Aliasing is always a problem when separating a stereo file to stems using SpectraLayers (SL). However, after finding it almost unusable in SL9 I find it very usable in SL10. I use it mainly for separating vocals, bass and drums (and sometimes guitars) from a full stereo track. Played together they sound just fine. But as you mentioned, when auditioning the separated tracks individually there is noticeable aliasing. I have found that (obviously) the quality of the source track can make a huge difference in the quality of the separation. But I've been working on separating and restoring some old tapes that were recorded live in the late 1970's, and for what you mentioned, basically using FX on individual tracks, I've found, it works quite well and the result very usable in this case. And of course having control of the levels of the individual tracks really helps as well. And, thanks for another great video!😀
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Great to hear that the quality has stepped up going from SL 9 to 10. And yes I should have mentioned that the SL tracks do sum perfectly and that you can also use this for balancing the individual elements. Great point 👍.
Tried spectralayers on a stereo-liverecording from a mixing-board. The drums was way too quiet in the mix. And the vocals too load. It worked fine to turn down the vocals. Turning up the drums did not work. But I was able to capture single drumhits, when the rest of the music did not play. Used the drumhits as samples in Trigger2 (by Slate-digital). The cymbal track was usable with some audio-automation. And now the mix sounds perfectly ballanced, thanx to Spectralayers. Great tool 👌
To compensate for artifacts you can use your separated kick, snare or hihat result as a sidechain source with a standard gate. smartGate is the best realtime gate plugin I've tried.
I'd suggest the following workflow, not ideal, but should use the strengths of both tools. Use Smart Gate to obtain (multiple velocity or hit type) clean samples of the individual drum elements. Use SpectraLayers individual drum layers to trigger a drum replacement VST containing the Smart Gate Samples, for each individual drum element. You can also then create whatever drum track you want using these clean samples.
Did you try taking, say, the Spectralayers Kick output and putting it back into Spectralayers to visually identify the unwanted bleeds? Ok it’s another ten minutes of work but if it’s just a repeating loop it’d be worth it. I’ve tried SL manual editing before and it’s very intuitive. Big learning curve to really use it all though 😊 BTW really enjoying your calm delivery in all things Cubase. I’ve re-learned a lot and much more besides! I’ve recently returned to v13 after trying Logic and finally Studio One v6 where I became discouraged by their corporate interference and move to subscription model. Grrrrr.
Good idea which I haven’t tried yet. I did visually remove some guitar squeaks in another video and that was indeed very intuitive. Glad you’re enjoying the content and welcome back to Cubase!
Clearly spectral layers is the bigger deal and has the most capabilities, going way, way beyond this one application. It doesn't make the smart gate plug unuseful. For a lot of applications, when you just want a really good gate... And for things like multi mic'd drum kits... Noisy guitar amps, that kind thing. it would probably be the more sensible option to reach for. But it be worth checking out spectral layers for some of those jobs as well, For sure. It might just do some of them better and almost as quickly.
Oh I’ll probably make some more SpectraLayers videos in the future on its other capabilities because this is only a small part of it of course. This subject just fell in my lap 😉. Thanks for watching!
If you're recording your own multitrack drums It would be cool with a custom AI separator where you could import sounds of your snare drum close mic and have it cleaning out bleed with that.
Haven't tried that one yet. There is also apparently a nice drum gate from BSA called Silencer I believe. Maybe I'll make a big drums gate shootout ;).
@@LanewoodStudios I'll look into it, thanks. One thing I noticed about the Sonible is that although it recognises each type of sound well, there are cases where I can not isolate it correctly and it is playing tails even at upper thresholds, and then if I move even 0.1db it's silence, i.e. I have encountered multiple situations where it simply does not work as intended, and the Sonnox thus far hasn't failed me, but it is way more complex a plugin to properly learn and use.
Good video but you did not use the multiband isolation available in sonible which provides great results , spectralayers is good but for drum if you dig deep into sonible you will surely get better result
A question that actually does not really have anything to do with the Subject of the video... indirectly it does tho, I used to be able to sidechain the sonible smart plugins in cubase, but after a clean install, the button dissapeared on those plugins... is there a setting i might have forgot in cubase for this?
I don’t think you need a special setting in cubase for this. Especially if all other vst3 plugins still have a side chain available. I didn’t notice this myself on the Sonible plugins. Will have to check.
@@PeaKock-be I just checked, both in smart:gate (1.0.0) as well as in smart:comp (1.0.3) you can use an external sidechain input for the gate/compressor. And the buttons in Cubase to select the side chain input are still enabled for me. Note however that the sidechain input in Cubase only works for the VST3 version of these plugins.
@@LanewoodStudios i usually make sure to only install the vst3 file when installing plugins... but i will double check, maybe I looked over it this time. Thanks for checking for me 🙏
It depends on which aspects you are talking about. If you want to know about vocal isolation, check out this video: Ultimate Vocal Isolation 2023; with SpectraLayers 10, RX10, DeepRemix and very good free one! ruclips.net/video/o-sU7tK4ydM/видео.html
It's really different tools that tend to be used for different purposes of course but they overlap here. And yes, SpectraLayers is quite amazing in what it can do.
@@LanewoodStudios Yes, I’m aware of that. But I’m no fan of ‘Smart’ anything. Append the word ‘Smart’ to any creative software tool and watch me run. What’s actually smart is us songwriters, engineers and producers who create the music that soothes the savage beast. I’m endlessly grateful to those who build solutions I can use in my music production. On the other hand, nobody’s software has any clue.
none of these are any good for unmixing anything. To state a "winner", though Smart gate is totally... out of the gate hahaha. It's not even a good gate. Wish it was, as it looks so great. But its performance is lacklustre. I do have Spectralayers 10. It's great. But I don't use it for gating or unmixing. I use it for what it does best: beating RX. As for gating, well, blacksaltaudio Silencer is the tool for gating drums, at least as far as removing cymbal bleed is concerned. For other gating purposes, most general gates do the same as "smart" gate does.
Wow the artefacts on Spectralayers are just awful, making it unusable for this kind of transient task, and the original loop was not even very complex! I can only imagine how much WORSE it can sound!
Why do people film this way your heard looks like its skipping bouncing side to side please go back to the other way of filming still framing way better your also skipping your words is this called 4 k filling its terrible .
So what do you think? Which one do you prefer and what would you use it for?
Aliasing is always a problem when separating a stereo file to stems using SpectraLayers (SL). However, after finding it almost unusable in SL9 I find it very usable in SL10. I use it mainly for separating vocals, bass and drums (and sometimes guitars) from a full stereo track. Played together they sound just fine. But as you mentioned, when auditioning the separated tracks individually there is noticeable aliasing. I have found that (obviously) the quality of the source track can make a huge difference in the quality of the separation. But I've been working on separating and restoring some old tapes that were recorded live in the late 1970's, and for what you mentioned, basically using FX on individual tracks, I've found, it works quite well and the result very usable in this case. And of course having control of the levels of the individual tracks really helps as well.
And, thanks for another great video!😀
Thanks for sharing your experiences. Great to hear that the quality has stepped up going from SL 9 to 10. And yes I should have mentioned that the SL tracks do sum perfectly and that you can also use this for balancing the individual elements. Great point 👍.
Tried spectralayers on a stereo-liverecording from a mixing-board. The drums was way too quiet in the mix. And the vocals too load. It worked fine to turn down the vocals. Turning up the drums did not work. But I was able to capture single drumhits, when the rest of the music did not play. Used the drumhits as samples in Trigger2 (by Slate-digital). The cymbal track was usable with some audio-automation. And now the mix sounds perfectly ballanced, thanx to Spectralayers. Great tool 👌
Great to hear. It did take some effort though 😉.
Thank you for your work. That was a good comparison and conclusion were enlightening.
Thanks for watching!
To compensate for artifacts you can use your separated kick, snare or hihat result as a sidechain source with a standard gate. smartGate is the best realtime gate plugin I've tried.
Yes I’ve done that on live recordings before. Thanks for reminding me 😉.
I'd suggest the following workflow, not ideal, but should use the strengths of both tools.
Use Smart Gate to obtain (multiple velocity or hit type) clean samples of the individual drum elements.
Use SpectraLayers individual drum layers to trigger a drum replacement VST containing the Smart Gate Samples, for each individual drum element.
You can also then create whatever drum track you want using these clean samples.
Interesting workflow 👍
Did you try taking, say, the Spectralayers Kick output and putting it back into Spectralayers to visually identify the unwanted bleeds? Ok it’s another ten minutes of work but if it’s just a repeating loop it’d be worth it. I’ve tried SL manual editing before and it’s very intuitive. Big learning curve to really use it all though 😊 BTW really enjoying your calm delivery in all things Cubase. I’ve re-learned a lot and much more besides! I’ve recently returned to v13 after trying Logic and finally Studio One v6 where I became discouraged by their corporate interference and move to subscription model. Grrrrr.
Good idea which I haven’t tried yet. I did visually remove some guitar squeaks in another video and that was indeed very intuitive. Glad you’re enjoying the content and welcome back to Cubase!
@@LanewoodStudios Thank you! Gotta say Spectralayers ARA2 really shines with Cubase.
Clearly spectral layers is the bigger deal and has the most capabilities, going way, way beyond this one application. It doesn't make the smart gate plug unuseful. For a lot of applications, when you just want a really good gate... And for things like multi mic'd drum kits... Noisy guitar amps, that kind thing. it would probably be the more sensible option to reach for. But it be worth checking out spectral layers for some of those jobs as well, For sure. It might just do some of them better and almost as quickly.
Oh I’ll probably make some more SpectraLayers videos in the future on its other capabilities because this is only a small part of it of course. This subject just fell in my lap 😉. Thanks for watching!
thamks for the video👍
You are very welcome!
If you're recording your own multitrack drums
It would be cool with a custom AI separator where you could import sounds of your snare drum close mic
and have it cleaning out bleed with that.
Good idea, sell it to Sonible ;)
By the way, I prefer Sonnox Drum Gate as I get more consistent results to Sonible when I have A/B them.
Haven't tried that one yet. There is also apparently a nice drum gate from BSA called Silencer I believe. Maybe I'll make a big drums gate shootout ;).
@@LanewoodStudios I'll look into it, thanks. One thing I noticed about the Sonible is that although it recognises each type of sound well, there are cases where I can not isolate it correctly and it is playing tails even at upper thresholds, and then if I move even 0.1db it's silence, i.e. I have encountered multiple situations where it simply does not work as intended, and the Sonnox thus far hasn't failed me, but it is way more complex a plugin to properly learn and use.
SL for the Win.
Thanks for listening/watching.
SPL 10 is the winner...👍
It is very good 👍
Good video but you did not use the multiband isolation available in sonible which provides great results , spectralayers is good but for drum if you dig deep into sonible you will surely get better result
Thanks for the tip, I'll have to try that.
A question that actually does not really have anything to do with the Subject of the video... indirectly it does tho, I used to be able to sidechain the sonible smart plugins in cubase, but after a clean install, the button dissapeared on those plugins... is there a setting i might have forgot in cubase for this?
I don’t think you need a special setting in cubase for this. Especially if all other vst3 plugins still have a side chain available. I didn’t notice this myself on the Sonible plugins. Will have to check.
@@LanewoodStudios normally we should be able to use smart comp as sidechain compressor
@@PeaKock-be I just checked, both in smart:gate (1.0.0) as well as in smart:comp (1.0.3) you can use an external sidechain input for the gate/compressor. And the buttons in Cubase to select the side chain input are still enabled for me. Note however that the sidechain input in Cubase only works for the VST3 version of these plugins.
@@LanewoodStudios i usually make sure to only install the vst3 file when installing plugins... but i will double check, maybe I looked over it this time. Thanks for checking for me 🙏
@@PeaKock-be smart 😉. I do the same. Only install the VST3 version of plugins.
But does smart gate allow breaking the drum elements into separate tracks?
Not in the same way. But you can target the different drums with smart:gate and then get similar results. That’s why I was comparing these two.
I would like to know how does Spectralyers 10 compare to the latest Izotope RX 10. Those are rarely compared on YT.
It depends on which aspects you are talking about. If you want to know about vocal isolation, check out this video: Ultimate Vocal Isolation 2023; with SpectraLayers 10, RX10, DeepRemix and very good free one!
ruclips.net/video/o-sU7tK4ydM/видео.html
A comparison to Sonnox gate would be interesting…
Is that the drum specific gate?
@@LanewoodStudios yes, Never heard of Sonnox? Sonnox Inflator for example?
@murraywebster1228 yes I’ve been using the inflator on my mix bus forever just not sure about which gates they have exactly.
@@LanewoodStudios just one noise gate I think
@@murraywebster1228 You probably mean this one ;) ruclips.net/video/RC8KrcXIsK0/видео.html
I'm more convinced by SL10
Thanks for your vote 😉👍
Use a drum replacer, that what I do
Yes another option 👍
Spectralayers makes smartgate look, umm… not so smart. This would be a very easy decision.
It's really different tools that tend to be used for different purposes of course but they overlap here. And yes, SpectraLayers is quite amazing in what it can do.
@@LanewoodStudios Yes, I’m aware of that. But I’m no fan of ‘Smart’ anything. Append the word ‘Smart’ to any creative software tool and watch me run. What’s actually smart is us songwriters, engineers and producers who create the music that soothes the savage beast. I’m endlessly grateful to those who build solutions I can use in my music production. On the other hand, nobody’s software has any clue.
none of these are any good for unmixing anything. To state a "winner", though Smart gate is totally... out of the gate hahaha. It's not even a good gate. Wish it was, as it looks so great. But its performance is lacklustre. I do have Spectralayers 10. It's great. But I don't use it for gating or unmixing. I use it for what it does best: beating RX. As for gating, well, blacksaltaudio Silencer is the tool for gating drums, at least as far as removing cymbal bleed is concerned. For other gating purposes, most general gates do the same as "smart" gate does.
I’ve heard about the BSA gate. Will need to check it out.
Wow the artefacts on Spectralayers are just awful, making it unusable for this kind of transient task, and the original loop was not even very complex! I can only imagine how much WORSE it can sound!
I guess SpectraLayers was not really meant for this purpose.
@@LanewoodStudios It's literally advertised as a stem separation tool.
Why do people film this way your heard looks like its skipping bouncing side to side please go back to the other way of filming still framing way better your also skipping your words is this called 4 k filling its terrible .
I'm not really aware of there being an 'other way'. I've always edited out the silences :).