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Old 03-21-2006, 06:15 PM   #1
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Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Ok, long post, only stay if you are an obsessive oddball. If you have a "life" or a grip on reality, then tune out, wrong thread :)

Then again, if you are an obsessive oddball, this may be terribly old, tired, talked out or obvious. I dunno, I'll give it a shot. I need a break from all the new album conspiracy theories. I brought this up in another thread, and was going to expand on it there when someone asked, but it’s just too broad a topic.

Background! I was on the train, many years ago, and my headphone socket came loose while listening to Aenima. I mash it back in, have a quick nut-scratch, but quickly realise this isn’t the Aenima I was listening to before. It was Pushit, but it wasn’t Pushit, it was like a whole different mix, and it sounded pretty damn bizarre! It was so different I thought I was mildly hallucinating, but after a while I realised that whatever lazy way I had plugged my headphones back in had shorted out part of the music, but it sounded like it had shorted out specific instruments entirely and left other ones to “breathe.” It was quite a revelation for me.

So, I research this at some point later when I remembered. I ask some people about stereo sound, do a spot of googling (or was it altavista’ing in those days?)

I always figured stereo was 2 channels, and the best you could do was listen to one ear at a time if you wanted to try pathetically to hear anything in more detail.

Turns out, I was wrong, it’s effectively 3 channels. Centre, Left and Right. The Centre is what is the same on each of the two channels. The Left and Right are what are individual on each channel. So I listen to a few other bit and pieces of albums with my headphone-hack, I get some interesting results, and some pathetic results. I guess it depends on how well the album is mastered, and if it’s mastered at all with this in mind. I actually sit down and listen to Aenima the whole way through using this method since it is what sparked this inquiry. It definitely and coincidently gives the best results to my ears.

Years later (recently) I remember about this whole thing, and go in search of a plug-in that will do the same job as my headphone-hack. I fire on a few mp3’s with this enabled, some results are interesting, it amused me for a while.

If you get lucky you can isolate that guitar or drum riff you’ve been trying to learn. If you were creating a remix of a song you liked, you could also extract some nice individual instrument sections. I imagine this is one of the techniques remixing artists use. But on the most basic level, you can listen to an album and have all of the details hidden in the mix much more forward on your speakers.

Sure, if you have a super expensive hi-fi that brings out every detail you are probably scoffing at my rambling. Maybe you’re right, but it’s certainly interesting to hear an album you love in a whole new context. And this makes any old crappy speakers capable of bringing out just about any hidden detail on an album loud and clear.

So If you wanna go ahead and try this use one of these plugins….

Foobar - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=17661
Winamp - http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/...howtopic=17450


I’ve only used the foobar one, but you get 2 options. Centre (mono), or Centre cut (sides/stereo). For me, the centre (mono) option is pretty worthless, maybe not entirely, but I haven’t played with it too much. But on the whole, it will sound like a flat boring version of whatever you play. It’s the guts of the song, without the stereo extremes.

Centre-Cut is what it’s all about. It cuts whatever is on both channels in the mix (whatever is the main beef of the song) and leaves the surrounding broken pieces, the extremes of the stereo sound.

It’s hit and miss, and it doesn’t work 100%, but it does give you some really interesting listens, especially if you an Aenima-nut like I am. Some of the time you get an individual instrument on each speaker, sometimes you just get a much more basic raw “studio” sound which is interesting. It just depends.

But be warned, some low quality MP3’s just don’t contain the detail to bother with this. If you think the mp3 sounds bad normally, wait until you hear the instruments in isolation. Also the whole joint-stereo thing….I just don’t trust mp3s on this 100%, there’s too many dodgy encoders out there. Either use the CD or some nice high quality rips and you should be fine.

So from here on I’m not discussing the effect in general, only in regarding Aenima.

On Aenima, if you cut the centre channel, you’re generally left with….

- drums, not all the drums (I think) but a decent isolation, and it makes them sound very different at points
- background vocals/harmonies isolated
- guitar overlays
- general atmospherics and additions to the songs

It generally cuts….

- the main vocals
- the bass
- the lead guitar.

It gives a whole different atmosphere to some of the songs, and when you go back to listening to them normally, they will sound fresh, and you will notice the new things you discovered in your alternate listening mode more readily.
So install the plug-in, turn it on. You'll have to pump your volume a bit to hear what remains, since the central body of the song is gone. But not too loud, sometimes those big loud guitar crunches bounce out to the L&R extremes very suddenly for short passages.

So anyway, I recommend Aenima, but you can try this with any album. I noticed someone else mention Lateralus in the thread I brought this up in. Doesn’t work quite as well for me on Lateralus, but you might find me to be wrong  Below is a few notable bits of Aenima that just sound very *different.* to the normal mix for me.

stinkfist
----------
- isolation of the drums in general on this track
- 0.32 - the way the vocals come into the mix, happens at the start of every verse
- 2.33 - middle-8 creepy vocals, drumming just sounds so different from normal listen

eulogy
---------
- 1.56 - every drum beat a different note, followed by an isolation of the backing vocal
- 2.47 - vocal harmonies come in here that are not obvious at all on normal mix (2.52 - Very obvious here)
- 5.15 - middle 8, lots of maynard whispering, flowing into pretty much straight vocals with some snare/cymbal backup, nice.

H
--------
- 3.04 - the drums!! Isolated are so different than normal....
- 5.25 - holy sweet guitar tone batman!

46&2
--------
- 1.30 - drums again, just different than normal listen
- 3.30 - maynard speaking, right channel
- 5.05 - strange screeching noise (circling vultures :)
- 5.39 - very isolated guitar tone again.


hooker
--------
- 1.40 - "consume, be fruitful and mulitply" (left channel) followed by strange sounding drums
- 2.50 - nice guitar tone here that just wails off into the distance in a way i never noticed before


jimmy (f00king love the guitar tone on this song)
-------
- 0.40 - short wailing guitar overlay, heard that before?
- 1.00 - "waiting for me" (left channel) followed by some really nice isolated guitar tone.
- 1.30 - "showing me where it all began" ..."eleven" very isolated
- 2.25 - guitar again!
- 2.40 - funky bass thump is isolated! *grin*

pushit (THIS is probably the most different sounding song in this listening mode)
-------
- the *entire* drum track on this song, it's just so different with the centre cut, the drums sound backwards, they snake in on every hit. Great effect/technique
- 0.49 - piano bong hits! (right channel - they were new to me)
- 3.05 - .....WOW, this is the one it was worth doing all this for, multi-layered maynard vocals here sound fantastic when isolated Matched with the eerie drums *chills*

third eye (what a song)
------
- 10.20 - (onwards) ....all that subtle angelic whispering in the background is suddenly right in your face. It's like the Nazi's opening the ark in raiders!
- 10.38 - ....hello
- 11.33 - crumbs!


G’Night! Yes, this post was TOOOO long, I know :-/
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Old 03-21-2006, 06:41 PM   #2
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Excellent post, I've done this more with lateralus than aenima and its worked excellently on both. its lots of fun!

Point to note: you hear a lot of effects returns using this method, particularly on vocals, and if that effect is delay or reverb, and all you're hearing is the effect it makes the the vocals sound "late" or "wrong". this is normal, once you get past that, its a lot of fun.
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Old 03-26-2006, 08:17 PM   #3
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

i've been doing the trick with the headphone jack for a long time now. nice posting the winamp plugins.
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Old 03-26-2006, 08:51 PM   #4
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

anyone care to tell me where the whispering starts in no quarter?
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Old 03-27-2006, 03:56 PM   #5
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Damn, i must have been bored when i typed that, it's so damn LONG, could have been 5 lines and got the point across, heh.
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Old 04-12-2006, 01:47 AM   #6
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

i want to thank you for the craziness i am experiencing aurally right now.
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Old 04-13-2006, 12:29 AM   #7
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Quote:
Originally Posted by tempathy
i want to thank you for the craziness i am experiencing aurally right now.
.

had a play found this...

Lateralus - around 5:37, maynard's additional vocals...
continues throughout section
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Old 04-21-2006, 04:19 PM   #8
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Whats that whisper on Stinkfist before the solo.
Can you understand whats Maynard saying?
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Old 04-23-2006, 07:29 PM   #9
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Wow. This is a very interesting way to listen. Thanks for the info. I wonder how NIN songs will sound like this.
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Old 04-24-2006, 10:28 PM   #10
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

are those links working for everyone else?
they aren't for me...
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Old 04-24-2006, 10:39 PM   #11
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

they still are for me... it goes to a forum and there is another link to the file.
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Old 04-27-2006, 07:30 AM   #12
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Quote:
Originally Posted by cosmokramer
are those links working for everyone else?
they aren't for me...
Yeah, they weren't working for me previously, so I just searched for it myself, but after just trying them, they work again now.
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Old 04-30-2006, 06:37 PM   #13
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

My audio driver has a tool for "Karoke" that removes the channels or whatever they are that vocals usually come over. So it leaves most of the guitar/drums/other noise. I hear soo much more.

A lot of that shit comes out. Anyone with Realtek AC97 Audio should use the Realtek Sound Manager (should be in control panel).

http://media.putfile.com/consume-be-...l-and-multiply

http://uploadfile.putfile.com/videos/11922503513.wav
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Old 05-16-2006, 07:07 PM   #14
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

hmm.... this is pretty nice

I eventually wanna be able to spend 100 bucks on headphones though... that way I'll be able to hear all of it in an entirely new light. I would check this out but at the time I think lazyness will get the best of me.
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Old 06-11-2006, 02:37 PM   #15
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

I just want to echo the "no MP3" sentiment and expand on it a little more. While the quality of an encoding is certainly dependant upon how bad the result will sound, it in fact doesn't, in the end, matter at all what encoding the MP3 is at, as you will still get something wrong. All lossless encoding processes like MP3, AAC or OGG Vorbis will re-encode the left and right channels separately; what this means for us is that there suddenly becomes no center channel; it does not exist. What remains is a left and a right channel, and if they both have the exact same sounds on both sides then it just sounds like there's a center channel. (If you're listening to a song that has what sounds like the same guitar on both the left and right, that effect is achieved by mixing the two guitar tracks about .02 seconds apart; if oyu mix them both at once, they will end up centering on you, no matter how far left and right you put them in an attempt to separate them.) If you're going to do any audio editing, ESPECIALLY if it has to do with stereo effects, use a lossless audio source from the original CD such as wave, FLAC, Shorten, AIP, Apple/Windows lossless, or Wavpack. Believe me, you'll notice a difference.
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Old 04-20-2011, 06:26 AM   #16
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Quote:
Originally Posted by JTRain View Post
Wow. This is a very interesting way to listen. Thanks for the info. I wonder how NIN songs will sound like this.
they will sound to good
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Old 06-29-2013, 04:20 PM   #17
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

This post is pure genius.I'm doing the same thing with the Lateralus right now.Probably I will listen to Undertow and 10,000 Days with the same way.
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Old 07-29-2013, 10:33 PM   #18
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

old news but listen to these... maybe it will save you some time. I did not make these but I am in the process of isolating some of the sounds we have yet to figure out.

https://soundcloud.com/invertme/hooker-with-a-penis
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Old 08-10-2013, 05:44 AM   #19
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

Thanks a lot for posting this Cadav! I had a great time listening to Aenima, works great on that one. Now listening to Lateralus, not that impressed yet, but it's cool to hear the music without the vocals in a lot of parts. I love the repeating vocals in the titel track from 5:38. 10,000 Days up next.
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Old 08-10-2013, 02:12 PM   #20
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

center cut. interesting. someone upload triad asap.
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Old 08-10-2013, 04:50 PM   #21
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

I am going to work on it tonight. Why Tria(x)?
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Old 08-10-2013, 05:27 PM   #22
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

the track is both subtle and overbearing, chugging along, taking everything as it goes, a monster/thrakking instrumental but with moans, crazy/exotic sounds, and some really great drum work (all of this could be said of most tool songs, but)...i kinda wanna hear what's going on underneath it all. that, and i got a REAL kick out of the following interpretation: https://toolnavy.com/showthread.php?t=126392
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Old 08-11-2013, 02:18 PM   #23
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

I will work on it today. Thanks for the time markers it makes it easier to explore what others hear.

BTW - thank you for all the ideas, not just triad but with prob. 8.
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Old 08-28-2013, 12:49 PM   #24
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

I have been hard at work. I hope there is still some interest.

I used my audio engineering skills to make this: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r4lhfqrimy...0overheads.mp3

I will take it down soon as I don't want to really spread this but it is the best version I have ever been able to get. You hear a lot of stuff that is buried way in the mix.

I have used this same technique on other albums and this one is the best but Lateralus is also mixed like this by Bottrill. It literally is like hitting solo on just the mandalas during rosetta stoned. I also have gotten closer to figuring out some whispers like at the end of this eye.

I don't want to get copyright notices so listen while you can and please don't share.
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Old 08-29-2013, 05:17 AM   #25
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Re: Aenima - A fresh way to listen to it (centre-cut)

I'm still interested, but it's already removed. Would love to hear the track though. Maybe through pm? As was mentioned before, the centre-cut really works best with Aenima imo, original cd of course. I heard some really nice parts that, in this way, are great for my band (rap) to use as samples. I used the Winamp plugin to export the centre-cut mix, but that didn't work. Any ideas? Maybe through Audition? Would love to finally use a small part of my all time favorite band in my own music...
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