Different iTunes Mixes?

[MacRumors]

This forum post (http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28522) claims that some future iTunes songs may be published without one or more tracks to allow for playing along by the listener

Today I put together different mixes from the new band Damage Plan (formerly Pantera) to be sold on iTunes. The neat thing is each track has the song without certain instruments. Track one is without vocals, track 2 is without drums, track 3 is without guitars, etc... They did this so their young aspiring rock star fans can add their own instruments and play along with the tracks.

[Dippo]

I would guess each track would still cost 99 cents??

[Sheebahawk]

would be worth it, thius is good news hope it catches on,

just got my first ipod today, nearly finished loading all my os 9 games onto it

yay

[Sol]

Sounds like iTunes will sell Karaoke tracks.

Instead of individual tracks with specific instruments taken out, why not sell one 8-track AAC file? With such a file instruments could be switched on an off to suit the musician that wants to play along to it.

[anodized]

Hell ya!

This is a good idea :D

[paulypants]

sounds cool, i'd like to hear
more about it--could be
a popular idea

[squatch]

Sounds like a great way to promote GarageBand heavily through the ole "trojan horse" scheme that iTunes/iPod is suppose to be conducting on Windows users. :) Sounds like I do have a reason to buy iLife '04 after all.

[nagromme]

Sounds fun!

I'd make all the altered versions of a track sell together as album only--all for .99 or 1.98. (The original track would be sold separately for .99.)

[johnnyjibbs]

This has potential. I think Apple is really trying to get lots of budding musicians going - trying to release the creative potential inside every one of us. This ties in very well with the iTunes/iPod consumer thing and will sell more Macs in the long run.

[theISHkid]

hate to be the bearer of bad news... but the 8 different instruments on one song can't really happen. The audio programs used by the big boys is just like photoshop or final cut pro... it's all a bunch of layers and to make your song you have to flatten and render it out to a single track. That's why the guy had to make 4 different versions of his song. I guess they could start putting up garage band files and have those for sale with 8 different tracks; but I don't know how big of files a garage band track makes? Besides that all the big studios aren't gonna use garage band to mix their albums so i doubt that'll happen any time soon. I'm not dissing garage band but the big studios spend quite a bit more on their editing hardware and software. This would be a cool idea though and wouldn't suprise me if in a few years bands start releasing specialized songs for garage band for people to play with.

[Sol]

Originally posted by theISHkid
hate to be the bearer of bad news... but the 8 different instruments on one song can't really happen. The audio programs used by the big boys is just like photoshop or final cut pro... it's all a bunch of layers and to make your song you have to flatten and render it out to a single track. That's why the guy had to make 4 different versions of his song. I guess they could start putting up garage band files and have those for sale with 8 different tracks; but I don't know how big of files a garage band track makes? Besides that all the big studios aren't gonna use garage band to mix their albums so i doubt that'll happen any time soon. I'm not dissing garage band but the big studios spend quite a bit more on their editing hardware and software. This would be a cool idea though and wouldn't suprise me if in a few years bands start releasing specialized songs for garage band for people to play with.

I do not doubt that most mainstream music tracks use 60+ tracks before being rendered down to two, for stereo listening. Having said that, if Apple starts selling these rumoured re-mastered tracks there is no reason why guitars could not be consolidated into one track, drums in another, and so on. Eight tracks would be plenty for the purpose of home-jamming along to your favourite artists.

[hokka]

My first reaction was "how will the artists think of this? And would all of them like it to happen? Freely available to anyone? Is this breaking Copy-Right Law?"

Secondly, "this would not only encourage people to practice - but more importantly remix! and if so, soon there'd be boat-load of (not only) crap-songs generated by GB online, but crap remixes / karaoke versions you and I make" and is that really a good thing for the "professional" music industry.

I guess if this happens, many songs people download off P2P will be even more crappier! and many "fakes".... hahaha!

[slowtreme]

The BIG qustion is, "If Pantera released songs with one or more tracks missing, whould anyone notice?" :D

[bennetsaysargh]

that would be awesome!. they would actually just need to make photoshop-like layers to the files and there can be an open in garageband option under the advanced menu. i would love this.

[DavidLeblond]

Hmm... somehow I don't think this is gonna fly. Joe user can't just remix a song (even if he has access to the individual tracks) and "post" it on ITMS. Apple will just say "who the hell is this? This guy isn't with the band/label" and trash it.

And if they started releasing songs with all the instruments individually separated out, this would make the file a lot larger (ie if you have 4 stereo tracks, thats a file that is 4x the size of the original.)

I'm not saying its a terrible idea, just that I highly doubt Apple would do it... and that the industry will even let them.

[Phobophobia]

This doesn't sound like a very good idea to me, plus you can't even import protected AAC files into GarageBand.

[montecristo]

Although having stuff like partial tracks to play arouund with is a good idea, I don't think they should mix it in with iTMS. They can certainly sell online in a similar business model, but maybe they should open up a second store, (iTMS2 or iTunes Music Studio, or something).

I can imagine that if you start having a large selection of incomplete songs on there, it may make it too hard to find the complete songs, the albums and stuff sold on labels (whether indie or major labels).

Just my thoughts.

[bennetsaysargh]

Originally posted by DavidLeblond
Hmm... somehow I don't think this is gonna fly. Joe user can't just remix a song (even if he has access to the individual tracks) and "post" it on ITMS. Apple will just say "who the hell is this? This guy isn't with the band/label" and trash it.

And if they started releasing songs with all the instruments individually separated out, this would make the file a lot larger (ie if you have 4 stereo tracks, thats a file that is 4x the size of the original.)

I'm not saying its a terrible idea, just that I highly doubt Apple would do it... and that the industry will even let them.

they won't put them on iTunes. i ' know why they would in any possible way. and how about only people who want have these songs on the new iTunes Music Studio thing.

that way, everyone can be happy.

[andyduncan]

Hopefully this will spread to other bands so I can bust out my key-tar and rock with Flock of Seaguls.

[SFNE Freak]

This would not only be good for musicians, but for people who want to use songs without lyrics in their movie productions and such.

[Sol]

Originally posted by SFNE Freak
This would not only be good for musicians, but for people who want to use songs without lyrics in their movie productions and such.

In the film Training Day there was a scene where Cypress Hill's 'Rap Superstar' was used in the soundtrack but without the lyrics. I thought that was so disrespectful. If the whole song does not suit the scene then the film-maker should use something else.

[digdog1]

There are a few music-only remix tracks available on ITMS already. For example, hip-hop duo Outkast has their singles "Hey Ya" and "The Way You Move" available as an EP bundle -- the vocal versions, plus instrumental-only tracks of the same songs -- for 3.99. (You can also buy each of the four tracks individually.)

re selling songs as MIDI tracks: Some groups do this already. In some music stores, you can buy MIDI-format versions of hit songs for use with music keyboards. Depending on how these tracks are formatted, I imagine you could import them into Garage Band and do your own "remix."

[theISHkid]

Originally posted by Sol
I do not doubt that most mainstream music tracks use 60+ tracks before being rendered down to two, for stereo listening. Having said that, if Apple starts selling these rumoured re-mastered tracks there is no reason why guitars could not be consolidated into one track, drums in another, and so on. Eight tracks would be plenty for the purpose of home-jamming along to your favourite artists.

I might have read this wrong so if I did then sorry. It is not possible to mix out a single AAC song with x amount of tracks. All those layers are mixed out into one single track. You're cd player decodes the channels (left and right) for stereo but they are not two seperate tracks. The only way to do this would be to have a audio file with all the layers before it gets mixed down to one track. In order to do that everyone shopping at iTMS would have to have multitrack music editing software (enter garageband). This is what I was talking about earlier. I could see this happening later on in the future, but I think it's gonna be a while. Besides... how big of a file does garage band produce with 5 tracks at 3 minutes a piece? I don't have it yet but guessing from other "bigger" music editing programs like pro tools it's quite a large file.

[theISHkid]

Originally posted by DavidLeblond
Hmm... somehow I don't think this is gonna fly. Joe user can't just remix a song (even if he has access to the individual tracks) and "post" it on ITMS. Apple will just say "who the hell is this? This guy isn't with the band/label" and trash it.

David you're exactly right about joe user not being able to post on iTMS. First off Apple doesn't take music directly from the bands. The bands have to agree to do it but the record labels are the ones that submit the files. Second Apple isn't going to take any unsolicitated material, and the only way to get solicited is to get signed on to a label. There are so many thousands of artists and music groups out there and it is impossible for everyone of them to be known by the people that put music up on the store. But those people do know Columbia, Virgin, BMG, Jive, etc, and these are the people that give apple the songs to put up. From what I hear garage band is awesome... but you're not gonna find any garage bands (that aren't signed) on the iTMS.

[tkn]

They will need to add lyrics support with the bouncing ball next!

[603]

> > In the film Training Day there was a scene where Cypress Hill's 'Rap Superstar' was used in the soundtrack but without the lyrics. I thought that was so disrespectful. If the whole song does not suit the scene then the film-maker should use something else. < <

hey, there's an instrumental version of that song that came out on the vinyl version of the single - i had it when i was 12. there's nothing disrespectful about the band releasing an instrumental version of their own song. besides, film producers have to negotiate the rights to use films in movies, so either the band gave it the ok or some heartless A&R drone did. either way, the song was out there to begin with.

anyway, this whole trend was more or less predicted by Kevin Kelly (former editor of Wired) in this article, which was picked up by the New York Times: http://www.kk.org/writings/music.php

"Because you like to remix dance tunes, you buy the versions of songs that are remix-ready in all 24 tracks."

it's also worth mentioning that Kelly said, "So many amateur remixed versions of a hit tune are circulating on the Net that it's worth $5 to you to buy an authenticated official version," which seems to be in tune with some of the "original music" that some Garbage Band [sic] users are churning out.

anyway, like i said in another post, Sonic Foundry's www.acidplanet.com has been providing wannabe Rock Superstars with remix-ready song elements for a long time now, for free.

oh, umm, go iTunes and all that.

[603]

Originally posted by theISHkid
You're cd player decodes the channels (left and right) for stereo but they are not two seperate tracks.

actually, they are separate tracks - a final mixdown of a stereo song is referred to as a 2-track master. when you rip a song from a CD and open it up in Peak or any wave editor, you can clearly see two tracks. this is not computer voodoo, but just the way it works. a compact disc is not one big gob of music that gets split between the speakers. one track = mono, two tracks = stereo, it's that simple.

but hey, don't take my word for it:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=stereo+%22two+tracks

same goes for tape - if you've ever used a four-track (what are those?!?) you just put a regular tape in and you can record to four tracks, because you're using the left and right channels on both sides.

a DVD disc also has multiple tracks for audio, all separate...

* edited to fix Google link

[h'biki]

Originally posted by theISHkid
hate to be the bearer of bad news... but the 8 different instruments on one song can't really happen.

Hmm. Yes and no.

Most engineers will break their 60+ tracks into sub-mixes (or subs) so they can mix more easily with a 'live' feel. Noone has 60+ fingers to mix.

Sub mixes are usually part of the same protools session. Its where you bus a range of tracks into one fader. Each track usually consists of the parts for a particular instrument (drums, rhythm guitar etc) and the submix becames the whole of the instrument in the master mix.

This has been pretty much the standard way of doing things since, I dunno, at least before Sgt Peppers... (which is considered to be the 'breakthrough' album in terms o record production)

So, really, its not that difficult for an engineer to mix down each sub-mix for iTunes. In fact, there'll be plenty of engineers who do that already -- they may prefer to master-mix in a new PT session... or they'll be palming off the overall mix to another engineer or the mastering engineer.

So yeah, not that hard.

[This is also true of film + video. Where an engineer might be responsible for the submix of the steps, or the slips, or the bullet richochets. Each of those submixes is passed onto another soundie in the chain, until eventually the mixer gets a fraction of the tracks that were recorded. They still have heaps but not too much. The Supervising Sound Editor is the guy who makes sure all these parts work together when given to the mixer... In music, this is usually the responsibility of the Producer, or a Senior Engineer]

[lightboy56]

great we can all be like P. Diddy or whatever he is this week. This idea sounds really off the wall and doesn't make much sense for record companies. Karoake. sure, everyone wants a program that they can strip vocals off a song. Why not. I bet streaming itunes or the the music store purchases of a group of songs with no vocals would be a big hit at parties.

Maybe this is the beginning of their launch into oversees markets. Japan, China, the whole of Asia.

The possibilities are endless.

[mkrishnan]

Originally posted by 603
same goes for tape - if you've ever used a four-track (what are those?!?) you just put a regular tape in and you can record to four tracks, because you're using the left and right channels on both sides.

Just to add a tiny amount...when you use a multitrack recorder, say with 8 or 24 tracks, in a studio, typically each track is monophonic (some of them have default bridging to make stereo tracks, but each one uses two tracks). This usually works out well because most recording hardware (microphones, guitar pickups, etc) are mono anyway.

So then on the mixboard, there is a pan knob that lets you set this at center (so that when you mix it down, it's 50-50 to the left and the right) or biased. So the stereo sound typically gets built up from giving different microphones and pickups different stereo biases.

I believe MP4 has support for multitrack audio (>2, e.g. 5.1), doesn't it? Does the AAC standard allow you to have more than two tracks?

I'd think it would be much cooler if Apple started getting bands to release Garageband versions of their songs....

But the instrumental tracks on hip-hop albums are good for remixing or for freestyling (not that there aren't enough sucker MCs out there already. :D)

[DavidLeblond]

Originally posted by mkrishnan
I'd think it would be much cooler if Apple started getting bands to release Garageband versions of their songs....


I'd like to see how fast my GB crashed with a professional GB song, I throw 4 software instruments into mine and it goes belly up. :(

[rueyeet]

This was actually one of the first things I saw happening when Garage Band was released: the musical equivalent of fanfiction.net. :)

Like a group's lyrics, but not the lead's voice? Feel that you can re-interpret "Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This" or "Tainted Love" better than Marilyn Manson (and really, who couldn't)? Show your dedication by giving your own interpretation.

The rest is just a matter of sorting the gems from the crap (also much like fanfiction.net).