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Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you l

Here's something I've always wanted: A consumer music file format that preserves all of the underlying tracks ('stems') so that they can be adjusted while you listen to the song. Imagine listening to a recording and going "ooh, that bassline", and then turning up the bassist and turning down everything else to hear it better. Or easily "remixing" while you listen by eg. applying a filter to only the drums. You could even save presets to listen to "your" mix of the song again. Maybe this only appeals to hardcore music fans, but I know it's something I'd love to play with. Of course it would have to be supported by major user-friendly software like iTunes, and would have to implement a nice interface for interacting with a tracks. But I've always thought Apple was very well positioned to take this on, if they wanted to.

ssharp 12y ago
This could be interesting. Especially for artists using the Apple toolchain, namely Logic. It seems like a lot of stuff could then be duplicated on the desktop / mobile to give interested listeners control over various song elements. I don't know how many people would actually be interested in that, though. It would be targeting a segment of music listeners that are extremely engaged with their music. I don't know if that market is really big enough to overcome the growing preference for streaming services.
dubcanada 12y ago
That would be awesome...
ceejayoz 12y ago
I imagine this being greeted with fury and lawsuits from the artists. I remember a company in Utah that made family-friendly cuts of popular movies being sued for the modifications.
imaginenore 12y ago
There are tons of formats like that. Midi, old tracker ones (s3m, xm, mod). But very few artists are willing to publish the "source code" of their work.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  What about rock bands and other recording music with their instruments rather than through samplers ?
  - imaginenore 12y ago
    I'm pretty sure they are recorded separately in a studio. At least the high end bands.
jaimebuelta 12y ago
It sounds cool, but it will be a disaster. Does anyone remember the "ultra boost" button on the old Walkman to raise the bass to insane levels? Or all the equalizer voodoo, where people will "tune" moving levels and buttons forming shapes? The sad truth is that audio engineers are way better than anyone else in mixing the music and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them. The same thing goes for headphones. It's better to get something more or less neutral in the sound to listen music in the way is supposed to sound, not distorting it adding crazy bass.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  I'd agree with you if those audio engineers hadn't participated in the loudness war for the three last decades.
  - kevincennis 12y ago
    For what it's worth, most engineers want absolutely nothing to do with the loudness wars. These are people who've made a career on developing their ears, and the harmonic distortion from limiting the fuck out of a recording sounds even worse to them than it does to the general public. The problem is that record labels have bought into the idea that a record needs to be outrageously loud in order to compete on radio. And the labels are the ones paying the mastering engineers.
- malka 12y ago
  It might not be for simply listening to the music, but for a moment 'hey this bassline kicks ass, I want to hear it alone to study it'
- post_break 12y ago
  Doesn't matter who's better at what. If consumers want to make smiley faces with their EQ let them. It's all about customization. Ask Metallica about how great their sound engineers were when they basically neutered their album. People buy Beats because they like the way they sound (or because their idols use them). Even if you may think it's the same as ultra boost. It's not about what sounds good, it's about what you think sounds good.
Pxtl 12y ago
I believe Ogg has support for this, but who publishes oggs?
hazz 12y ago
I would love this, but the file sizes would be insane. We'd be talking hundreds of megabytes (possibly gigabytes?) per song. Unless each track was MP3 encoded first, but I'd imagine you'd have trouble mixing tracks together from lossy sources.
- johnchristopher 12y ago
  Insane ? A standard DVD is 4.7 gigabytes. That would be 6 tracks and it would be ideal for any rock band and we haven't yet compressed the thing with loss (not technically true but you get the point. I don't know about electronic music though.
Ryanmf 12y ago
Just yesterday I was investigating music/production startups, and one of the few ideas I came across that seemed halfway-interesting was Splice[0]. On the producer side they have plugins for a few DAWs that enable easier collaboration and version tracking and so forth. But what comes of that (and why it's relevant to your comment) is a Soundcloud-ish embeddable web player that breaks out all the tracks/stems into a timeline beneath the main player interface. It's pretty interesting, although I don't know how much of an opportunity is there, for some of the same reasons mentioned in the other replies. Musicians and producers can be incredibly reticent about this stuff. [0]http://splice.com http://splice.com

ssharp 12y ago

This could be interesting. Especially for artists using the Apple toolchain, namely Logic. It seems like a lot of stuff could then be duplicated on the desktop / mobile to give interested listeners control over various song elements. I don't know how many people would actually be interested in that, though. It would be targeting a segment of music listeners that are extremely engaged with their music. I don't know if that market is really big enough to overcome the growing preference for streaming services.

dubcanada 12y ago

That would be awesome...

ceejayoz 12y ago

I imagine this being greeted with fury and lawsuits from the artists. I remember a company in Utah that made family-friendly cuts of popular movies being sued for the modifications.

imaginenore 12y ago

There are tons of formats like that. Midi, old tracker ones (s3m, xm, mod). But very few artists are willing to publish the "source code" of their work.

johnchristopher 12y ago
What about rock bands and other recording music with their instruments rather than through samplers ?
- imaginenore 12y ago
  I'm pretty sure they are recorded separately in a studio. At least the high end bands.

jaimebuelta 12y ago

It sounds cool, but it will be a disaster. Does anyone remember the "ultra boost" button on the old Walkman to raise the bass to insane levels? Or all the equalizer voodoo, where people will "tune" moving levels and buttons forming shapes? The sad truth is that audio engineers are way better than anyone else in mixing the music and making it shine. The better approach is not to mess with that and just trust them. The same thing goes for headphones. It's better to get something more or less neutral in the sound to listen music in the way is supposed to sound, not distorting it adding crazy bass.

johnchristopher 12y ago
I'd agree with you if those audio engineers hadn't participated in the loudness war for the three last decades.
- kevincennis 12y ago
  For what it's worth, most engineers want absolutely nothing to do with the loudness wars. These are people who've made a career on developing their ears, and the harmonic distortion from limiting the fuck out of a recording sounds even worse to them than it does to the general public. The problem is that record labels have bought into the idea that a record needs to be outrageously loud in order to compete on radio. And the labels are the ones paying the mastering engineers.
malka 12y ago
It might not be for simply listening to the music, but for a moment 'hey this bassline kicks ass, I want to hear it alone to study it'
post_break 12y ago
Doesn't matter who's better at what. If consumers want to make smiley faces with their EQ let them. It's all about customization. Ask Metallica about how great their sound engineers were when they basically neutered their album. People buy Beats because they like the way they sound (or because their idols use them). Even if you may think it's the same as ultra boost. It's not about what sounds good, it's about what you think sounds good.

Pxtl 12y ago

I believe Ogg has support for this, but who publishes oggs?

hazz 12y ago

I would love this, but the file sizes would be insane. We'd be talking hundreds of megabytes (possibly gigabytes?) per song. Unless each track was MP3 encoded first, but I'd imagine you'd have trouble mixing tracks together from lossy sources.

johnchristopher 12y ago
Insane ? A standard DVD is 4.7 gigabytes. That would be 6 tracks and it would be ideal for any rock band and we haven't yet compressed the thing with loss (not technically true but you get the point. I don't know about electronic music though.

Ryanmf 12y ago

Just yesterday I was investigating music/production startups, and one of the few ideas I came across that seemed halfway-interesting was Splice[0]. On the producer side they have plugins for a few DAWs that enable easier collaboration and version tracking and so forth. But what comes of that (and why it's relevant to your comment) is a Soundcloud-ish embeddable web player that breaks out all the tracks/stems into a timeline beneath the main player interface. It's pretty interesting, although I don't know how much of an opportunity is there, for some of the same reasons mentioned in the other replies. Musicians and producers can be incredibly reticent about this stuff. [0]http://splice.com http://splice.com