4 ms·

"Music source separation" appears to mean "vocal removal" but also setting aside the vocals into their own track. That's all I can glean from context, anyway.

marssaxman 8y ago
That's one application, but in general it is the problem of "unmixing" a piece of music - separating the percussion, bass, chords, melody, and so forth out from a single recording.
- btown 8y ago
  Source separation is much more general than just music. For instance, a common application is hearing assistance; can a hearing aid separate the voice of the person you want to listen to, from the background noise of many other perfectly valid conversations? I can't speak to the research presented in this link in context, but the first segment provides a good introduction to the problem domain: http://spandh.dcs.shef.ac.uk/chat2017/presentations/CHAT_2017_presentation_sunohara.pdf http://spandh.dcs.shef.ac.uk/chat2017/presentations/CHAT_201...
  - marssaxman 8y ago
    Nice, thanks for the link. I'm only familiar with it in the context of music analysis (ISMIR etc), though it's obvious that many of the core algorithms were developed originally for speech analysis.
  - jordipons_mtg 8y ago
    I'm Jordi Pons, one of the coauthors of the paper. Is very interesting that you mention that! Actually, we used source separation to remix music to improve the musical experience of cochlear implant users! Basically, music perception remains generally poor for cochlear implant users (due to the complexity of music signals). In order to simplify music for them, we remove the accompanying instruments to enhance vocals and beat (drums and bass), that is what they perceive the best. This was a nice source separation application that helped many people! :) https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.4971424 https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.4971424
    - btown 8y ago
      Very cool! I was introduced to the problem by a former colleague of mine: http://ryanmcorey.com/ http://ryanmcorey.com/ . His current research on using multichannel microphone arrays to improve real-time source separation, particularly for human listening applications, might be of interest to your team!
amelius 8y ago
If only the recording studios would provide unmixed tracks ... It might even be a significant revenue source as there are plenty of audiophiles that would pay for being able to change the volume of the string section compared to the flute section, etc cetera. Or DJs making remixes.
- golergka 8y ago
  https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/stems/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/stems/ That's exactly this, targeted for DJs, already available and widely used.
- stan_rogers 8y ago
  That was something Glenn Gould was always on about as well - that recording should go beyond eliminating the "non-take-twoness" on the performers' end to allowing the listener to participate actively in the performance.
- beat 8y ago
  It's not that easy, unfortunately. Mixing is a lot more complex and involved than it looks. It's a balancing act, making tracks stand out from the background or blend into the background, and finally putting it all into a coherent-sounding whole. For example, many mix engineers - most, probably - use a buss compressor as "glue" to help blend the whole mix together. Take out something loud like lead vocals or drums, and the buss compressor behavior changes, changing the rest of the mix. A lot of mixers also use sidechain compression to duck parts depending on other parts (like the kick drum taking a few db out of the bass). And besides the mix, it needs mastered (which costs money), and packaged separately from the rest of the album, making it a different product, to be sold separately. On the other hand, some fields actually do instrumental tracks with vocals stripped out as regular products - karaoke and hip-hop tracks are often made from the original mixes. Personally, as a mix engineer, I don't want some home genius second-guessing my mixing decisions.
  - amelius 8y ago
    > Personally, as a mix engineer, I don't want some home genius second-guessing my mixing decisions. But the home user could start from your default settings?
jordipons_mtg 8y ago
I'm Jordi Pons, one of the coauthors of the paper. Note that in our second part of the demo, besides separating vocals, we also separate drums and bass. See: http://jordipons.me/apps/end-to-end-music-source-separation/ http://jordipons.me/apps/end-to-end-music-source-separation/

marssaxman 8y ago

That's one application, but in general it is the problem of "unmixing" a piece of music - separating the percussion, bass, chords, melody, and so forth out from a single recording.

btown 8y ago
Source separation is much more general than just music. For instance, a common application is hearing assistance; can a hearing aid separate the voice of the person you want to listen to, from the background noise of many other perfectly valid conversations? I can't speak to the research presented in this link in context, but the first segment provides a good introduction to the problem domain: http://spandh.dcs.shef.ac.uk/chat2017/presentations/CHAT_2017_presentation_sunohara.pdf http://spandh.dcs.shef.ac.uk/chat2017/presentations/CHAT_201...
- marssaxman 8y ago
  Nice, thanks for the link. I'm only familiar with it in the context of music analysis (ISMIR etc), though it's obvious that many of the core algorithms were developed originally for speech analysis.
- jordipons_mtg 8y ago
  I'm Jordi Pons, one of the coauthors of the paper. Is very interesting that you mention that! Actually, we used source separation to remix music to improve the musical experience of cochlear implant users! Basically, music perception remains generally poor for cochlear implant users (due to the complexity of music signals). In order to simplify music for them, we remove the accompanying instruments to enhance vocals and beat (drums and bass), that is what they perceive the best. This was a nice source separation application that helped many people! :) https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.4971424 https://asa.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1121/1.4971424
  - btown 8y ago
    Very cool! I was introduced to the problem by a former colleague of mine: http://ryanmcorey.com/ http://ryanmcorey.com/ . His current research on using multichannel microphone arrays to improve real-time source separation, particularly for human listening applications, might be of interest to your team!

amelius 8y ago

If only the recording studios would provide unmixed tracks ... It might even be a significant revenue source as there are plenty of audiophiles that would pay for being able to change the volume of the string section compared to the flute section, etc cetera. Or DJs making remixes.

golergka 8y ago
https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/stems/ https://www.native-instruments.com/en/specials/stems/ That's exactly this, targeted for DJs, already available and widely used.
stan_rogers 8y ago
That was something Glenn Gould was always on about as well - that recording should go beyond eliminating the "non-take-twoness" on the performers' end to allowing the listener to participate actively in the performance.
beat 8y ago
It's not that easy, unfortunately. Mixing is a lot more complex and involved than it looks. It's a balancing act, making tracks stand out from the background or blend into the background, and finally putting it all into a coherent-sounding whole. For example, many mix engineers - most, probably - use a buss compressor as "glue" to help blend the whole mix together. Take out something loud like lead vocals or drums, and the buss compressor behavior changes, changing the rest of the mix. A lot of mixers also use sidechain compression to duck parts depending on other parts (like the kick drum taking a few db out of the bass). And besides the mix, it needs mastered (which costs money), and packaged separately from the rest of the album, making it a different product, to be sold separately. On the other hand, some fields actually do instrumental tracks with vocals stripped out as regular products - karaoke and hip-hop tracks are often made from the original mixes. Personally, as a mix engineer, I don't want some home genius second-guessing my mixing decisions.
- amelius 8y ago
  > Personally, as a mix engineer, I don't want some home genius second-guessing my mixing decisions. But the home user could start from your default settings?

jordipons_mtg 8y ago

I'm Jordi Pons, one of the coauthors of the paper. Note that in our second part of the demo, besides separating vocals, we also separate drums and bass. See: http://jordipons.me/apps/end-to-end-music-source-separation/ http://jordipons.me/apps/end-to-end-music-source-separation/