Your portable listening is ashes, but I and Kan Ye used it to fight the disc

You can't find "Kan Ye" Kanye West on any mainstream music platform, the album Donda 2 released in February last year. It was not because it was removed from the shelves, but it was not on the shelves at all. If you want to listen, you can only spend $ 200 to buy STEM Player, which is launched simultaneously, listening to this "specified" player.

STEM Player 丨 Giphy

This STEM Player is different from the traditional portable listening and MP3. It has no screen and only has four touch -capable lamp bars. If you use Stem Player's supporting services on the webpage, you can separate the songs into the four tracks of "human voice, drum, bass, melody". Then, you can slide the light bar and adjust the volume as you want.

For example, you import a "Sweet Honey" that can slide the volume of "drums, bass, melody" to mute, and then pull the "vocal" to the highest ... In this way, you can hear Teresa Teng's clear singing, press the positive positive The middle button in the middle can also circulate a small section of the current current, such as repeating "like flowers in the spring breeze" to complete a "ghost animal".

I am an electronic instrument designer. The first time I saw this product was revealed, I didn't take it too seriously. I don't know if it has a real ability or a pure gimmick. But when I saw many users play it as a musical instrument, I knew that things were not easy.

Although the operations on STEM Player are extremely simple, this has changed the relationship between the audience and music. The audience can only passively listen to it before it can interact with music and participate in it.

Music like DJ in the center of the dance floor 丨 Photo by Modesta žemgourytė on UNSPLASH

If you ask me: "I do n’t know the rhythm and do n’t have musical instruments, but I imagine the dg in the center of the dance floor to control music and change the rhythm. Is this possible?" "

I will answer: "Yes."

Is a new device

But not new technology

The technologies of audio multi -track recording and playback are not trendy or deep, and it has before the emergence of digital technology. In the mid -1960s, a multi -track tape recorder was born, and the multi -channel recording method was introduced.

The picture shows the multi -track tape recorder Studer A827 used in the recording studio, which has more than 24 rails | MerchantCircle

At that time, the price of a digital recording device has not appeared at the smartphone. I often see that others use Tascam 414 MK2 to make music.

TASCAM 414 MK2 丨 ElectricDenimstudios

Why do you want to record so many rails?

Multi -track recording is to record a variety of instruments and vocals to different tracks, so that you can adjust the volume and other parameters of the sound on each track separately, and edit music more freely. It can be said to be the core technology of music production.

Simraid technology has a long history and is not new. The relatively new one is "STEMS". It was first proposed by Native Instruments in 2015 that it is an innovation in DJ equipment and music distribution methods.

Picture source: native-instructions

To be precise, STEMS is a rule of audio content distribution. It stipulates that when music is distributed, it should be carried out in the form of four rails.

In this way, whether it is DJ and the producer, after getting a four -track music, you can create on -site or recording studios more freely, and arbitrarily combine the sound rails of different instruments. Therefore Freedom.

STEM Player is a device used to play STEMS.

Do not buy Stem Player

You can also try STEMS playback

If you do not have Stem Player, but you want to experience the music to play music, there is also a way. In short, it is to separate a complete song into four orbits, and then play these tracks separately.

First of all, we must first convert a song into a rare audio file. However, the transformation of this method is not as good as the export of tracks during production. The effect will be almost a day to pay back the raw materials for each raw material.

Here are a few websites that can be performed online:

-https://songdonkey.ai/ Each song of the rail can only be downloaded, and no subscription member;

-https://songtosses.com/ The week before the user registration is free, and then you need to subscribe to members;

-https://ezstems.com/ Under free cases, the upload file size will be limited, and there are paid subscription services;

-https://splitter.ai/ Under free case, you can only divide the song into 5 tracks and pay for subscribing services.

Next, use my own song "Autumn" to make a demonstration. Take the EZSTEMS website as an example, upload the original song (the free version can only upload the files below 5MB), select 4 STEMS on the parameter (as the player to be used below); , Or choose casually; click to download after download, and finally unzip the good ZIP file package. Use EZSTMES Demonstration ｜ Author's picture supply

You can also use splitter.ai: drag and drop or click upload files, wait for the song to process the song, and then click "Track Status" or "My Uploads" to find the tracks you just uploaded. Just accept it.

Demonstrate with Splitter.ai ｜ Author's picture

In this way, we can play these mesh music on https://stemplayeronline.com/. The following is the process of use:

Source: Made in the author

When I am "shot" STEM Player

Actually in Remix

Play STEMS on the webpage and slide STEM Player. Experience is almost the same? no.

Although the functions of the two are similar, the difference is still very different. STEM Player is not just as simple as multi -track audio. It uses a silicone shell, with a small shape, and its own speakers. The interface is intuitive and there is almost no threshold for operation. It emphasizes touch experience.

Imagine the scene where you listen to music, and you will definitely not adjust the volume frequently on the mobile or special music playback equipment. But if you use a four -rail audio player to listen, you will want to control the variables of the music, such as determining the mixed ratio, play direction, speed, circulating song paragraphs of the sound track ... This is like playing a musical instrument in a musical instrument It's right.

And STEM Player's musical instrument attribute is the reason why I recognize it as an electronic instrument designer.

STEM Player has a variety of interaction and functions, which is not small ｜ STEM Player instructions

This method of manipulating music is actually a simple remix (re -mixing), that is, the songs that others have released, and the elements of them are reorganized and processed according to their own understanding, which is equivalent to "secondary creation creation creation "". The music after Remix may "change his head" in the rhythm and style. A song that was originally sad, and after remix, it may become a bursting dance.

The reason why I said that STEM Player is doing a simple remix, or because its function is too basic. Many Remix contains a large number of non -linear editors such as slicing reconstruction, which cannot be done on STEM Player. But it does not hinder players playing Remix on it.

YouTube blogger Alex SVVET uses STEM Player Remix | https://www.youtube.com/watch? v = Eyxdh3SHAXIAB_CHANNEL = Alexsvvvet

The best imagination of STEM PLAYER

Is the whole people's performance

The interaction between people and musical instruments is a very complicated backback process. Different tools can develop the same motivation into a completely different work. And the experience of user participation, compared to the one -way output of the finished music, can make the experience unclear.

One of the trends of modern musical instruments is simplified. You can perform pleasing music without passing years of hard practice. The "musical instrument" like STEM PLAYER, its input end is already a good music, so it won't be too unpleasant to operate next.

But the musical instrument that is not "unpleasant" is lower. Everyone can play a pleasant and uniform sound, so it is also boring. Therefore, taking a balance between expressiveness and simplicity has become a challenge for the new generation of electronic instrument designers.

Weaken the difficulty of performance. The feasibility on electronic musical instruments is relatively high. The reference object is the original sound instrument. The original acoustic instrument mainly refers to musical instruments that produce sounds through the mechanical characteristics of the instrument itself, such as guitar, piano, flute, and their sounds are not modified.

When the guitar piano becomes doubled, if you still use the previous performance techniques, the sound will become inappropriate, and new methods need to be adapted. Or, when you remove the guitar's wire, the sound of musical instruments will become different.

There are Pinbars ｜ ROBALLENGUITARS.com

For example, there is no silk in the unknown bass, and the sound will become smaller and the sound will be softer. At this time, the performers are not suitable for the method of hitting the string. Music and structure can affect the performance technique. In summary, in the original acoustic musical musical instrument, the technique, performance interface, and sound are highly coupled. When you take it, you often move your body.

But the electronic instrument is especially separated from its performance interface and sound engine. Whether it is the voltage control in the analog era, the MIDI born in the 1980s, and the new OSC (Open Sound Control), etc., which can make information between electronic instruments, which makes the performance interface more independent. Whether it is a black and white keyboard or a hair tube, different sound sources can play many different sounds.

Photo confession

Even on the market, a type of device called "controller" is also circulating, which refers to only output control information without directly generating sound performance interface. In this way, the electronic instrument designer can work hard on the performance interface, and take a balance between sound expression and the difficulty of performance techniques.

When I design a musical instrument, I tend to allow the instrument design to reach two points -easy to get started, and there is enough depth. The former allows the performers to quickly enjoy their musical instruments, while the latter allows the instrument to have a greater expressive space. The performers are practicing and advanced in terms of performance and proficiency, and have a deep relationship with the instrument.

"The difficulty of playing the electronic instrument is determined by the design of the interface." Buchla Thunder | Pinterest

The difficulty of playing the electronic instrument is determined by the design of the interface. Will the designer consider whether the sound is continuous like a piano, or is it as quantified as the piano? It can even be quantified directly to the specific scales, and at the same time, the unpleasant "wrong sound" can be avoided, and the difficulty of the performance will be further reduced.

On Stem Player, if a few people play the same song, they will not play a lot of tricks. Its solution is to open the input terminal. After the user creates an account, you can download the official website turtle library through the computer. You can also upload the audio to the official website. After the four -track separation on the website, it can be transmitted to the device with USB. In this way, by changing the song, users use completely different materials. Although the pit is not deep, you can dig a lot of shallow pits to ensure strong playability.

Further reduce the threshold for playing music, so that people who have not been trained in music can also experience the fun of creating music -so that the whole people can participate in the performance. This is my best expectations for STEM Player.

You know, many years ago, the release of records was not something everyone could do. But now, it is what everyone can do on the Internet. In a statistics in February 2021, as many as 60,000 music uploaded to Spotify every day.

In 2020, there are 8 million creators on Spotify ｜ MusicBusinessworldWide.com

It is likely that after that, the music conference will become easier, but at the same time, it will become more and more difficult to stand out from this, which will become more and more difficult.

The possibility of STEM Player shows us is that the performance and production of music will weaken the purpose, and it is more inclined to feel self -experience. We can play instruments with the same mentality of singing and dancing to make the instrument a companion.

Author: Meng Qi

Edit: BIU

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