frankly, not everybody on the creative side particularly likes the idea. It's kind of like asking da Vinci if it's OK for you to take your own paints and put a White Strat-like mustache on the Mona Lisa. I know from my standpoint (and I also know that many disagree with me on this), I feel that if you want to make your own music, then make your own music. Don't bastardize mine.

#3 Just like with movies/video, it's really just a small number (compared to the general population) of very vocal geeks who are pushing for this kind of thing. And maybe there might be a niche market there. But for the most part the general public uses music and movies to be entertained on the spot, not to require any assembly on the part of the end user. They just want to listen to that CD or DVD they bought, and don't want to go through the hassle of making their own mix of it.

Now, what I *can* see would be a special market of instrumental tracks that allow users to make their own mixes and add their own vocal and such, but NOT using material that's part of a commercial release. Instead they would be kind of like generic karaoke tracks that could be purchased/downloaded and mixed and matched by the user in ways where they can create their own mixes. Kind of like samples, but in this case the samples might be 12-bars long ;).

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
#1 As jmorris says, the legal issues can be a bitch; just getting all sides to agree (songwriters, performers, engineers, producers, publishers, labels, distributors) can be impossible (contrary to Internet lore, not everybody is a small band of mopheads releasing independently.)

#2 Frankly, not everybody on the creative side particularly likes the idea. It's kind of like asking da Vinci if it's OK for you to take your own paints and put a White Strat-like mustache on the Mona Lisa. I know from my standpoint (and I also know that many disagree with me on this), I feel that if you want to make your own music, then make your own music. Don't bastardize mine.

#3 Just like with movies/video, it's really just a small number (compared to the general population) of very vocal geeks who are pushing for this kind of thing. And maybe there might be a niche market there. But for the most part the general public uses music and movies to be entertained on the spot, not to require any assembly on the part of the end user. They just want to listen to that CD or DVD they bought, and don't want to go through the hassle of making their own mix of it.

Now, what I *can* see would be a special market of instrumental tracks that allow users to make their own mixes and add their own vocal and such, but NOT using material that's part of a commercial release. Instead they would be kind of like generic karaoke tracks that could be purchased/downloaded and mixed and matched by the user in ways where they can create their own mixes. Kind of like samples, but in this case the samples might be 12-bars long ;).

G.
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Well said, I also agree.
 
While I do partially agree with what Glen is saying, I think it would be pretty cool to be able to analyze multi-tracks. I want to take a look at multi-tracks just to see how things were put together. It would also help to learn individual music parts as well :)
 
WhiteStrat said:
I'm almost offended. And yet...also touched.
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It was meant with complete affection, Strat :) It wasn't a dig on the stash. It goes well with the beret.

BTW, my condolences on the death of Mr. Clean a few weeks ago.
Seafroggys said:
I think it would be pretty cool to be able to analyze multi-tracks.
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I agree completely. I'd love to hear the raw trackings on some of the more sophisticated mixes out there.

We has something similar, except for video instead of audio, come our way back when I worked for D-Vision. We put the word out to some of our clients that we were looking for some decent source material that we could use as test material for development of our "Online" video editing system that we were developing (Imagine Avid for Windows). Among other sources, we were sent some Betacam tapes that included raw, unedited three-camera videos and audio from various episodes of the TV show Night Court. It was really interesting and fun to edit our own custom episodes and compare them to the original cuts (funny how we managed to linger on Markie Post longer than the pros did :p).

But my belief is that as cool as some of us may think it to be, and even though some bands/labels have dipped their toes into these waters by offering a few stems, that overall this is a bad idea for anybody who wants to do this kind of thing for a living, or for those who actually take pride in creating unique works of art or entertainment.

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
It was meant with complete affection, Strat :) It wasn't a dig on the stash. It goes well with the beret.

BTW, my condolences on the death of Mr. Clean a few weeks ago.
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Nice catch on Mr. Clean--I mean House Peters. What a cool name the guy had too, huh?

Forgive the detour. As you were.
 
No wait! I have some actual input:

What do you want--the final CD ready mix, just broken down into tracks? Because by then the editing is done, tracks are comp'd, eq'd, tuned, etc. It's not much of a puzzle--even the individual tracks are so tweaked, there's pretty much only one way they'll fit together--and you're gonna end up right back at the sound of the original.

Or...you could step back in the process. To accomplish something close to what I thing you're describing, you really need the raw tracks. Now you've got the room to put it together, and maybe somewhat differently than the original. Problem is, I don't think anyone want you to hear the raw tracks. Then you'll know how much "fixing" is done--I just don't think anyone in the industry want to let anyone else peek behind that curtain.
 
valem said:
I would fix that horrible sounding snare on the Death Magnetic cd. Downright horrid!!!
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The Death Magnetic one is a vast vast improvement over St Anger's dustbin lid.

WhiteStrat said:
Or...you could step back in the process. To accomplish something close to what I thing you're describing, you really need the raw tracks. Now you've got the room to put it together, and maybe somewhat differently than the original. Problem is, I don't think anyone want you to hear the raw tracks. Then you'll know how much "fixing" is done--I just don't think anyone in the industry want to let anyone else peek behind that curtain.
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I think this is a very valid point. Its hard to draw the line at where the tracks should be taken. Right after tracking would embarrass the musicians, because it would be obvious what is wrong. Taking the mix after that (audio chops, comp, etc) would ruin the fun of actually mixing the track yourself.
 
Yeah. For example, let's take an early 70s multi-track tape. These have obviously been put the ProTools (well, some of them, othertimes its just the 2-track Master that gets put into ProTools), but I'm pretty sure all the compression and EQ are already put to tape...there would be no way to undo it. Even so, it would still be cool to hear what each track sounds like.
 
valem said:
I would fix that horrible sounding snare on the Death Magnetic cd. Downright horrid!!!
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Maybe you wouldn't be able to. If that's how it sounded in the room...well...you know....the old "you can't polish a turd" comes to mind.:eek:
 
WhiteStrat said:
Nice catch on Mr. Clean--I mean House Peters. What a cool name the guy had too, huh?
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LOL, I keep thinking of that the way one thinks of the phrase "house band". All sorts of strange ideas start popping into my head ... :D

Back to topic...

After thinking about this subject a bit more, I can make a concession, but it's got a major problem of it's own: I could see perhaps record labels releasing original tracks for consumer re-mixing on old tracks or albums that have gone public domain, or at least have become old enough where sales of the original copy have dropped to a trickle. The original mixes and participants will have had their fair run, and this would be perhaps a fair opportunity to let the public have at it, not to mention a nice way for the label to re-kindle interest in an aging catalog.

The biggest problem with that idea is that it is very hard to find original trackings for a lot of older music. Heck, for a lot of it just finding original masters or premasters is tough. But maybe if an effort were started now on all-digital productions to consciously and systematically archive the original WAV files for public release fifteen years or so down the road, I could see that, perhaps.

Though I still think that re-mixing "Dark Side of the Moon" or something like that would be holy sacrilege ;) :D.

G.
 
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DSOTM is pretty much the only album I can agree on that shouldn't be treated in that way, and I'm not even that big a Floyd fan. Its just too.....holy!
 
Seafroggys said:
DSOTM is pretty much the only album I can agree on that shouldn't be treated in that way, and I'm not even that big a Floyd fan. Its just too.....holy!
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Now it gets interesting.... OK, then, where would you draw the line? Who should decide which albums are OK to treat that way and which ones aren't?

There are plenty of folks out there who would involuntarily salivate at the idea of getting their mitts on the innards of that album. There are others who just never got the Floyd allure who couldn't care less. On the flip side of that coin, we've already had discussions here about Sergeant Pepper and it's ridiculously uber-holy status on this board; yet people seem to have no trepidations about getting their hands on the original tracks whatsoever. Hell, I had a girlfriend way back in those days who would think that the idea of even touching a mix from Seals and Crofts "Summer Breeze" would mean you would immediately burn in hell. Personally the only thing I would care to see burn in hell would the the tapes from that album ;) :D.

So, either we treat all productions with equal respect or we allow DSOTM to be basterdized into a million 2009 re-mixes by anybody with access to a cable modem.

G.
 
valem said:
I would fix that horrible sounding snare on the Death Magnetic cd. Downright horrid!!!
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Coincidentally, someone sent me the .mogg files for the song "And Justice for All", which include the individual tracks. I think they are from the video game Rock Band or Guitar Hero.

Shame the bass can't be heard on the album. I was never a Newsted fan, but he killed it on that song!

Also funny to hear how much reverb is dumped each track. Then again, I heard Master of Puppets the other day and Hetfield's voice is really much better pushed back a little bit. There is definitely something to be said for a little verb - but I digress...

Anyway if you search around you can find a lot of individual tracks.
 
I think it's a great idea - but only form albums I loathe!
I'd love to do a dub version of Hotel California;
An a capella of Nothing Else Matters;
A drum & Bass mix of anything by Christopher Cross -
In other words Nah, I could imagine someone doing Heart of Glass using some megabass mp3 live virtualizer telephone conversation dance mix for their ipud and hyundai getz.
 
PhiloBeddoe said:
Also funny to hear how much reverb is dumped each track.
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You'll notice on all Rock Band and Guitar Hero games there is more reverb. They put reverb on it, as well as EQ it a bit lower to make it sound more 'live.' Some of the songs on Guitar Hero 4 really pissed me off, they were EQ'd funny and it screwed up the vocals.
 
eternalpayn said:
You'll notice on all Rock Band and Guitar Hero games there is more reverb. They put reverb on it, as well as EQ it a bit lower to make it sound more 'live.' Some of the songs on Guitar Hero 4 really pissed me off, they were EQ'd funny and it screwed up the vocals.
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I just thought I would add something to this thread that I found the other day.

There is a free guitar hero rip off called "Frets on Fire" where you use your computer keyboard instead of a plastic guitar. You download popular songs off the forums for free, and then import them into the program where you can program the key presses. I have only tried it with a Panic at the Disco song, but the audio file was split up into vocals, guitars and drums. Each one has a .ogg file of just that part.

I am not sure its like that for all the tracks on the game, but for a few it certainly is. Certainly worth a look if your interested, but does require registration.
 
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