In Summary
Acon Digital Remix is a real-time ‘un-mixer’ with five stem channels for Drums, Bass, Piano, Vocals, and Other for control over major mix elements. Each has its own fader, solo and mute for rebalancing, mix minuses, or stem isolation. Here we put it through its paces.
Going Deeper
Whether called re-mixers, re-balancers, or un-mixers, tools that allow the user to re-separate mix elements back into separate channels are nothing new, but the results are improving all the time. The way in which these work can vary with some processes happening at an online service’s end. Here the audio is uploaded, processed, and then made available for download. Others work in real-time with local audio; all work with varying degrees of success, however most work best in re-balancing applications where any artefacts are more easily masked.
These tools can be used by hobbyists or musicians who need to isolate individual parts for learning or other purposes, but the tech can be useful to pros as well. Creating ‘mix-minuses’ or rebalancing where the original audio is unavailable, or even just clean up in preparation for the mix make the technology useful.
Acon Digital Remix
Home to a number of utilities and problem-solvers for post and music mixers, Acon Digital are no strangers to the world of audio cleanup and restoration. Channelling this know-how into the recently announced Remix, their new un-mixer removes the inconvenience of cloud-based services and hopes to up the game for tools that run locally in real time.
In the video we check out Remix’s power for creating mix-minuses, rebalancing, and stem separation. We remove the vocal in pre-mixed audio before showing how easy it is to rebalance or otherwise get things on their own.
Un-Mixing - Is It There Yet?
Not so long ago, un-mixing audio was the stuff of science fiction. Taking a simple example of two channels (A + B) mixed down to a single result (C), any single element can be computed when the other two are known. To switch things around, C - B = A, or C - A = B. The point here is that everything is fine until someone asks for A and B to be separated when only C is available!
Acon Digital claim Remix to be the first plug-in capable of performing stem separation in real-time with acceptable latency. Significantly this makes it useable across an insert in the DAW. This is contrasted with offline tools or those that rely on upload/download speeds that rule out instant comparisons or tweaks to the results. The non-destructive real time MO of Remix also makes it automation friendly as well.
Remix performs admirably on a range of premixed sources. Is the separation perfect? No, but with the tech improving by the month, that’s what updates are for. For remixing in context it provides convincing, useful results that can be manually refined in context using the Sensitivity controls for each stem. With mid-range instruments perhaps being hardest to isolate from each other, Remix’s Piano and Other stem channels are pragmatically named for those who understand the challenges involved.
To its credit, completely eliminating unwanted elements in live recordings might not be entirely possible when the separation wasn’t there even in the first place! This is especially true with diffuse spill that lives in the same frequency band as the wanted audio. With more favourable conditions, the results are impressive.
If you’re looking for your next tool to let you quickly and effectively re-balance premixed audio, Remix could be the best yet.
A Word About This Article
As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.