Extracting Music From Film Channels

[CompleteRecordingSessions 43]

Hello everyone, I'm a newbie here at JWFAN. I was just wondering, how do you all go about extracting music from film audio channels, and how do you remove the remaining SFX? I'm just asking because I want to start making score edits. Thanks!

[Brando 1,895]

I'm at work so i can't write a detailed post that would answer your question, but @Manakin Skywalker can help you, he's known for doing the Star Wars releases on YT. Also, it depends on what film format you're wanting to use. I think any computer disc drive can do Blu-Ray discs, but there's only certain ones that can rip the Atmos tracks from a 4K release which has Atmos tracks, which I do not have, so I have to ask people for rips of those films.

[TolkienSS 410]

I used to do that 20 years ago. But that method is long outdated.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

1 hour ago, TolkienSS said:

But that method is long outdated.

 

Not necessarily. Depends on what resources are available for a specific score. Sometimes that's the only resource.

 

1 hour ago, CompleteRecordingSessions said:

Hello everyone, I'm a newbie here at JWFAN. I was just wondering, how do you all go about extracting music from film audio channels, and how do you remove the remaining SFX? I'm just asking because I want to start making score edits. Thanks!

 

I moved the discussion to private chat.

[enderdrag64 640]

4 hours ago, Brando said:

Also, it depends on what film format you're wanting to use. I think any computer disc drive can do Blu-Ray discs, but there's only certain ones that can rip the Atmos tracks from a 4K release which has Atmos tracks, which I do not have, so I have to ask people for rips of those films.

Not just any computer disc drive, any *blu-ray* drive. But you're right about 4k needing special drives, I'd recommend looking up libredrive on the MakeMKV forums

[Brando 1,895]

2 hours ago, enderdrag64 said:

Not just any computer disc drive, any *blu-ray* drive. But you're right about 4k needing special drives, I'd recommend looking up libredrive on the MakeMKV forums

Yea, that's right. I couldn't remember if any drive worked for BR's, but when I bought mine I specifically made sure it could do BR's.

[Jay 37,555]

6 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

I moved the discussion to private chat.

 

No need to do that, and it'd be better if you explained it publicly to share knowledge with others who could use it. 

 

There's nothing in the rules that prevents discussion of any of this. 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

No need to do that, and it'd be better if you explained it publicly to share knowledge with others who could use it. 

 

There's nothing in the rules that prevents discussion of any of this. 

 

I figured, I just didn't want to deal with clutter (other posts) while explaining. 

 

Tbf he seemed to have a good grasp on how to begin so I ended up not needing to explain much anyway.

[MaxMovieMan 287]

I’ve been trying to find a good explanation on how to do this for years there are so many scores I want to rip onto my phone.

[Jay 37,555]

Yea someone should create and post a nice modern guide

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

I'll give a quick rundown on the ripping aspect since that's by far the easiest and more straightforward thing to explain:

 

1. First and foremost, make sure you have a disc drive capable of ripping the kind of disc you're looking to rip (Blu-ray drive for Blu-ray, etc. etc.)

 

2. Download and install MakeMKV: https://www.makemkv.com/

MakeMKV is free while in beta (which it's been for like 15 years now), you'll need to update the beta key every few months, which can always be found here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1053

 

3. Rip the film from the disc. Should be pretty straightforward; if not, look for a tutorial online or visit the MakeMKV forums.

 

4. Download and install Audacity: https://www.audacityteam.org/

 

5. Make sure to install the FFMPEG plugin for Audacity, you can find a tutorial for doing that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcLcnKgKczc

 

6. From here you should be able to simply drag-and-drop the MKV video file straight into the Audacity window and select the best audio track (best quality codec, most channels, etc.) and begin editing!

[MaxMovieMan 287]

Thank you so much

[Holko 9,622]

1 hour ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

I'll give a quick rundown on the ripping aspect since that's by far the easiest and more straightforward thing to explain:

 

1. First and foremost, make sure you have a disc drive capable of ripping the kind of disc you're looking to rip (Blu-ray drive for Blu-ray, etc. etc.)

 

2. Download and install MakeMKV: https://www.makemkv.com/

MakeMKV is free while in beta (which it's been for like 15 years now), you'll need to update the beta key every few months, which can always be found here: https://forum.makemkv.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1053

 

3. Rip the film from the disc. Should be pretty straightforward; if not, look for a tutorial online or visit the MakeMKV forums.

 

4. Download and install Audacity: https://www.audacityteam.org/

 

5. Make sure to install the FFMPEG plugin for Audacity, you can find a tutorial for doing that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcLcnKgKczc

 

6. From here you should be able to simply drag-and-drop the MKV video file straight into the Audacity window and select the best audio track (best quality codec, most channels, etc.) and begin editing!

Usually the rear channels have the cleanest music, but they don't necessarily have all the music when it's mixed across all channels. There are many free online "AI"-based sites that can remove dialogue ("vocals") or even sound effects ("percussion"), though one shouldn't expect instant magic perfection yet. My go-to one is https://x-minus.pro/ai.

[MaxMovieMan 287]

Is there a way to do this for shows that are only on streaming? Like "Invincible" for example. The score for that show is unreleased but it is very good and the show is only streaming on Amazon Prime.

[Brando 1,895]

@Manakin SkywalkerI think has done it before but I could be wrong.

[Groovygoth666 736]

12 hours ago, MaxMovieMan said:

Is there a way to do this for shows that are only on streaming? Like "Invincible" for example. The score for that show is unreleased but it is very good and the show is only streaming on Amazon Prime.

For what it's worth Amazon has uploaded some of the score to YouTube - 

 

[1977 1,743]

I'd love to know how fan editors are able to extract and isolate dialogue and SFX cleanly from a fully mixed soundtrack - perhaps by overlaying the score (if available) out of phase to "cancel" it out?

[Faleel 5,456]

1 minute ago, JTWfan77 said:

I'd love to know how fan editors are able to extract and isolate dialogue and SFX cleanly from a fully mixed soundtrack - perhaps by overlaying the score (if available) out of phase to "cancel" it out?

From what I know:

 

In the old days:

 

Other sources (video games, documentaries etc.) Center channel + EQ + Pray it sounds good

 

Now we have AI stem separation which can sometimes work.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

31 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

I'd love to know how fan editors are able to extract and isolate dialogue and SFX cleanly from a fully mixed soundtrack - perhaps by overlaying the score (if available) out of phase to "cancel" it out?

 

Nope. It's because in multi-channel rips (5.1, 7.1, etc.) you can isolate certain channel sets. For example most dialogue tends to be primarily in the center channel, so naturally if you mute that, most of the dialogue will disappear. Most of the sound effects tend to be in the front channels, but can sometimes swing over to the rear channels as well, in which case you need to constantly remove sections of each channel that have the most sfx. At the same time, the front channels are the most accurate representation of the music's stereo mix, so you want to preserve those as much as possible.

[Brando 1,895]

11 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

I'd love to know how fan editors are able to extract and isolate dialogue and SFX cleanly from a fully mixed soundtrack - perhaps by overlaying the score (if available) out of phase to "cancel" it out?

Depends on if you have an Atmos mix. Those sometimes have cleaner results. The Atmos rip of Hook was pretty clean throughout, whereas the Atmos rips for TOD and TLC were not so good for those little unreleased bits.

[Faleel 5,456]

2 minutes ago, Brando said:

Depends on if you have an Atmos mix. Those sometimes have cleaner results. The Atmos rip of Hook was pretty clean throughout, whereas the Atmos rips for TOD and TLC were not so good for those little unreleased bits.

 

4 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Nope. It's because in multi-channel rips (5.1, 7.1, etc.) you can isolate certain channel sets. For example most dialogue tends to be primarily in the center channel, so naturally if you mute that, most of the dialogue will disappear. Most of the sound effects tend to be in the front channels, but can sometimes swing over to the rear channels as well, in which case you need to constantly remove sections of each channel that have the most sfx. At the same time, the front channels are the most accurate representation of the music's stereo mix, so you want to preserve those as much as possible.

Isn't he talking about getting isolated SFX and Dialogue? NOT score?

[Brando 1,895]

7 minutes ago, Presto said:

 

Isn't he talking about getting isolated SFX and Dialogue? NOT score?

Oops, he is, I read it wrong

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

14 minutes ago, Presto said:

Isn't he talking about getting isolated SFX and Dialogue? NOT score?

 

That's what I get for skimming 

 

27 minutes ago, Presto said:

Other sources (video games, documentaries etc.) Center channel + EQ + Pray it sounds good

 

Now we have AI stem separation which can sometimes work.

 

In that case, this 👆

[MaxMovieMan 287]

4 hours ago, Groovygoth666 said:

For what it's worth Amazon has uploaded some of the score to YouTube - 

 

Yeah I’ve known about this. There’s still a lot of great stuff missing.

 

If I download the scene from YouTube and put it into Audacity I don’t see all these channels you guys are talking about. Do I have to use a program to download the full episode?

[ThePenitentMan1 809]

Youtube doesn't have 5.1, I don't think.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

25 minutes ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

Youtube doesn't have 5.1, I don't think.

 

Believe it or not YouTube does support 5.1! That would depend on if the uploader did upload it in 5.1 or not though.

 

2 hours ago, MaxMovieMan said:

Yeah I’ve known about this. There’s still a lot of great stuff missing.

 

If I download the scene from YouTube and put it into Audacity I don’t see all these channels you guys are talking about. Do I have to use a program to download the full episode?

 

Most of the time YouTube clips are in stereo (and extremely compressed on top of that). Like I said above, technically YouTube does support 5.1, but that might not be the case here. Also a standard YouTube audio downloader wouldn't support multichannel, you'd have to use something more like YT-DLP.

[Faleel 5,456]

7 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Believe it or not YouTube does support 5.1! That would depend on if the uploader did upload it in 5.1 or not though.

 

 

Most of the time YouTube clips are in stereo (and extremely compressed on top of that). Like I said above, technically YouTube does support 5.1, but that might not be the case here. Also a standard YouTube audio downloader wouldn't support multichannel, you'd have to use something more like YT-DLP.

I have used 4k DownloadHelper to get 5.1 mixed videos before.

[MaxMovieMan 287]

Ok. How can you tell if the audio on a video is in 5.1 on YouTube? Or if there isn't any videos on YouTube of Invincible in 5.1 is there a way to download the episode off of Amazon itself and extract it from there? Thanks for the replies I genuinely appreciate it.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

12 minutes ago, MaxMovieMan said:

Ok. How can you tell if the audio on a video is in 5.1 on YouTube? Or if there isn't any videos on YouTube of Invincible in 5.1 is there a way to download the episode off of Amazon itself and extract it from there? Thanks for the replies I genuinely appreciate it.

 

You'd have to download the audio from YouTube and manually check it.

 

The easiest way would be too, er, obtain the episode.

[Groovygoth666 736]

Something else that can sometimes help when using a films audio is foreign language dubs that are in 5.1, depending on how they were dubbed it can have little to no voice echo or even minimal sfx in the surround channels. 

 

@Manakin Skywalker this might be a stupid question, if I wanted to upload music to YouTube what's the best way to do that as YouTube doesn't support audio files on their own? 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

37 minutes ago, Groovygoth666 said:

 

@Manakin Skywalker this might be a stupid question, if I wanted to upload music to YouTube what's the best way to do that as YouTube doesn't support audio files on their own? 

 

You'll want to render it as a video file with cover art or a poster in the background.

[Groovygoth666 736]

2 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

You'll want to render it as a video file with cover art or a poster in the background.

...... That seems so obvious now you've said it 🤦🏻‍♂️. Any particular programs you would recommend? 

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

9 minutes ago, Groovygoth666 said:

...... That seems so obvious now you've said it 🤦🏻‍♂️. Any particular programs you would recommend? 

 

Personally I've always used Vegas Movie Studio, but they don't sell a legit version anymore (it was taken over a few years ago by a shady company with a terrible BBB rating, I've had negative dealings with them in the past myself). So if you went with that you'll want to go with an older version from back when Sony owned it. Or just something else entirely.

 

Are you on PC or Mac?

[Groovygoth666 736]

10 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Personally I've always used Vegas Movie Studio, but they don't sell a legit version anymore (it was taken over a few years ago by a shady company with a terrible BBB rating, I've had negative dealings with them in the past myself). So if you went with that you'll want to go with an older version from back when Sony owned it. Or just something else entirely.

 

Are you on PC or Mac?

Oh not heard of that one, will have a look into it thanks. 

 

I'm on a Windows laptop (yeah not the best way to do things but it works 😄) 

[1977 1,743]

Have a look at videohelp.com in the tools section, there are tons of freeware apps that can do this (and many other things to boot).

[Groovygoth666 736]

7 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

Have a look at videohelp.com in the tools section, there are tons of freeware apps that can do this (and many other things to boot).

Great I'll also have a look on there aswell, thanks a lot 👍🏻

[ThePenitentMan1 809]

I started out using Windows Movie Maker.  (Back when it was halfway decent...)

 

These days I use Shotcut: https://www.shotcut.org/

[Brando 1,895]

4 hours ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

I started out using Windows Movie Maker.

I still use WMM, I found a download of it online, super simple

[Groovygoth666 736]

4 hours ago, ThePenitentMan1 said:

I started out using Windows Movie Maker.  (Back when it was halfway decent...)

 

These days I use Shotcut: https://www.shotcut.org/

Not heard of that one either, I'll have to check it out, thanks. 

 

13 minutes ago, Brando said:

I still use WMM, I found a download of it online, super simple

Haven't used that in years but you're right it was super simple, might have to look into that aswell thanks 

[ThePenitentMan1 809]

I started using Shotcut out of a desire to have a frame-perfect editing program for making fanedits of movies...  which never really panned out, but I still like this program more than WMM.

[Groovygoth666 736]

On 09/12/2023 at 1:27 AM, ThePenitentMan1 said:

I started using Shotcut out of a desire to have a frame-perfect editing program for making  fanedits of movies...  which never really panned out, but I still like this program more than WMM.

 

That's the one I ended up using so thanks again. If it's got frame perfect editing that will be useful for a fanedit I'd like to do down the line. 

[Faleel 5,456]

On 08/12/2023 at 1:04 AM, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Personally I've always used Vegas Movie Studio, but they don't sell a legit version anymore (it was taken over a few years ago by a shady company with a terrible BBB rating, I've had negative dealings with them in the past myself). So if you went with that you'll want to go with an older version from back when Sony owned it. Or just something else entirely.

 

Are you on PC or Mac?

You mean MAGIX?

[Manakin Skywalker 4,910]

19 minutes ago, Presto said:

You MAGIX?

 

Yeah. Idk if they were credible in the past, but in recent years they're just terrible.

[Faleel 5,456]

I have to admit I have the latest version of Vegas Pro 🤣😥😢😭

[Richard Penna 3,783]

I've used Vegas Pro 15 for years and it works fine, if a tad unstable when doing a lot of rapid changes.

 

Note, that's not the same thing as Movie Studio which is their consumer level one and has restrictions I can't live with.

[MaxMovieMan 287]

I’ve been using audacity for extracting and then premiere pro to make the videos themselves.