Need Advice !

[bharatbash]

Greetings All !

I was wondering how to play and cover a song, playing along with the original record in the background.

Apologies if I am not able to explain myself correctly, something of this sort :

Piano Cover: Way It Is [Bruce Hornsby]:

Current Gear : Digicam, Casio CDP 120

Any advice would be a lot of help as in what gear/tech would be required and how to set it up.
Also, any vid links explaining the same would help me too.

Thanks in advance !

 

[k10]

Hello Mr Bash,

Sorry if I have misunderstood the question, I am a keyboard novice but do have some understanding of Midi etc.

You may be a long way above the suggestions in my reply. If you are seeking a professional solution, please ignore everything that follows.

So my comments may not help you musically but they may help you to reword your question,

If this is just for your fun and you have a PC, you could download a midi file and a free player that allows you to turn individual instrument tracks on or off, transpose etc.

I use Anvil studio to do this – free and friendly. I am a confirmed novice and there may be many better options.

The sound quality will only be as good as your Midi Sound Source. The one provided with Windows is not nice but might be all you are after for practicing.

Is this what you are trying to do? Perhaps you want a nice sounding copy of the audio with the keyboard parts missing?

It’s also possible to use software that will keep the Midi instruments from overtaking you (if you play too slowly).

Perhaps you have a nice sound source to play the Midi?

Please advise.

K

PS I've assumed that because you live in the IT centre of the world - you use PCs with Linux/Windows and reserve white plastic for toilet seats. If you use an Intel processor on a less common platform - some one else will need to suggest free software that is currently available.

 

[bharatbash]

Hello Mr Bash,

Sorry if I have misunderstood the question, I am a keyboard novice but do have some understanding of Midi etc.

You may be a long way above the suggestions in my reply. If you are seeking a professional solution, please ignore everything that follows.

So my comments may not help you musically but they may help you to reword your question,

If this is just for your fun and you have a PC, you could download a midi file and a free player that allows you to turn individual instrument tracks on or off, transpose etc.

I use Anvil studio to do this – free and friendly. I am a confirmed novice and there may be many better options.

The sound quality will only be as good as your Midi Sound Source. The one provided with Windows is not nice but might be all you are after for practicing.

Is this what you are trying to do? Perhaps you want a nice sounding copy of the audio with the keyboard parts missing?

It’s also possible to use software that will keep the Midi instruments from overtaking you (if you play too slowly).

Perhaps you have a nice sound source to play the Midi?

Please advise.

K

PS I've assumed that because you live in the IT centre of the world - you use PCs with Linux/Windows and reserve white plastic for toilet seats. If you use an Intel processor on a less common platform - some one else will need to suggest free software that is currently available.

Thanks for the headstart K !

Well, I do have a reasonable PC with decent configuration. Also, I do get the midi part as explained by you. .

Based on which, I come to the following queries :

1) What are some softwares which would 'separate/isolate' parts of a song.

2) Also, since I wish to record my playing, how should I go about recording the 'final' audio ?

Appreciate your thoughts

Thanks !

 

[k10]

Free software to get you started.

‘Anvil Studio’ www.anvilstudio.com allows you to enable/disable individual midi tracks. This is a basic free piece of software and I’m sure there is better out there but this could be all you need.

Selecting which instruments to play from the MIDI file.

Each track is one ‘sound’ in the Midi device.

Usually one track is one instrument but one track could be a layered sound (IE piano/strings) or perhaps drums.

You may find multiple tracks for the same instrument. This may because there were two of the same instrument in the recording or because the arranger found it simpler to organise the midi that way.

Please note that the above is simplified information for basic home MIDI use.

MIDI can do a lot more but assuming you are downloading free MIDI files and using just for own fun, then the statements are true.

Breaking the song into sections for practice.

Anvil studio allows you to copy/cut/crop. Make multiple copies of the same file then cut out the bits you don’t want from each one.

Recording

To help here, I need to know;

Are you looking to record ‘single track’ (everything playing at once) or ‘multi track’ (less than all the instruments at once)?

What will be you be playing the Midi file into? If this doesn’t make any sense to you – just say so.

K

 

[happyrat1]

Heya Bharatbash...

First of all in the above video the guy is playing along to an original CD recording of the song. Hence the vocals.

He was not playing along to a MIDI.

Now playing along to a MIDI file is perfectly fine and playing it thru a sequencer like Anvil Studio is a great way to isolate the instrumental tracks. There are plenty of professional quality MIDI recordings of popular songs out there on the web to be had for free or for reasonable cost.

Now what I think you are asking for is a program that isolates out an instrument from a CD or MP3 audio recording and suppresses it so you can play the missing track.

Such a program simply does not exist. There are a few programs which attempt to do this by subtracting right and left stereo channels to remove the center channel (which is usually vocals) for Karaoke but even these usually end up with some of the original material bleeding thru. There is however, no such thing as a program that can target and filter out a specific instrument from a stereo audio mix.

However, all of that being said, there are licensed "backing tracks" available for some recordings from authorized dealers meant for stage performances, but these suckers come with licensing for public performance and can get pricey.

http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/article2.htm

https://www.google.ca/search?num=10...cking+tracks&oq=licensed+audio+backing+tracks

http://pl.sbiglobal.com/

http://www.singprosound.com/

In the case of the above video, the player was either using one of these tracks or else just uncannily tracking the piano of the original performance.

Gary

 

[bharatbash]

Free software to get you started.

‘Anvil Studio’ www.anvilstudio.com allows you to enable/disable individual midi tracks. This is a basic free piece of software and I’m sure there is better out there but this could be all you need.

Selecting which instruments to play from the MIDI file.

Each track is one ‘sound’ in the Midi device.

Usually one track is one instrument but one track could be a layered sound (IE piano/strings) or perhaps drums.

You may find multiple tracks for the same instrument. This may because there were two of the same instrument in the recording or because the arranger found it simpler to organise the midi that way.

Please note that the above is simplified information for basic home MIDI use.

MIDI can do a lot more but assuming you are downloading free MIDI files and using just for own fun, then the statements are true.

Breaking the song into sections for practice.

Anvil studio allows you to copy/cut/crop. Make multiple copies of the same file then cut out the bits you don’t want from each one.

Recording

To help here, I need to know;

Are you looking to record ‘single track’ (everything playing at once) or ‘multi track’ (less than all the instruments at once)?

What will be you be playing the Midi file into? If this doesn’t make any sense to you – just say so.

K

Thanks !

Well I do get the bit about MIDI files and you made it very clear what exactly I can do with them. Helps a lot !

The tricky bit is the 'recording' part - Since, I am a complete noob and haven't ever plugged in my keyboard into a PC, I know its going to be a steep learning curve for me.

Few Things :
1) If MIDI, then I'd like to play along with the rest of the song i.e. all the instruments in the background too (if only a bit softer than mine)

2) Also, are there any YouTube links/channels I can perhaps scout to get more into this.

Thanks again for your time and thoughts man ! Much Help.

 

[bharatbash]

He

Heya Bharatbash...

First of all in the above video the guy is playing along to an original CD recording of the song. Hence the vocals.

He was not playing along to a MIDI.

Now playing along to a MIDI file is perfectly fine and playing it thru a sequencer like Anvil Studio is a great way to isolate the instrumental tracks. There are plenty of professional quality MIDI recordings of popular songs out there on the web to be had for free or for reasonable cost.

Now what I think you are asking for is a program that isolates out an instrument from a CD or MP3 audio recording and suppresses it so you can play the missing track.

Such a program simply does not exist. There are a few programs which attempt to do this by subtracting right and left stereo channels to remove the center channel (which is usually vocals) for Karaoke but even these usually end up with some of the original material bleeding thru. There is however, no such thing as a program that can target and filter out a specific instrument from a stereo audio mix.

However, all of that being said, there are licensed "backing tracks" available for some recordings from authorized dealers meant for stage performances, but these suckers come with licensing for public performance and can get pricey.

http://www.mp3backingtrax.com/article2.htm

https://www.google.ca/search?num=100&newwindow=1&safe=off&site=&source=hp&q=licensed audio backing tracks&oq=licensed audio backing tracks

http://pl.sbiglobal.com/

http://www.singprosound.com/

In the case of the above video, the player was either using one of these tracks or else just uncannily tracking the piano of the original performance.

Gary

Hey Gary ! Been a long time my friend

Thanks for always pouring in your valuable inputs. I am sure you have an idea where I'm coming from.

Anyways, based on your suggestions, I do have more queries :

1) Does music rights and copyright owners have a problem if I just 'cover' a song - I have heard that covering/promoting a song isn't part of 'Fair Use'. Throw some light, please.

2) Also, I am okay with some of the original sound bleeding through, as long as it sounds satisfactory to the listener. I mean, not for the perfection, probably just doing this for my love of playing 'original' keyboard parts with the 'real' band backing me, not some toned, watered down arrangements.

Links/Tuts would be of much help. 2016 is here and this year would be a year of better and polished sound first with everything else on the back burner.

Gosh, I think I need to get my head around this quicker !

Thanks Much

 

[SeaGtGruff]

You can sort of filter out a particular instrument from an audio recording, but the results will depend on the instrument's frequency range and whether other instruments in the mix have frequency ranges that overlap with the instrument you're trying to remove-- i.e., you may end up removing some frequencies that are from the other instruments.

There are some keyboards with Audio In or Auxiliary In jacks for feeding in a song from a CD player or other audio source (phone or tablet, etc.), which have functions intended to let you filter out sounds within a chosen frequency range so you can remove them-- e.g., to remove the vocals so you can sing along yourself.

If you don't have a keyboard that includes that functionality, you can load the audio recording into a DAW and try using a Low-Pass Filter, Band-Pass Filter, or High-Pass Filter to filter out the instrument parts you want to play yourself, depending on the range of frequencies you want to filter out:

- Use a Low-Pass Filter to filter out high-range frequencies but leave the low-range frequencies alone.
- Use a Band-Pass Filter to filter out mid-range frequencies but leave the low-range and high-range frequencies alone.
- Use a High-Pass Filter to filter out low-range frequencies but leave the high-range frequencies alone.

Regardless of which filter you use, you will need to adjust the cutoff frequenc(y/ies) to control which frequencies will be filtered out.

EDIT: Correction, for filtering out the mid-range frequencies you need to use a band-stop filter, which is the opposite of a band-pass filter.

 

[happyrat1]

Bharat >>> I'm not a lawyer and I have really no frigging idea what constitutes "fair use" these days under the DMCA and its signatories.

I think you're probably safe enough posting on youtube and worst case scenario they will just send a takedown letter if they feel you've violated copyright. You probably won't get sued unless your piece becomes a commercial success and you start to make real money on it.

As for how to hookup properly for recording? Here's a generic hookup diagram I made for someone else on how to hook up your keyboard to your PC for MIDI and Audio recording. Instead of the mixer you could also use an audio interface or a direct cable from the keyboard outputs to the computer input, but some sound cards are noisier than others. In those cases you would need a USB Audio Interface.

General hookup remains the same though.

Hope this helps,

Gary

 

[k10]

1) If MIDI, then I'd like to play along with the rest of the song i.e. all the instruments in the background too (if only a bit softer than mine)

If your keyboard can also make the sounds of the other midi tracks then let it do so whilst you play as well. Now you can just record the output of your keyboard directly to your PC soundcard.

If you are using something else to voice the Midi file, open the file and use a tool (anvil) to record the midi of your playing into the existing file. Now play the midi file and record the audio into your sound card (you could also send the midi file to someone with a posh midi sound source to record). I suspect this is the only way you are going to get a passable sound.

SeaGt < what filtering (DAW?) software do you get the best (filtering) results with?

I always struggled hugely to remove one noise in isolation. Probably ‘cos the (physical) instrument I was trying to get rid of had more than a few harmonics that remained and removing the offending noise also removed harmonics of wanted instruments. It made what was left sound like an overdub.

I always compare this to trying to repaint a white patch in the middle of white ceiling without it looking obvious. I tried and tried and failed. It might have worked if I spent ages trying to feather the new patch gently into the old but (for someone with my limited ability) repainting the whole ceiling was much quicker.

When trying to stop a particular frequency with fft software filtering – it may sound more appropriate with chained high-pass and low-pass rather than band stop. This would allow the user to vary the attenuation to frequency curve (independently) each side of the (centre frequency of the) band-stop. << this comment is based on maths/software knowledge – not audio engineering experience.

And finally – some fool has to make the comment again (it might as well be me….) Shame bandstop filters cannot be universally applied to every Cowelle-pat squeezed out so far!

 

[SeaGtGruff]

SeaGt < what filtering (DAW?) software do you get the best (filtering) results with?

I have more DAWs than I'm comfortable admitting, especially since I've barely used most of them! The one I've used the most is Acoustica Mixcraft, but I've recently added Cubase Elements and Tracktion T6 to my collection with the intention of becoming familiar with them.

But it's probably more a question of which VST plug-ins to use, and my overall impression is that with effects plug-ins (as with DAWs, keyboards, and other things) one brand is generally as good as another-- unless one brand has exclusive rights to some feature, process, technology, etc.

Anyway, I haven't actually tried it myself yet. Right now my filtering experience is limited to removing noise caused by unbalanced audio connections, or altering the harmonics of instrument sounds.

My PSR-E443 keyboard has a built-in feature that's supposed to be able to remove the vocals or main melody from a song fed in through the "Aux In" connection, so that you can sing or play along, but I haven't tested it (duh, because I've only had my PSR-E443 for two years now and I haven't got one of those round tuits for it yet; duh, none of the local stores keep them in stock and I'm afraid to order one over the internet because there are too many different ones to choose from and I might pick the wrong one or have my identity stolen, duh, so I want to try it out in the store first to make sure there are no compatible issues). Presumably it only "mostly removes" the melody, or else removes it completely but also removes frequencies from the parts you want to keep. I'm sure it's intended more for having fun in your living room than for performing on stage-- so if it doesn't work as magically as shown in the TV commercials then no harm, no foul.

I always struggled hugely to remove one noise in isolation. Probably ‘cos the (physical) instrument I was trying to get rid of had more than a few harmonics that remained and removing the offending noise also removed harmonics of wanted instruments. It made what was left sound like an overdub.

The only other technique I've seen was an algorithm mentioned in a "machine learning" programming course that could take a recording of two things and separate it into two recordings-- if I remember correctly, the demonstration used a recording of music playing at a party, and the algorithm separated the music from the conversation. The result wasn't perfect-- the music could still faintly be heard in the recording of the conversation, and vice versa-- but it was certainly impressive nonetheless. I assume the algorithm works best when the two things are "clearly different" from each other in some way, so I don't know how well it might work at separating one instrument's part out of a song, since the definition of "music" implies that the instrument to be separated out is well-integrated into the whole-- as opposed to, say, the sound of a small child banging on a drum out of tempo and singing out of tune while a song is playing.

When trying to stop a particular frequency with fft software filtering – it may sound more appropriate with chained high-pass and low-pass rather than band stop. This would allow the user to vary the attenuation to frequency curve (independently) each side of the (centre frequency of the) band-stop.

That's a good point! And it would probably also be good to carefully apply automation to the filters' settings during different sections of the recording.

 

[happyrat1]

I don't understand why you guys are going on about filtering out the instrument since the instrument in question is the piano.

It's frequency range is pretty much the entire audio spectrum from about 27 Hz to over 4100 Hz not to mention harmonics and string resonances.

If he wanted to filter out a piccolo or a bass guitar maybe filtering would work.

Filtering out the entire range of the piano however, would result in pretty much the spectrum only a German Shepherd would enjoy

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

And when it comes to separating instruments with an algorithm, I give you this horrifying example of a Mariah Carey Song which was run from MP3 to MIDI converter and then back to MP3 again.

And even this is far beyond Bharat's skill level.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

BTW, Bharat, if you hook up the keyboard the way I showed in the above diagram, here's a series of tutorials by Cakewalk on how to use their Music Creator 6 DAW software. It sells for about $40 on Amazon and is more than capable of running VSTi Plugins, recording MIDI and Audio in multitrack mode and outputting a final MP3 or WAV recording suitable for CD Pressing if need be.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCPMyFyv8V07IAncgh9w3f0zL-2MwyLQb



http://www.amazon.com/Cakewalk-10-CWMC6-00-10C-Music-Creator-6/dp/B004TO9M5W

To make this work on your system, you'd have to load a CD or MP3 of the song you want to cover or a backing track into Windows Media Player, and then record it as an audio track into Cakewalk, then add your MIDI track afterward in the same Cakewalk software, and then finally export the mix as a WAV or MP3 file.

It's really not all that difficult.

Gary

 

[rbowser]

You've gotten a lot of good responses, bharatbash - Reply #14 from happyrat1 is similar to what I was going to say.

Maybe this isn't exactly what you had in mind, but I'm currently in the process of cooking up keyboard versions of some tunes on CDs, and that's done by playing along with the recording. With Cakewalk/Sonar software, I rip/import the CD track into the project file. Then I use a tool in Cakewalk that lets you create a tempo map that follows all the slight fluctuations of tempo in the recording. Once that's done, the software's metronome clicks back in exact time with the track. I start laying the MIDI tracks, all on separate tracks parallel to the audio guide track. When I'm done, I mix down just my work, muting the original guide track. See?

 

[Fred Coulter]

Bharat >>> I'm not a lawyer and I have really no frigging idea what constitutes "fair use" these days under the DMCA and its signatories.

I think you're probably safe enough posting on youtube and worst case scenario they will just send a takedown letter if they feel you've violated copyright. You probably won't get sued unless your piece becomes a commercial success and you start to make real money on it.

The more likely result is that the copyright holder will let you use the song BUT won't let you monetize it. When ads run, they'll get the money, not you.

Which shouldn't be a problem, right?