How is mixing accomplished?

[lariat1997]

Hey All,

This is my first post. I have been asking people around the office this question, but non of them know the answer. But then why should they...government workers.

I was wondering how companies like commericials marketers get the music performed by an artist without the lyrics. I guess this would be a score. Is there a way to get the score of different songs with software or some other route? Also, do the songs carry information that a software can read and strip each part of the song seperately? I know that .mp3's and .wav's can have info about the song, so do they carry enough to break it apart?

Thanks.

 

[bennychico11]

if you are hearing a popular song in a commercial that does not contain any vocals in it....it's either because you're hearing a section of the song that contained no vocals or the advertising company paid the original artist/label lots of money to use the song without the vocals in it. Since most songs are recorded one track at a time now, it's easy for the artist/label to go back to the master tapes and make a mix with just the vocal track muted.
It's also possible that some companies hire a band to sound like the original band (you've heard cover bands at a bar before, right?). It won't sound 100% like the original, but often enough they can sound close enough.

There are no software or hardware units that unmix a song or remove a vocal track with great results.

 

[reshp1]

Think of it as mixing paint. You can't unmix colors that you've mixed together, but if you have access to the original colors you can remix without one of the colors.

 

[lariat1997]

Well put, I appreciate your responses. They make total sense.

 

[moxlon]

An interesting note on vocal removal

I just wanted to post a few points that people may not be aware of, in the interest of being helpful.. Most Karaoke songs (generally found on CD+G CD's) will contain the song(s) you want without the primary vocal track, though they generally still contain backup vocals. They are rarely recorded by the original artists, but the good ones sound authentic enough..especially in the bar audience. Also, there are various pieces of hardware, and software applications that will remove vocals, but they usually make the audio sound bad. These devices, and software packages work on a basic principal, where the sound quality issue rises from. They presume that the vocal track is a mono signal in a stereo recording, and if you invert the audio signal, and lay it on top of itself, the audio track will cancel itself out.. While you can use this trick to remove vocals, a good portion of the audio track that you *WANT* to keep will wind up degraded.. Your best bet would be the original multi-track recordings, or to find a good high quality karaoke version of the song you want.. But, if you want to profit from copyrighted materials, you will need to contact any and all copyright holders..

Dan

 

[Sirnothingness]

That's pretty interesting Mox. I had always thought that they just dumped the mid freqs where vocals tend to hang. In either case, yeah, doesn't do much for the quality leftover. I agree that since they need copyright permission, they probably just get a remix with no vocals. Although it would be simple enough to sample a portion without vocals and loop it.

 

[apl]

Since most songs are recorded one track at a time now, it's easy for the artist/label to go back to the master tapes...

Since most songs are recorded using computers, there are no tapes, and it's even easier to spit out a version sans vocals.

 

[bennychico11]

Since most songs are recorded using computers, there are no tapes, and it's even easier to spit out a version sans vocals.

lol, well i was using the word "tape" loosely.
a lot of people still use it even for digital recorders

 

[apl]

lol, well i was using the word "tape" loosely.
a lot of people still use it even for digital recorders

That's kinda what I figured.