Unfortunately there is no way to "extract" an audio track from a mixdown. It's easy to cancel out the centre, or even isolate the centre... everything else is a matter if trying to reduce the other sounds using eq. The only way to pull something from a mix is to have the multitrack mix available.

well that's certainly an excellent little tool. that will most certainly be a fantastic addition to any and all recording situations. pretty much eliminates the whole "garbage in,garbage out" philosophy......

Great! Just what we need. Another way to fake talent. "Can't play it right? Just use our software!" It's bad enough acts already use pitch correction for vocals. All I see here is realtime pitch and chord correction for guitar. Soon playing guitar will be like "Guitar Hero" when it comes to recording.

Not that this would affect the actual industry all that much. Fake it all you want, when it comes to performing it will show.

I'm not fond of all this crap actually. We're pretty "old school" when it comes to recording. Yeah, a pretty recording is great, but it's better if there's actually talent behind it.

Sallan - What I see is that if they can break apart a guitar chord into individual notes, then it's not going to be long before they can "unmix" a mix. This will also suck for studios. One of the things we have is the original tracks and without them a remix is impossible. Some studios will abuse this "power" and hold it over their clients. Though being able to "take apart" a recording and remix it would be a boon for all those old recordings where the original tracks were lost or destroyed. ("Deep Purple - Shades of Deep Purple" is a good example. The masters and all the original tracks were destroyed in a fire. The only copies available today are "bootlegs" of foreign releases.)

This all sounds pretty sweet if it's used as a tool in the studio and doesn't end up like Antares, on the stage, fixing mistakes on the fly.

well one really good thing is that in the studio, you will be able to get clients in and out a hell of a lot faster. you won't have to re-do the same parts over and over till they get it right. let them do it once, fix it in the mix and move on. this should at least be able to speed up the process a bit.

There have always been "studio artists" and performing artists. Blood Sweat & Tears had OK studio recordings, but live they killed. (David Clayton Thomas still does!) Chicago on the other hand had GREAT studio recordings, but live they were lacking.

Not sure if this software will pull an individual part from a full mix. I can see how it might be able to do so for a single part, but I also see a drawback... While you may be able to replace a note, you will not be able to replace all the corresponding harmonics. While this won't be noticed by most people, studio rats will be driven crazy for all the "missing" material. In my studio we resist auto-tune and many other "quick fix" solutions, like emulators. (We reamp a clean guitar signal and then mix the different amps to "emulate" a particular sound.)

I'd be interested to see what it does with a full range instrument like piano, but, (seeing as I despise most software for the studio,) I won't be rushing out to find out for myself. Wish I could tell you more, but from what little I've read my biggest concern would be the harmonics which are different for piano than they are for guitar. Looks cool, but does it work? Guess we need a guinea pig to find out.

Any takers?

If there are I got the track to test.

I like the looks of this. It appears to be far less tedious in the editing aspects, and just way too cool for breaking cords apart into individual notes.

My guitar-ted friends:

I love the path this forum has taken. It seems this discussion often comes-down to what seems-like .... an opinion. Personally, I can't even tolerate the proliferation of synthetic drums; -- give me a heads-up, live human being ... anytime. It seems were talking about the Ricardo Montabalm (it's better to look good than to BE good) school of music here !!

Music is powerful when it has a soul. Character, passion, attitude -- call it what you want .. and give me MORE!! Soon, we should just design a player-guitar (like the player-pianos) so we won't need to learn to play, right??

I am not the player I want to be. However, the joy of the work -- the torment of learning that 8-bar segment of a song that is driving you NUTS .... is the absolute BOMB. This process, from what I understand -- is what artists face, no matter whether they paint, sculpt, dance or play. The reward is really in the effort -- and the way it presents itself in your character.

Often we see threads here that say ... "I want to learn to play the guitar". I am always hopeful that this person really is saying "I want to learn what it takes to be a musician". As Amerikans, we want it now, we want more than we need ... and we don't want to work too hard for it.

I wonder if the teenagers down at the corner music store will ever achieve their potential as an artist ... if they could affordably purchase a toolkit that could take the notes they play and 'tweak' it to sound like Jeff Beck. Jeff uses NO pick, no stomp-box -- where he gets those %^&-in' sounds is genuine 'art' my friends. And it belongs to him.

So, maybe I am reading to much into this. I know there's a place for 'cleaning-up' sounds. I know it is time-saving and tension-reducing for a studio engineer to avoid submitting to having his artist play it over-and-over-and-over .. until it get done well. But I think that music is communication via art and sound. Alter the original sound ... you alter the art; -- now you are saying something that didn't even come out of your mouth??

Of course, ... this is just my opinion, right ?