The most exciting thing to come out of Musik Messe 2008 happened far away from the pounding sound systems of the Dj floor but this revolutionary concept will seriously rock the dj and remix world as we know it. Celemony, a German software company, has announced “Direct note access” which gives you control over each and every note in a multi voice recording. Intended for polyphonic sound sources like piano chords or string ensembles, you can pick out any note or notes from a stereo recording and transpose them as you see fit. In one example, the white bearded mastermind behind this technology demonstrated its power on a classic Beethoven recording. “Lets see what would happen if Beethoven had written this piece in minor” he suggested, and within seconds was playing a full symphonic recording back in a different key with no audible degradation to the sound.
Symphonies are great but not exactly what you might have in mind, so on cue he then demonstrated the ability to extract a horn solo from an old jazz recording and re-arrange the solo on the fly. The crowd was stunned. This is something some many have dreamed of but never thought possible. The remix possibilities are obvious and the dj applications could take controllerism to the next level.
True, the word Mashups is a washed up cliche at this point but this technology may even give that practice a permanent shot of kryptonite. Remix artists and sampling wizards will be salivating as the RIAA is quaking in their boots. Imagine this scenario: “No Mr. Copyright protection manager, I did not sample the bass line from Queen- I simply replayed it to sound exactly like the original.” In a world where the recordings around us are increasingly becoming our notes of choice this may take your collective compositions to the next level.
I looked over all the celemony stuff and it looks like they are working on a system like this. Its supposed to release later this year.
My take on it is an actual dynamics analyzer and effector that first analyzes the tracks dynamics and sonic qualities and then writes those attributes to a file that is parralell to the audio. Like the stripe in traktor or abletons helper files.
The dynamics block contains user defined systems to write the attributes at various rates and levels of detail. So basically its re-writeing the audio waveform but in descriptions of how it deals with the audio . For instance a multi-band key analysis could be written to the dynamics file. For obvious reasons. How this information is analyzed is up to the user because the user sets up band definition with groups of eqs and crossovers to define the parts of the song. Gain is another quality that could be defined at this time. I think you can see how this pans out. The analyzation is set-up for the audio to be played more efficiently by virtul 'equipment' that uses the pre-ananlysis information to make decisions–because the analysis is defined by the user it is very customizable and so there for the behavior of the processing.
I have thought that once this other information starts developing midi is the obvious next description to take place. the audio and the dynamics analyzation can create midi events and also be output as different streams of midi that describe the user's wishes for the processing of the audio.
This would necssitate the available of a midi system inside the program that deleivers events to whatever modules the user defines. In a simple example in traktor there might be a situation where a certain audio dynamic, key, or user defined midi event(cue) creates a string of dynamics adjustments in another module. Like the bass becomes stronger in one channel and the dynamics are adjusted in another channel. This seems like alot of set-up and complication just to switch the basses in a mix. But .. once this language developes in the user and interface I can see the system developed where the langauge is copied and pasted between songs and arrangements. A similar example of this might be the clip envelopes in Ableton and how you can manipulate two pieces of audio with the same set of directions. this is, however, different.
<blockquote cite="#comment-2759"> These would really re-invent the song on an auditory level and there would be no actual sample to tie source material to actual output. Is there a system that does this already?
sounds awesome to me! I am not aware of anything that does that but it would be great or triggering synths in ableton live and remixing tracks on the fly.
" Imagine this scenario: ?No Mr. Copyright protection manager, I did not sample the bass line from Queen- I simply replayed it to sound exactly like the original.? In a world where the recordings around us are increasingly becoming our notes of choice this may take your collective compositions to the next level."
I agree … this possability does exist .. but a sample is still a sample even if its warped or not. Ive been toying with the ideas of a dynamics block and analyzer that outputs midi. It would work on some of the same principles as this. I also have been using the pyrolator midi device to create midi from an audio signal. In such a scenario the audio recording could be seperated as with this software and then analyzed by a device that outputs midi to a synthesizer set-up. These wouild really re-invent the song on an auditorey level and there would be no actual sample to tie source material to actual output. Is there a system that does this already?
This piece of software seems to be great!! I have written about it a few days ago! http://www.housetunez.de/2008/03/13/soundfiles-be…
The possibilities are unlimited and it would be fun to have this implemented in DJ-Software… Damn hot 🙂
@H20
GET ON THE CRACK
🙂
This is a remixer's dream! I not really sure how he was able to change things with a keyboard… seems like you would need a mouse to select the notes you want to manipulate… but imagine taking a piece of music and transforming it to something new for your sets. Incredible.
I finally got around to watching the video, and, wow, that looks amazing. So many possibilities!
i think this will really create some awesome possibilities in the world of remixes.. imagine how easy it will be to lift vocals from a track or just the bass line.. 🙂
THis one is not out yet. They had another product that is similar but wont work with complete mixes- only individual tracks. When it does come out you can use it inside dj software or production suites.
<blockquote cite="#comment-2457">Very cool. Was there any plans in the works for any big box audio softwares implementing it?
Celemony Already Have Their Products Available As A Plugin.
it's unbelievable!!
I think Dj's could use this launching synth loops, changing the keys at the moment with a midi keyboard while beat juggling.
Astounding.
It's a killer demo, and no mistake. Notice, however, that all the sounds he attempted to alter had fairly fast attack (no swooshy pads) and were all physically modelled sounds with well contained frequency footprints: violin, guitar, horns, voice. No electronic synths, no multi-timbral sounds, just a single vibration source that is shaped. Not that this is any less impressive, but when it's available I think the the tool will turn out to have a niche use – a fantastically useful niche in altering vocal tracks, remixing tracks from masters of old recordings and messing up individual channels of a complex mix, but I don't think it will impact the DJ world initially.
That's not to say that something new might not come along later now that people have been shown that, under certain use domains, the impossible is actually possible. We just need experts passionate enough to to apply the concepts to *our* domain…
Thats scary good! http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsi…
p.s.
anxious to see that forum go up!
Very cool. Was there any plans in the works for any big box audio softwares implementing it?
..So, would this make it possible to, say, extract vocals from a track? Or, specify an "instrument" and remove it?
imagine the possibilities!!
thx for the update.. still counting down the days until me vci 100 ean golden edition comes 🙂