jam session recordings

[Kownterpoint]

Hi, we have some jam sessions recorded where we are all playing on a single track. I have just started using the computer to mix and edit the sound, I am wondering if there is a way to filter a single track and extrapolate guitar, bass and drum tracks from this single track?

 

[oretez]

not really

typically metaphor I reference is a loaf of bread. Once it is bread it tends to be difficult to extract the raw ingredients

there are some things you can do. I have not explored Melodynes new audio engine but they have been making claims about ability to do this. In any case unless Melodyne is the new magic answer an editor, like Audition (probably in conjunction with a couple of other editing tools, each has specific strengths) would be a place to start. Process is time consuming (hundreds of hours for a forty min. show), frustrating and based on modern expectations for what a recording should sound like, not particularly satisfying. It is almost impossible to isolate and extract the kind of info you are talking about without creating artifacts that can be as troubling as anything in the unprocessed file

why do you want to extract individual instrument contributions . . . pitch problems being different, requiring different approaches then contract disputes.

 

[grimtraveller]

I'm not even remotely technical but I was reminded of this thread a little while back that might at least point in a direction that may be of use to you.

 

[dintymoore]

People have been asking me to take vocals out of tracks forever and I always tell them it's like mixing Pepsi and Coke and then trying to separate them, pretty much like oretez's bread metaphor.

What's always bothered me about this dilemma is that when I listen to a mix, I can pick out the separate tracks so why can't a computer? I'm sure it will someday be possible.

It should be possible by putting some sort of tag on the individual track's fingerprint. So far the attempts have been by notch filtering, which isn't really what people want.

I'd like to hear what Melodyne is capable of. If someone could post a before/after it would be real interesting.

 

[Kownterpoint]

Thanks that was pretty much what we figured. I like the bread analogy good way to put it, thx guys.

 

[oretez]

I'd like to hear what Melodyne is capable of. If someone could post a before/after it would be real interesting.

I have used Melodyne for very specific types of things for years but do not have latest versions with 'DNA' (direct note access)

how well it might work on something as deeply entangled as the OP's jam session as single track I have no idea

here's a Celemony marketing blurb, their forums should be able to point you to some samples

and here's a supposedly unsolicited, unsponsored testimonial

referencing the OP's question even with Melodyne DNA it would not be as simple as saying 'split strat rhythm guitar' and going out for a cup of coffee while the computer clicked away . . . still, in my guess, a very labor intensive project (susceptible to all sorts of artifacts) results dependent in a great way on editor's (human not software) ability to recognize elements (voices, notes) you wanted to edit

which is more or less how melodyne worked previously only it pretty much stalled on polyphonic material

so not a reinvention of fire or the original Fender Broadcaster but might be a useful editing tool for those unable or unwilling to re-track

and back to OP, the question was 'why' . . . someone die and you're trying to sonically clean up his/her last performance? other then that lightening is striking somewhere every couple of sec.

 

[xcrunner28]

Didn't the game company that made Beatles Rock Band have to use some sort of expensive software to seperate all the tracks? I think I remember an article about that or something.