ReFrame - instrument and vocal isolation

Use ReFrame to mute or solo a specific frequency range in a specific position on the sound stage.

• Focus on your instrument while muting the rest of the band to help you learn or transcribe.
• Remove your instrument and play along with the band for the ultimate practice session.
• Sing along to your own karaoke track.

ReFrame allows you to "crop" sound.  You can include or exclude the frequencies inside or outside the window. The vertical range represents the frequencies and the horizontal range represents the position on stage (left and right).

If the instrument or vocals are contained in a unique position on stage and frequency range they can be soloed or muted. This will work better for some songs than others, depending on the mix.

ReFrame uses stereo separation to isolate audio in a specific range within the stereo field. Audio recorded in mono (single track) does not contain a stereo field, and only the frequency range will be adjustable. The FineTouch EQ can provide more detailed frequency adjustments for mono recordings.

ReFame is accessed by changing modes.

On iPhone:

Tap the mode selector button (or ),  to the right of the Play button, to reveal the Mode selector. Choose  ReFrame

On iPad:

Tap  ReFrame in the mode selector bar.

On Mac:

Click  ReFrame  in the mode selector bar. ReFrame can also be enabled and disabled from the main controls when not in ReFrame mode.

Adjust the level of isolation with the slider. The highest level of isolation may add artifacts.

Select one of the three presets to position the frame:

• Remove vocals
• Solo vocals
• Solo bass

Adjust the position and size of the frame with the handles.

To remove vocals (iPhone example):

1. Enter ReFrame Mode .
2. Tap the Preset button  or and  "Solo Vocals"
   This is a typical location frequency range for vocals.
3. Tap Solo button  . You will only hear the sounds within the cropping window.
4. Now move and resize the window by dragging the handles until you can only hear the voice you want to remove. It might not be easy and you may need to compromise.
5. Tap Mute button . 

Some songs will work wonderfully, others with mixes using stereo effects like echo may not work as well. You will need to play a little. Hopefully you will find it fun listening to familiar songs in new ways.

You may not be able to achieve complete vocal or instrument isolation, but depending on the mix you may be able to reduce or enhance vocals or instruments quite significantly.

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A message from the designer (Fabio)

I like dissecting music. Every time I listen to a piece of music I can focus on something else. Just the bass, how the guitar and the keyboard interplay the rhythm, the sax solo, the vocals, the percussion, and sometimes even the song as a whole!

Our brains, with practice, can become quite good at focusing. I find it amazing that we can pick up what one instrument is doing in a piece of music if we pay attention.

The Anytune ReFrame feature is a tool to help us isolate what we are interested in. It’s not perfect, but it can help. And this is how it works.

The Mix

Most music we listen to is in stereo. When we put on headphones we hear instruments only on the left or right ear, or somewhere in between. This reflects how the song was recorded and mixed in the studio.

A multitrack recording these days can dedicate one track (or more) to each instrument/vocals. The mixing engineer uses a big mixing console to combine all these tracks into a stereo (two track) mix.

The basic mixing tools include: volume, pan and effects.

The volume of each recorded track is carefully adjusted for overall balance.

The pan position of each track dictates its position in the stereo field. A track can be panned centre, full left, full right, or anywhere in between.

Effects can be used for shaping the sound of each track (like EQ, modulation effects, delay effects) and also to make them appear closer or farther away (Reverb).

A good mix strikes a fine balance between the whole and each part. Pan position and EQ can be used to carve a space in the sound space for each track.

Pan: If the frequency range of two instruments is very similar, pan position can help separating them. An example is panning the rhythm guitars/keyboards left and right. Main vocals and instrument solos usually take the centre, along with the low end (bass, bass drum, etc). Backup vocals and rhythm section usually spread across the sides.

EQ: can be used to avoid overlaps in frequency range. An example is cutting off lows from a guitar track and highs from the bass track. Backup vocals can be limited in frequency range not to compete with the main vocals.

All these tools enable the mixing engineer to give each part a place in the whole and to drive our attention to the main pieces in the arrangement: volume, pan, effects (changing over time).

The best possible way to listen to each track or track combination in a mix is to get invited to the mixing studio and play with the mute/solo buttons and volume slider of each track in the original multitrack recording. This could be called perfect isolation 🙂

ReFrame

The next best thing is to use Anytune ReFrame.

ReFrame uses pan position and EQ to help us focus on a desired part of the mix. It consists of a visualizer, a cropping window, and isolation controls.

The visualizer is a collection of LEDs organized in columns and rows. Each column corresponds to a pan position. For sounds panned centre, LEDs in the centre column will light up.

Rows correspond to frequency contents. The LEDs in the bottom row light up for low frequency sounds (like bass notes), while the LEDs in the top row light up for high frequency sounds (like cymbals).

The brightness of each LED represents the volume of its corresponding frequency range at its pan position. LEDs are animated in real time following the music.

Start by watching the ReFrame visualizer while listening to your favourite song. This will help you identify the main components in the mix.

Try the Solo Vocals preset. A cropping window or frame appears. Sounds inside the cropping window are not affected, everything outside the cropping window is attenuated. How much attenuation is controlled with the attenuation slider. Keep the attenuation at 100% for now. Try hitting the Mute button. Now the reverse happens, sounds inside the cropping window are now attenuated while everything outside is unaffected. Hit the Off button to go back to the original mix.

Now hit the Solo button and try moving the cropping window around by grabbing the diamond in the centre of the window. You will hear different portions of the mix depending on their pan position and frequency contents.

When you move the cropping window left and right you can focus on sounds at different pan positions. When you move it up and down you can focus on sounds with different frequency contents.

Try resizing the window by grabbing its side handles. Making it wider will include more of the stereo field. Making it taller will include a larger frequency range.

With attenuation set at 100% try moving and resizing the cropping window to frame all the interesting areas of the mix.

Trade offs

As you can tell already, the separation is not perfect. It is not always possible to completely isolate an individual instrument. The instrument(s) you are trying to isolate may sound different. And the rest of the mix that you are trying to attenuate may be creeping in and out, producing a “bubbling” sound effect. It all depends on the music style and specific mix.

Time for playing with attenuation! We can control how much we attenuate with the attenuation slider. It is a personal trade off between level of isolation and undesirable side effects, which may be distracting. For example, when trying to pick up a solo, you can start with the Solo Vocals preset and tweak the cropping window until the solo instrument is in focus. Smaller windows will produce more isolation, but will also introduce more side effects. Reducing attenuation will bring in more of the rest of the mix and minimize artifacts, while boosting the solo enough to make it easier to pick up in context. Each song is different, you have to play with the tool controls to achieve your desired results.

After you isolated the solo and slowed it down to pick up each note, you can switch to Mute to remove the original solo and use LiveMix to play along with the accompaniment. Again, adjust the cropping window to your taste.

A fun experiment is to listen to a playlist of your favourite songs with the Remove Vocals preset. Suddenly the instrumental accompaniment takes first row while the singer is off stage taking a break.

As you play with ReFrame on different songs you will understand the potential and limitations of the tool, and get better at adjusting the controls for each situation.

We hope you like it.