V2.007 (first) - Closed! [Archive]

MikeP

July 4th, 2001, 04:17 AM

Thanks for the hint Brian Corr re the link to the software. I've installed the prog and had a quick fiddle with a wav file that was originally multiplex format. Very effective - sounded better than the original! I will now try a "normal" studio recorded early stereo file and see how it works. I haven't bothered to read the manual yet as it's pretty intuitive for me - having used progs like soundforge. I like the fact that u can switch between the track u r devocalising and the original "on the fly" and u don't have to keep starting at the beginning. (This is the first time I have tried Vogone in any form and I might be mentioning things that others just take for granted.) It is certainly a lot easier to use than the Thompson VE-3+. Further feedback once I have done some more experimenting. 'Bye...

admin

July 4th, 2001, 04:39 PM

Thanks to both of you for pointing out my wrong link. I have just sent a "correction" email to all testers.

MikeP, I too am very, very pleased with the instant (and even CLICKLESS!) switching you can do between any of the play buttons and thus adjusters. Ricardo did an excellent job on this. I had to keep proding him for this because he wanted to keep polilshing the elimination filters. I didn't push too hard as I knew he could do the best possible on elimination. There have been many internal versions (you are seeing 2.007) to get to this point.

Mike, with your Thompson VE box background, I will especially be looking for your comparison. If we don't sound good on this release, remember we will be polishing based on you guys and gals feedback.

As this is the FIRST beta release, we might have to add more code or tweak what is there. Your reports will guide us. Try as best you can to focus on helping us identify any problems. If you just report a problem with no facts, we are handicapped.

If you give us step by step how to re-create a problem, we often can find and correct it in minutes. Without the steps, it can take hours, REALLY! You step-by-step details of how to create the problem are VERY important to us.

I'm going to watch the fireworks with my wife and neighbors tonight. I need a break!

FYI: Read my post http://www.mtu.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&postid=2111#post2111 in the Microstudio Open Forum about what we have been going though recently. :e

djkaraok

July 5th, 2001, 01:14 PM

After getting the correct info for downloading the beta version I installed the program 5 minutes ago. After installing I noticed that an icon was added to my desktop. There was the default icon symbol that was added and the properties of the link showed me that it was looking for the VogoneII.exe file. Since the program uses the Vogone2.exe file the link will not work. Apparently the install portion of the program added the icon incorrectly. This is as far as I have gotten in the last 5 minutes.

Jerry Thomas

DonWhite

July 5th, 2001, 03:32 PM

Further to the problem mentioned by djkaraok, here is a glitch in the install script for the manual:

During the installation process the application is installed in

C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\VogoneII

and the manual in

C:\Program Files\Micro Technlogy Unlimited\Vogone 2\Manual

i.e. Technology vs Technlogy

djkaraok

July 5th, 2001, 05:32 PM

I tried to use Vogone using Micro Studio Vogone tab and it pulled up the program properly. I was using Vogone 2. Then I selected the .wav file and and began playing with the adjustment sliders to eliminate as much of the vocals as possible. I then selected write and it told me I needed an input and output file name. Since I already had the input file name there and was able to play the wave file I added the output file and selected write button. Next I got the illegal operation flag and the details said "VOGONE2 caused an invalid page fault in
module KERNEL32.DLL at 016f:bff7b983.
Registers:
EAX=3f800020 CS=016f EIP=bff7b983 EFLGS=00010202
EBX=0000ac44 SS=0177 ESP=0133fd10 EBP=0133fd4c
ECX=7803bb90 DS=0177 ESI=3f800020 FS=4287
EDX=00406388 ES=0177 EDI=00000000 GS=0000
Bytes at CS:EIP:
80 3e 04 74 0f 33 c0 50 50 50 68 05 00 00 c0 e8
Stack dump:
0004f7d8 780114ac 3f800020 78024ee7 3f800000 00000000 0004f7d8 0000ac44 7803f8dd 0004f7d8 0133fb40 0133ff14 7800f56a 780354d0 ffffffff 0133ff20"

I checked after getting this illegal operation msg and the file was written with the attempt to eliminate the vocals. This cd was recorded by a friend in a professional studio in town. This was not a commercial cd. The vocals were not removed very much at all, but the highs and lows were altered. I will try a commercial cd to see if I can eliminated at least 75% of the vocals without changing the music. The wav file was extracted from the cd using MicroStudio Beta version.

Another issue is the manual that I downloaded. I did not proof read this but in trying to use it to operate the program I have found the following to be considered after going through 1-9 sections.
1. pg 4 - section 7 2nd paragraph - it makes reference to the "process button" and there is nothing called the "process button" even though I ASSUMED that it meant the "write File" button I feel that novice users might prefer to see the actual button name.

2. pg 6 - section 9 #4 - 1. Male/Female Buttons - I see nothing on the screen that shows a button with this naming phraseology.

3. pg 7 - section 9 #9 - 1. "Enable Loop Play" - I see no check box on the screen that allows me to check anything.

I have not gone through the whole manual yet. I will let you know.

2nd try to run Vogone 2 on commercial cd track - vocal elimination was available but to a minimal difference - After selecting the file to Vogone I played the Vogone 2 and selected the best settings - I then typed in the output file name and selected "write" and got the msg "you need to select the input and output file first". I already had the input file selected and am playing the song and I also have typed in the output file name and location even though the error msg seems to think that I have neither an input or output file selected. I said ok to the error msg and tried write again but same msg. I then selected the output button and the program went to my hard drive location to save the file and I entered the name of the file and then selected "write" button and no error msg. I wrote the song to the file while playing the song. I then went to input file and selected the changed file to play in Vogone - The program listed the "play Vogone 2" button as "stop" which indicates that it is still playing and the play location slider was at full right position. I closed Vogone and went back in and the settings were all reset and I selected the input file and it played correctly but minimal vocal reduction.

Jerry Thomas

PS I am running this on a system that is a Pentium 3 667 processor with 256k memory and a combination of 70 gig of hard drive.

DonWhite

July 5th, 2001, 05:34 PM

WOW!! This program is well thought out and works nicely. Tabbing between controls is in a logical order you can make all the filtering adjustments easily using the keyboard. However, there is one small problem when tabbing and using the keyboard (more about that later).

I've tried vocal elimination on a few sample wave files and all worked as good or better than Vogone 1. A second pass through Vogone II can really cut out the vocal and, if you're not careful, a lot of the instrumentation.

Now to the tabbing idiosyncracy. When you tab to a slider control the 'Check MTU' button also becomes enabled (i.e. the button is shadowed). In this situation, if you are using the keyboard to adjust the slider and accidentally hit the 'Enter' key, your browser kicks in and you end up at the MTU site. This is not a big problem and may have something to do with the development language (M$VB???) but it would be nice if the button didn't get focus until the user tabbed to it or clicked on it.

Well, I had to say something negative on the first beta release to earn my keep. :-)

Great job.

July 6th, 2001, 05:53 PM

just giving it a tester downloaded and installed no probs
but tried a wave file desperado eagles went through procedure
wich when watching progress slider at bottom it seemed to take along time when finished playback was intermittent as though
volume was being turned on and off quickly i then tried again to playback and it thew a wobbler the play vog 1and 2 and play
origonal buttons were all flickering very fast i will have another play annd see what i can come up with meanwhile if anyone has any tips appreciated thanks carl

admin

July 7th, 2001, 11:50 AM

The following are the changes I have presented to engineering for the next V2.008 release based on your current feedback.

1. Remove VogoneII Use - There are still occurrences of VogoneII. Change them all to Vogone2.

A. During installation the application is installed in: C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\VogoneII
Change this to C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Vogone 2

B. The Vogone icon added to the desktop is looking for the VogoneII.exe file, but the program installs as Vogone2.exe file so the Icon doesn't work. Change the Icon properties to look for Vogone2.exe.

2. Change Manual Installed Path - The manual is installed in C:\Program Files\Micro Technlogy Unlimited\Vogone 2\Manual. Technology is misspelled as Technlogy. Change this to: C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Vogone 2\Manual

3. Change Active Focus - When you tab to any of the slider controls, the "Check MTU" button receives the focus. Don't give the Check MTU button focus until the user tabs to it or clicks it.

4. Change Input and Output Filename Field Operation - The Input Filename and Output Filename fields allow typing in a filename and path, but apparently do not accept this. In one case it caused a crash.

1. INPUT FIELD DESIRED PERFORMANCE:
A. Don't allow manual entry in the Input field at all.
B. Gray out the field to force using the Select Input File button.
C. Force the user to select a known filename in a known path.
D. Make the input filename path the default path for the output filename.

2. OUTPUT FIELD DESIRED PERFORMANCE:
A. Allow manual entry in the Output field.
B. When a new filename is entered (normally they are creating a new file), use the normal operation that asks if they wish to create the filename if it doesn't exist.
C. If they enter (or use the Select Output File button) an existing filename, ask if they want to overwrite the existing filename.
D. They should be able to enter the filename they want.
E. If a path is not specified, default to the same directory as the Input field.
F. IN ALL CASES --- check and disallow users entering the input filename in the output field.
G. The error message text should be: "Enter a different filename. Trying to write to the input filename is not allowed."
H. In Vogone 1 we allow this and it instantly sets the input file to zero length and then it hangs the program.

Added 07014/01:

5. Add Enable Loop Play checkbox:
A. When checked it shows S and E flags at the far ends of the Play Indicator slider.
B. When first enabled, the S flag is selected and highlighted.
C. With the S flag selected, pressing the spacebar while playing will move the S flag to that location, and select the E flag.
D. With the E flag selected, pressing the spacebar while playing will move the E flag to that location, and select the S flag.
E. With loop play enabled, play will continuously loop between the S and E flags. If they have been moved, then the area looped on is shortened.
F. To move the flags back out, click the Enable Loop Play check box off and back on. This resets the flags to the ends of the song.

6. Pan Position Adjuster:
A. Reduce the adjustment range to increase the resolution in the critical area.
B. Remove the numeric field as it has not value in the process.
C. Add 2-pixel higher tic marks every 10 locations. Make the Center position 3-pixels higher.
D. Reduce the length of the adjuster to accomodate the appropriate adjustment resolution range.
E. Change the Vogone 1, Vogone 2, and Play Original button locations.

6. Change the Adjust Output Level control:
A. Make it only amplify - attenuate is not needed
B. Move the "0" to the bottom
C. Change the amplification range so it can clip most songs at full adjustment range.

7. Ajust Output Level control:
A. Add a VU Peak meter to the right of the adjuster.
B. Add a group box around these items.

nitelife

July 7th, 2001, 01:24 PM

Hello All,
It took me a while to get here,and have just finished reading the other reports.
I'll try to keep mine realistic.
Installation: Went smoothly,but it did not install ANY desktop shortcut.And the program was not listed in my programs list.This may be because I removed Vogone 1 prior to installation of Vogone 2. I needed to go to my program files for Micro Technology in order to access the files and install shortcuts from there.
Accessing the Vogone 2 beta testers forum: It took me a while to figure this one out !! Click on to the link listed at the testers page,and it brings you to the microstudio forum instead.Dave sent me another link,but that one brought me to the khp forum.
the only way to GET HERE,was to go to the forums list,scroll down to the vogone2 beta testers forum,and access it from there.
Ok, so for the program itself. This was the first time I've needed to read the manual provided for any MTU product,and I'm still not having much luck with using it.
Removal of vocals,was minimal at best.I found that the position of the sliders was usually best at their preset positions.And Vogone 1 actually did a better overall job.Going back to the manual for pointers did little or no good.
I haven't tried saving any of the work,so I can't comment on the import/export features and problems reported by other testers.I NEVER HAD A FINISHED PRODUCT I WAS SATISFIED WITH to bother trying to save !!
Using the slider bars DID have some effect,but not nearly what would/should be expected.
Overall,the program looks clean & easy to use,and I like that,but I have had very little luck in actually getting it to function as expected.I've only seen one other tester address this issue ( poor vocal removal ) other testers seem satisfied.But after reading and re-reading the manual,I believe I am operating the program properly,and getting very poor results.This should be looked into further.

admin

July 7th, 2001, 04:40 PM

When you post your results, please tell how many songs you have tried, and the song titles would be interesting to see also. Also, describe whether there is a single vocalist singing, or with background vocals, or whatever. Give us some idea of what you fail or succeed with.

We don't expect every song can be vocal eliminated.

If you have male and female and background vocals, good luck. If there is a single vocalist, we have had excellent results.

There is always the question of whether any one of you is having problems with the program from the standpoint of it operating correctly. Thus, the more that answer, the clearer a single user''s failure becomes. That can show up a bug in the program that only one of you might run into. Thus, it is very important to respond with as much detail as you can.

Also let me repeat the beta testing RULE #1... you are expected to find problems. Don't be surprised when you do. :e

Your job is to tell us exactly what you are doing to help us reproduce a bug or problem. I realize with vocal elimination it is more of a hit-or-miss than any of our other programs, but the more facts and details you can provide us, the close we can come to discerning if there is a software bug or the human interface is too difficult to use. Please, don't ever think a detail is not important. Every detail is critical to our undertstanding!

Thanks! :w

nitelife

July 7th, 2001, 06:41 PM

Ok,I'll try to go into a little more detail in this report.At present,Ive tried removing vocals from approx.20 songs.Each was taken off standard CD's ripped by using microstudio V2.310.
Each song had a single lead vocalist male or female and various combinations of background vocals interspaced throughout the recording.
A sampling of some songs I've tried include:
Downtime.....JoDee Messina
Com'ere Once.......Happy Schnapps Combo
Acapulco Goldie......Dr. Hook
How Do You Feel.....Watershed
New Yorks Not My Home......Jim Croce
Never You Mind......SemiSonic
Kentucky Bluebird.....Wade Hayes
Big Ten Inch Record......Aerosmith

As it should be pointed out,These songs are a mixture of country,rock,and folk music from differant recording lables,with very little in common with each other in recording style.

Background vocals were not eliminated at all as far as I could hear,and lead vocals were removed minimal at best.I played with the slider bars on each,to try and find the best settings.But this had little effect on removal.
The best luck I had was leaving the controls set at their pre-set levels.Moving the slider bars did have some effect,but not enough to make a usable file.
In most cases both the highs and lows needed to be set at the maximum removal level to gain any significant result,but at the cost of too much distortion.
Panning left to right to locate optimal settings also had little effect on most songs.I say little,because there was some effect.Usually,panning left to right only needed 5 or six markings off center to find maximum effect.

nitelife

July 8th, 2001, 02:04 PM

Still working on finding a way to reduce the vocals to a usable level.I tried a suggestion reported earlier by another tester, and tried making more than one pass per song.This helped some,but it still does not reduce the vocals to a level I would like.
I had no problem with earlier reported problems concerning saving files or pulling files into the program for use.But I did notice that songs did seem to have a slightly better sound after they had been saved and then brought back into the program for play.
Retaining the music didn't seem to be much of a problem,but then that isn't what I am having a problem with.I'm not worried about saving sounds right now,I'm trying to remove them ( selectively ) and having little luck doing so.
This is a tough program to test and report on.Its much easier to report on what you SEE it doing or not doing on screen, compared to how you can HEAR it responding.Its much harder reporting on SOUNDS.
Best I can say at this time is that tone quality is much better than vogone 1, but that there needs to be further work done to be able to reduce ( preferably remove ) vocals to an acceptable level.
One feature I would like to see that is not currently available in the vogone product,is the ability to remove sounds from selective portions of a music file while leaving the remainder of the song untouched.I use this feature on Cool Edit 2000 with remarkable success.
I think that Vogone's slider bar feature is a nice touch though the effect at present is minimal.Combining the features from these two products would be ammazing, And is something I may try to play with a little.Though Splitting files to do this sounds like alot of work,the end result might be worth it.
How about it. Could those features be incorperated without too much work,or could vogoone be set-up as a plugin to Cool Edit ?

MikeP

July 8th, 2001, 02:12 PM

Comments:
1. Request "repeat section/portion continuously". This function would be useful whlst fine tuning sliders.
2. Is there any way u can save settings with the processed file in case u want to redo it?
3. An undo function would be useful.
4. In many cases Vog1 eliminates vox better but also removes bass & drums more.

Comparisons
I have compared the results I was able to achieve with the Thompson VE-3, DART, Soundforge, NERO and both versions of Vogone, plus the "live" vocal elimination function on my Sony DVD player and JVC Karaoke machine. It's probably fair to say that none of them will totally eliminate a centre-panned lead vocal without severely affecting the overall sound, however it is possible to achieve "useful" results - depends on what u are trying to achieve. Certainly I can produce a result that is quite acceptable for home use - I can't imagine using them for any sort of professional use and I believe that would raise the touchy subject of copyright (although Mr Thompson doesn't seem to think so). To elaborate on the results of all my comparisons would be too long and not that relevant. Suffice to say that your program is very simple and user-friendly compared with some of the methods & programs I have used. I have achieved better results but had to chop the sound track up into 20+ bits (seperating those parts of the song that did not have any vocals & therefore did not require any vocal elimination filtering from the parts that did require this filter). This sort of activity can take hours/days/weeks and the result then requires further processing to "smooth out" the different bits of the song!

Conclusion

Vogone 2 can produce very good results very quickly on centre panned (the usual) stereo tracks which have originally been recorded in a (recording) studio. When one considers all the facts (including how much it would cost to produce a "band track" in a recording studio with the original artists exact arrangement/accompaniment), I think the results are truly quite amazing. The most difficult thing to retain is the bass & drums (because they are always panned to the centre the same as the lead vocal). Vogone 2 manages to do this as well as anything else - perhaps better.

joethermo

July 8th, 2001, 07:20 PM

Prior posting: Installed yesterday O.K. No problems to report so far.

Did a couple of dwight yoakum songs and was impressed with the amount of sound retained (Sorry to say, but Vogone I sounded like a 1960's transistor radio).

Vocals were still present as "background" sound, but not obtrusive when used with KHP. One person said they preferred the "background reminder" of how the vocals sound.

Looking forward to what you say you can improve on further devocalizing. Sounds great so far!

TO NITELIFE,
SOUNDS LIKE PERHAPS YOUR NOT USING THE SLIDER SELECT BUTTONS. I START AT THE TOP SILDER (LOW)AND ADJUST IT UNTILL THERE IS MINIMAL VOICE. THEN DOWN TO "LEFT" AND ADJUST TO MINIMAL SOUND. TO "RIGHT" BUTTON, AND FINALLY TO "HIGH". I DO THIS AFTER THE VOCALS HAS BEGUN IN THE SONG AND ALSO SWITCH BETWEEN THE VOGONE AND ORIGANAL BUTTONS ON-THE-FLY TO COMPARE THE DEVOC AFFECTS.
I DID A LIVE VERSION OF DEPERADO BY THE EAGLES(WAV FORM MP3, WHICH I READ NOT TO DO) AND STILL GOT VERY USABLE RESULTS.

July 9th, 2001, 02:54 AM

i have downloaded ok but progrm not working properly
it takes ages to process file and when played back vocals not gone and it plays intermittently as though some one turning volume on and off fast any tips i would be grateful.

This problem turns out to be that Vogone requires so much floating point math processing that it cannot run in real-time on an AMD K6 or K62 processor. This is why CD earlier reported "1 second on and off" playing. The processor was "gulping" blocks of samples, processing and outputting them, then getting the next gulp. It was simply not able to keep up with Vogone's demands for processing power.

The K6 family have a single-pipeline floating point processor technology. The AMD Athelon, and the Intel Pentium, Celeron and Zeon families all have four-pipeline processors.

Vogone 2 uses floating point math to deliver professional quality, and the massive computations just cannot be done on the slower K6 processors.

Brian Corr

July 9th, 2001, 05:36 AM

Tried the following two tunes yesterday intensively.

Stone Roses :- She Bangs The Drums

Smiths :- The Queen Is Dead

Manged very minimal devocalization, to be honest pressing on the Vogone 1 button seemed to have a better effect than Vogone 2 did. But as usual Vogone 1 ripped to much drum and bass from the song, thus making it unusable for proccesing through KHP

kellifa

July 9th, 2001, 02:11 PM

Hi, as you all probably know by now, I just got back from vacation. I have downloaded Vogone V2.007 and had no problems with the download and it is running. I have all day to play with it, so I will post as soon as possible.

Peace, Kelli

djkaraok

July 9th, 2001, 03:09 PM

The changes being made should fix the problems that I had been finding. I will await the 2.08 and test again when it is available.

Jerry Thomas

Rob Haines

July 10th, 2001, 04:15 AM

Just got back from vacation. I experienced the previous reported problems: desktop icon points to incorrect exe and typed in output filename does not work. Also I can't get the "pan" setting to go to "0". It's always a positive or negative number.

Rob Haines

mandal

July 10th, 2001, 07:20 PM

Hi
1.downloaded vogone 2
2. unninstalled vogone 1 and installed vogone 2
3. disabled all othen program "viruskiller/ firewall"
4. hit icon prog.started nice imported a 15 sec wavfile
5. hit any play button

The sound that comes out of my speakers are breaking up in peaces 1-1,5 sec long. Anyone have any ideas?

admin

July 11th, 2001, 08:59 AM

1. What is your processor CPU type and clock speed?

2. How much computer RAM memory (not disk) do you have?

3. Does the breaking up sound the same when you click the diffeent play buttons?

mandal

July 11th, 2001, 09:54 AM

I have: AMD K6 3D mmx 400 Mhz, 256 MB SD ram, Windows ME Build 3000

I dissable all other programs so that vogone was operating alone. The sound is the same no matter what button i hit to play the wav. I tryed to play 4-5 different wav`s but it`s all the same !

July 11th, 2001, 01:34 PM

I too have the same setup as you... AMD K6 400MHz, 96MB ram,
win 98. I get same fault soun dbreaking up it plays about 1 sec on and off all through song. Have you got onboard sound card by any chance same as me? It could be that, but i have not yet tried a new one in my PC. Let me know how you go on.

This problem turns out to be that Vogone requires so much floating point math processing that it cannot run in real-time on an AMD K6 or K62 processor. This is why CD earlier reported "1 second on and off" playing. The processor was "gulping" blocks of samples, processing and outputting them, then getting the next gulp. It was simply not able to keep up with Vogone's demands for processing power.

The K6 family have a single-pipeline floating point processor technology. The AMD Athelon, and the Intel Pentium, Celeron and Zeon families all have four-pipeline processors.

Vogone 2 uses floating point math to deliver professional quality, and the massive computations just cannot be done on the slower K6 processors.

mandal

July 11th, 2001, 09:13 PM

I got a soundblaster live sound card !!

i did run the dxdiag to look for errors but all of my )&/%)/&% computer is working fine!!
i dont know what to do .. ill try tomorrow with a new sound card ( i got 3 different)

johnny

kellifa

July 12th, 2001, 09:30 AM

I had no trouble installing or using Vogone II. I did have trouble getting into the beta testers forum. I kept getting sent to Microstudio instead. Finally, I came at in a different way and accessed it through the forums index. Also I read the Manual pretty carefully, and I can't find any check box for Enable Loop Play. Am I just not looking in the right place? Where is the right place? At this point I have to close down Vogone 2 to start a new song or even a new version of the song I am working on.

As you know the thing I do best is "hear" the sound of the music and catch any distortion and report on that, so that is what I tried to concentrate on. On the whole, Vogone 2 was easy to use and I did read the manual cover to cover. Anyway, I tested these four songs which I chose because each had it's own unique aspect:

The Little Girl John Michael Montgomery
Mainly Lead Vocalist, minimal backup
Goodbye Earl Dixie Chicks
Lead Singer with lots of back up vocals
and instrumentation
Travelin' Man Ricky Nelson
Lead Singer, no back up vocals in the version
I used
Barbara Ann The Beachboys
Lots of harmony, back up vocals,
instrumentals

I didn't have a lot of luck eliminating lead singers voices, Ricky Nelson Travelin' Man turned out the best, but the vocals were still just softened not removed.
I didn't have much luck at all on Barbara Ann or Goodbye Earl, in fact after trying for about a half an hour on each song I just gave up.
The Little Girl was not too bad, but still not great (or even good) and I have come to expect greatness from MTU.

I can hear a lot of sound distortion with the sliders when they're all the way to either end. I didn't have any trouble with skipping in the songs, they all played fine, I just couldn't get the vocals eliminated, even with the simpler songs. I tried Vogone I & oddly enough, it seemed to work as well or better than Vogone 22. I also tried making more than one pass with a song, but it made little difference. I couldn't climinate the vocals clearly and had to be careful with the settings or the songs were distorted. I think you guys are great, but I don't think Vogone 2 is doing what I hoped it would do.

Peace,
kellifa

joethermo

July 12th, 2001, 01:44 PM

I DON'T UNDERSTAND ALL THE NEGATIVE REPORTS!!

I AM HAVING GREAT SUCCESS WITH THIS. I HAVE DEVOCALIZED A DOZEN OR SO SONGS, EVEN MP3 TO WAV FILES. SOME SONGS DO COME OUT BETTER THAN OTHERS, BUT ON THE WHOLE VERY USABLE FOR THE INTEDED PURPOSE. FOR INSTANCE, I DID 'ON A GOOD NIGHT' BY WADE HAYES AND ALL YOU HEAR IS SOME ECHO IN THE BACKGROUNG FOR THE LEAD AND THE BACKUP VOCALS ARE INTACT ON THE CHORUS!
ON THE OTHER END, A VERSION OF 'GOOD TIME CHARLIE'S GOT THE BLUES' BY DWIGHT YOAKUM WAS NOT AS GOOD (I THINK BECAUSE IT'S A DUET WITH CHERL CROW), BUT STILL VERY USABLE.
AS FAR AS VOGONE1, AS I STATED BEFORE, IT SOUNDS LIKE MUSIC FROM A 1960's TRANSISTER RADIO WITH A 2" SPEAKER.

JOE

djkaraok

July 12th, 2001, 07:16 PM

I agree with Kellie as far as the quality from MTU and maybe I am also expecting to much as far as vocal reduction. All songs that I have tried are pretty much the same vocal reduction. They each had a mix as to the total amount of vocal reduction but not enough reduction to the extent that you would expect or need to achieve in order to utilize that feature. Sorry for the review but I think that you want honesty and not fluff. If those of you that think that your vocal reduction is GREAT would like to send me the before and after files I can then see what you consider as GOOD vocal removal or reduction at least.

Jerry

djkaraok@home will accept any size file that you want to send for me to get and listen to your files.

MikeP

July 12th, 2001, 07:35 PM

I agree with joethermo and include the conclusion of my earlier post:

"Conclusion

Vogone 2 can produce very good results very quickly on centre panned (the usual) stereo tracks which have originally been recorded in a (recording) studio. When one considers all the facts (including how much it would cost to produce a "band track" in a recording studio with the original artists exact arrangement/accompaniment), I think the results are truly quite amazing. The most difficult thing to retain is the bass & drums (because they are always panned to the centre the same as the lead vocal). Vogone 2 manages to do this as well as anything else - perhaps better."

Compared to many other PC software manufacturers, MTU produce products that do what they claim they will and are simple and user-friendly. Just compare KHP and Microstudio to the fancy-looking DART product. There is a well known saying that ."simplicity is the varnish of the masters". This could apply to MTU.

I have not read one word of the manual but have no trouble achieving a useable result. There are ways of achieving total elimination of true stereo studio recordings but they involve an enormous amount of time and processing. There are two examples where the exact opposite has been used in modern recordings. One is the duet between Nat King Cole & Natalie and the other is the modern arrangement of the theme song to the recent movie "Return to Me" featuring the voice of Dean Martin.
Perhaps some folk are expecting too much. Maybe it would be more accurate to describe the results as "vocal masking" (a term used on dvd and vcd machines that have karaoke functionality). If you want total elimination then you will have to be prepared to "pay the price" - a great deal of your time and money - not to mention total understanding of the "art".
Having said all that, I should remind everyone that this is not the final product and we are here to provide constructive feedback. Like everyone else, I would hope that V2 can be further improved before its release.

djkaraok

July 12th, 2001, 08:02 PM

This is the second major input as to the ability to do a good job. I must therefore conclude that I am doing something wrong or expecting too much. Please send me some of the before and after files so I can see what YOU think that OTHERS will accept as ok. Remember that this product will go out to people not as yourselves that will expect something that the product will do. These consumers have not had the luxury of trying other fancy versions of a similar product to see how good this product is reacting to the vocal elimination. It would be hard to sell a product that does a marginal job of vocal reduction. Remember people that MTU has a good reputation and that the end user is who will decide if the product is acceptable or not. I must tell you after 20 years of experience of beta testing software that the consumer will be a lot harder over a period of time that any of us currently would be. When I test the software I do not expect miracles but do expect that it does what I (and I am sure other consumers) are to believe it will do. Maybe if I had tested other products that offer a solution for vocal reduction that I would think differently. But, then again how many of the people that are going to purchase this product with expectations are already using a product that does vocal reduction versus first time expectant buyers. If those of you that think that the reduction is GOOD will send me the before and after files I can see if I am not doing it correctly. I am looking forward in hearing from you.

Thanks

Jerry
djkaraok@home.com

nitelife

July 12th, 2001, 10:22 PM

No matter what I try,I just can't get usable results.Could the problem be similar to those of KHP?
Some people are reporting good results while others of us are giving it a very poor rating!!! Does it make a difference what windows program you are using?
I am using windows 98 second edition.How about the other testers ?
nitelife

djkaraok

July 13th, 2001, 01:23 PM

Nite... In answer to your question re: Operating system being used. I have tested with BOTH Win 98SE and Win 2000 and my results did not vary. Maybe others are using either NT or Win95? My system is a dual boot system and a Pentium III 667 mhz with 256k memory and a Soundblaster Plat 5.1 soundcard - and 70 gig of hard drive storage and my results apparently are matching yours.

Jerry

djkaraok@home.com

admin

July 13th, 2001, 01:44 PM

It is clear that there are two camps using Vogone 2. This, by itself, is an interesting evolution. I will try to call and talk to some of you who are having problems to see if it is "pilot error" or "product deficiency".

My post at the bottom of page 1 of this Thread is what we expect to change before releasing. Note that there is no further polishing of the removal algorithm. Before we released for your testing, we beat on the algorithm several times, and we currently believe it is as good as this technology can deliver.

FYI BACKGROUND:
1. There is a fundamental tradeoff between the steepness of the high and low filters rolling off and what is call their "passband ripple". The steeper the rolloff, the more ripple there is. The problem is that the amplitude of the ripple is limiting how much of the actual master vocal can be removed. You can think of the ripple as causing a 'residual" amount of vocal to remain. However, this is very slight, and probably cannot be heard when the adjustments are made correctly.

The second thing that some of you may not understand (or recognize that is what you are hearing) is that the reverberation effect added to the vocal before mixing cannot be removed. These are the low amplitude "echoes" you hear. Reverb changes the phase of the audio in the left and right channels on the echoes that it creates. Since vocal eliminators invert the phase of one channel and mix it to the other to get the cancellation of identical phased signals, you can see that when the phase is changed, the left+right(inverted) will not cancel. Thus, the reverb echoes will not be removed. They usually are down -40dB to -60dB and thus very low. They usually are not objectionable unless you are listening to only the removed music in a quiet enviroment. If the intent is to use the vocal reduced song to add lyrics to and sing to it, then the echoes will not be audible with the singer.

The third point I would like to make involves economics and survival. First, the problems some of you are having indicates MTU will have support problems with Vogone 2 unless I can clear up where the misunderstandings exist, assuming that is the problem. Second, the development effort we have undertaken to this point, and the expert programmer we have on this project say that we have done about as good as can be expected with this technology. As the saying goes, we can't "squeeze any more blood out of this turnip." There is a different technology we could use, but it will be more difficult to control, however it may deliver superior vocal removal. The cost to switch now is currently prohibitive.

In closing, let me inject one final word. It is very difficult to provide professional quality audio tools at bargin-basement prices. The return is just not there, and the risk is high. There also is a bit of "ego" in turning out superior product. To not make a sufficient profit on a superior product, is a bit of a slap in the face. As MikeP has pointed out (in comparing Vogone 2 to his $1,600 Thompson VE box, and 3 programs), we have done an excellent job. We could rewrite with a new technology in our posession, but that would dictate that we more then double the price. However, if we accomplish what we might be able to with that technology, it could sell in the pro-audio market for - IMHO - $3,000 or more because of the power it would provide in separating sounds from a mixed song. Thus, it is hard to conceive of selling it for $199. Such are the strategic decisions of business. :w

I currently am on target to release Vogone 2 within the next two weeks. We will make my posted changes (see thread below) and I will attempt to discover "misunderstandings" if they exist. If so, I will upgrade the manual to make it even clearer. I also will modify our web page to indicate the types of songs that won't eliminate, and make it clearer that users should expect to "reduce" not eliminate with this tool.

Your feedback and testing has been of tremendous help. As we all can understand, vocal "modification" or muting is an art, and also very much affected by the "ear of the listener". :)

djkaraok

July 13th, 2001, 05:29 PM

Thank you for the technical information in the last post. It is a tough situation to be able to sell a product that does vocal "reduction, elimination..." without these types of differences. I agree completely that the ear of each of us is so different that we might be inconsistent with regard to the results that we hear and expect. Keep up the good work. There is no other real competition in this market at this value. I can see why!

Jerry Thomas

admin

July 14th, 2001, 12:06 PM

The following are the changes I have presented to engineering for the next V2.008 release based on your current feedback.

DONE! 1. Remove VogoneII Use - There are still occurrences of VogoneII. Change them all to Vogone2.

A. During installation the application is installed in: C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\VogoneII
Change this to C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Vogone 2

B. The Vogone icon added to the desktop is looking for the VogoneII.exe file, but the program installs as Vogone2.exe file so the Icon doesn't work. Change the Icon properties to look for Vogone2.exe.

DONE! 2. Change Manual Installed Path - The manual is installed in C:\Program Files\Micro Technlogy Unlimited\Vogone 2\Manual. Technology is misspelled as Technlogy. Change this to: C:\Program Files\Micro Technology Unlimited\Vogone 2\Manual

DONE! 3. Change Active Focus - When you tab to any of the slider controls, the "Check MTU" button receives the focus. Don't give the Check MTU button focus until the user tabs to it or clicks it.

DONE! 4. Change Input and Output Filename Field Operation - The Input Filename and Output Filename fields allow typing in a filename and path, but apparently do not accept this. In one case it caused a crash.

DONE! A. INPUT FIELD DESIRED PERFORMANCE:
1. Don't allow manual entry in the Input field at all.
2. Gray out the field to force using the Select Input File button.
3. Force the user to select a known filename in a known path.
4. Make the input filename path the default path for the output filename.

DONE! B. OUTPUT FIELD DESIRED PERFORMANCE:
1. Allow manual entry in the Output field.
2. When a new filename is entered (normally they are creating a new file), use the normal operation that asks if they wish to create the filename if it doesn't exist.
3. If they enter (or use the Select Output File button) an existing filename, ask if they want to overwrite the existing filename.
4. They should be able to enter the filename they want.
5. If a path is not specified, default to the same directory as the Input field.
6. IN ALL CASES --- check and disallow users entering the input filename in the output field.
7. The error message text should be: "Enter a different filename. Trying to write to the input filename is not allowed."
8. In Vogone 1 we allow this and it instantly sets the input file to zero length and then it hangs the program.

Added 07/14/01: Will be done in V2.008

5. Add Enable Loop Play checkbox:
A. When checked it shows S and E flags at the far ends of the Play Indicator slider.
B. When first enabled, the S flag is selected and highlighted.
C. With the S flag selected, pressing the spacebar while playing will move the S flag to that location, and select the E flag.
D. With the E flag selected, pressing the spacebar while playing will move the E flag to that location, and select the S flag.
E. With loop play enabled, play will continuously loop between the S and E flags. If they have been moved, then the area looped on is shortened.
F. To move the flags back out, click the Enable Loop Play check box off and back on. This resets the flags to the ends of the song.
G. Ideal - Allow clickand drag of either flag with the mouse.

6. Pan Position Adjuster:
A. Reduce the adjustment range to increase the resolution in the critical area.
B. Remove the numeric field as it has not value in the process.
C. Add 2-pixel higher tic marks every 10 locations. Make the Center position 3-pixels higher.
D. Reduce the length of the adjuster to accomodate the appropriate adjustment resolution range.
E. Change the Vogone 1, Vogone 2, and Play Original button locations.

7. Change the Adjust Output Level control:
A. Make it only amplify - attenuate is not needed
B. Move the "0" to the bottom
C. Change the amplification range so it can clip most songs at full adjustment range.
D. Make the adjuster control higher to gain more adjustment range.
E. Add a VU Peak meter to the right of the adjuster.
F. Add a group box around these items.

Brian Corr

July 14th, 2001, 03:15 PM

:g Sucess:g

Song: Radiohead - Karma Police

Ok I have had a wee bit of time to play about with this now and I seem to be getting the hang of it.

The song is one I attempted with Vogone 1 which I thought I had good results until I attempted to play it on a through a PA system.

The problem with the Vogone 1 version I made was that it ripped out far too much background and bass. But I am pleased to say that I have made a very useable wav file which has lots of drums and bass still intact. There is a degree of the original vocal left in, but not enough that you couldn't sing over.

I shall attempt more of the previous Vogone 1 efforts so I can compare results. But its looking good now. Very easy to use too.

Had to close and restart Vogone2 to start processing a new song after Writing File. I loaded up a new wav to process and couldn't get any sound - even though the slider on Play Location was moving - until I closed Vogone2 and restarted then it all worked fine.