New Digital Music Format - Customizable Sound!
 

This sounds too cool - love the music but hate the vocals? Want to remove the cheesy 80s synths from an otherwise decent, but dated, song? Want to boost the bass on a great metal album that came out in 1988 but was ruined by terrible production? Maybe you can (eventually)! I guess this would be set up for future use, but it would be cool to see it available for old stuff, too.




The new MP3: revolutionary file format offers customisable sound

Music 2.0 - MT9 allows you to become a producer and edit your favourite music

Sean Michaels
Tuesday May 27, 2008

guardian.co.uk
Do you love Billy Corgan's voice but hate the sound of Smashing Pumpkins? Do you loathe Jay-Z's rapping but love Kanye West's production? Well, Korean engineers have just the thing for you and, if they have their way, you'll never again have to listen to a James Iha guitar solo.


Audizen is a Korean company promoting the MT9 digital music format, a proposed follow-up to the ubiquitous WAV, MP3 and AAC formats on computers, websites and iPods. Whereas MP3s are merely compressed versions of songs, MT9 has separate controls for each musical instrument. Listeners can tweak the volume for each channel - such as guitar, drums, bass and vocals - muting or amplifying their favourite parts.

The technology was first developed at Korea's Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute before being acquired by Audizen. In April, Audizen's engineers presented MT9 to the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG), an international body responsible for digital technology. "They immediately voted to make it a candidate for the digital music standard format," CEO Ham Seung-chul told the Korea Times. The list of candidates will be further whittled down at a June conference in Germany.

Songs mastered for the MT9 format not only allow you to take out the annoying saxophone solos, they can also convert any song into a karaoke-friendly instrumental version, or even a more intimate a capella.

Samsung and LG Electronics are both interested in adding MT9 capabilities to their mobile phones, according to Seung-chul. And MT9-equipped devices are promised for as early as next year. That means they'll arrive just in time for the next Black Eyed Peas album. First we'll be able to mute Fergie ... then Will.I.Am ... then the backing track ... and before we know it ... bliss!

I think a lot of musicians will balk at this.

Wow this would be awesome if true. I always want to remove vocals when using songs in my podcasts.

Isn't there a way to do this already? I thought there was software out there that could break a song into separate channels.

A karaoke singer's dream.

Only if the vocals are smack dab in the middle. You can use phase cancellation to remove the vocals, so if there is any bias towards left or right, it won't get completely canceled out.

Gotcha.

I was wanting to try to do that. Does Audacity have that capability?

Yep, that's what I use. Here's a link to their wiki on how to do it:
http://audacityteam.org/wiki/index.p...=Vocal_Removal

I also have Adobe's audio product, but I've had better luck with Audacity.

Cool, thanks.