13 April 2009

Tutorial - Instrument Isolation (Funky Worm)




A few weeks ago I posted a video/blog entry showing the results of instrument isolation in Photoshop. Here is a tutorial showing how you can reproduce it.

I. Turning a sound into image
- Cut the piece of sound you want to work on in your favourite audio editor and save it to a file
- Open that file with Photosounder
- Once the image is done loading up on the screen, press the Save button and select "Image file" in the drop-down menu

II. Synth removal
- Open that image file in Photoshop (or similar image editor like GIMP)
- Invert the colours for the sake of visibility (Ctrl+I)
- Select the Clone tool, and set it to a size of 4 pixels, and a hardness about 70%
- Make sure the Aligned box is ticked, hold Alt, click somewhere on the image, release Alt, and click again a dozen pixels right above the point you previous clicked. Also, make sure the Mode is set to Lighten.
- Erase the lowest line that belongs to the synth this way
- Then proceed to erase all the lines above this way. At some point you might choose to have your source above where you spray instead of under, or just make the source closer to where you spray.
- When you're done removing all the synth lines, Invert (Ctrl+I) then Save (Ctrl+S)

III. Listening to the results
- Make sure Photosounder is loaded with the original sound
- Load the image you just edited and saved
- Press the Lossless mode button so that it's ON
- Press Play once the blue progress bar above the image is entirely dark blue

IV. Isolation
- Copy the synth-less image and paste it on a new layer on top of the original image
- Invert both layers (so that their backgrounds are both white)
- Set the image to 16-bit mode
- In Levels set on both their Gamma (the central value) to 2.00
- Set the blending mode to Difference
- Flatten the image
- Invert it
- In Levels set the Gamma to 0.5
- Turn back to 8-bit mode
- Invert again and save the image file
- Reload the image file in Photosounder (press R) and listen

V. Clean up
- Invert
- Clean the noise around the lines with a tiny (about 4 px) white brush
- Fix the holes in straight lines with the clone tool
- Select the highest line which you could fully fix, then copy it and move it upwards in the place of the incomplete lines
- Change the intensity of each copy of the model line with Levels so they fit the intensity of the underlying line
- Flatten
- Invert
- Reload the image in Photosounder
- Save the audio file by pressing Save

If there's any aspect of this that requires clarification do ask about it in the comments.

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10 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

the text under each step is all messed up and unreadable

April 13, 2009 2:44 PM  
Blogger Michel Rouzic said...

Fixed, damn Internet Explorer and its liberal interpretation of CSS..

April 13, 2009 3:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

ever tried spear?

April 13, 2009 10:59 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.klingbeil.com/spear/ <-- spear

April 13, 2009 11:01 PM  
Blogger Michel Rouzic said...

Yeah, that's quite different...

April 14, 2009 2:31 AM  
Blogger Баян said...

if u don't mind Michel, just curious about the reasons for some steps, could you please explain what bitrate and Gamma settings do to the image and why they're important:

IV. Isolation

- Invert both layers (so that their backgrounds are both white)
- Set the image to 16-bit mode
- In Levels set on both their Gamma (the central value) to 2.00
- Invert it
- In Levels set the Gamma to 0.5
- Turn back to 8-bit mode
- Invert again and save the image file

also you inverted the image trice in this routine, so it became white in the end (1. black to white, 2. white to black, 3. black to white), or did i miss a step when it became white again after the second inversion so it required another one?

but since i'm not a Photoshop user, if answering my questions necessitates explaining basics of PS usage, don't bother ;^)

thank you

May 19, 2009 10:17 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

cam i make an acapella whit it ? nice

June 30, 2009 8:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

is super - thank you for the magic!
but I have no money to the high, comes devastation ...
... Initially, the accumulation of money at the smoke, and then must buy the program)
this translator

November 12, 2009 5:46 PM  
Blogger sergelectric said...

Great job man! I can afford 25€ for Photosound but i cannot afford Photoshop. Is it possible to do all that stuff with Gimp?

Thanks for the reply.

Serge

December 01, 2009 11:02 PM  
Blogger sergelectric said...

Great job man! I can afford 25€ for Photosound but i cannot afford Photoshop. Is it possible to do all that steps with Gimp?

Thanks for the reply.

Serge

December 01, 2009 11:04 PM  

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