[quote=MusicStudent] I have Song Master Pro and found it very useful. I also have Melodyne Studio, which has its own set of uses. I use the combination to transcribe bass lines and create backing tracks using the original song to play over.
Maartian - what tasks do you find the need to use one program over the other ?
Joe I was wondering the same thing. As I have Studio One Pro 7, Rip X Daw and Melodyne Studio. Studio One does advanced tempo maps that are incredibly easy as well as stem separation. Rip X Daw does as well and of course it Melodyne Studio is their top notch software. Song Master Pro looks like a great program but I am not sure what use I would have with it? Brian
BIAB 2026 Ultrapack- Fender Studio Pro 8, Windows 11, Mac Mini M4 with Logic Pro 11, Melodyne Studio, Luna Pro
SMP and Melodyne are quite different beasts, IMO. SMP is mainly for musicians who have to learn / transcribe songs, altough some of its features can certainly be useful in the music production area. Melodyne, on the other hand, is designed for music producers almost exclusively.
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Improved Stem quality With this release, we included our 4-stem model that may produce better results for vocals, drums, and bass than our 6-stem model (Pro). The 4-stem model is automatically selected when Guitar and Piano stems are not checked in the Generate Stems dialog.
To generate using the new 4-stem model, do not select Guitar and Piano. If either Guitar or Piano are selected, then Song Master will use the 6-stem model.
Stem Render Options Stereo Stems can now be displayed as just a single waveform (instead of two, to save screen space). See Stems menu, "Show Stereo as Mono" Stem tracks can now be displayed with a colored bg. See Stems menu, "Show Color BG"
Copy/Paste Notes to Sections. If you right-click over a Section marker our in the Notes track, we've added the following commands to the menu:
Copy Notes in Section Paste Notes in Section Copy Notes in Section to All Named Sections This works similar to the Copy/Paste Chords to Sections commands and are useful to efficiently copy a set of notes from one section to other sections.
New OSC messages /pan - control pan position /songVolume - control song volume /metroVolume - control metronome volume /keybdVolume - control internal keyboard volume
Fixed: Fixed an issue when exporting a section of audio where the tail end of audio was getting prematurely truncated If the audio device set in Settings |Audio is disconnected, it will now properly be re-activated when it is re-connected. For external stems, the OSC command /trackName now returns the edited stem track OSC Command /windowToFront now works better on macos The windowToFront command can now be assigned a midi command to bring the Song Master window to the top Playlist items now display the song title, album, and artist as entered in the Song Info dialog (previously, it was displaying info obtained from meta data embeded in audio file). Reduced the amount the playlist file browser mouse wheel scrolls On mac, if .song file is associated with Song Master, double-clicking it will now open Song Master with that song loaded (previously, it was loading the last song and not the double-clicked song). macOs: added "⌘-," (cmd-comma) as shortcut for app Settings/Preferences
-- UNSUPPORTED FEATURE -- CUDA Support to Accelerate Stem Separation Users on Windows that have an Nvidia graphics card that supports CUDA can now use it to accelerate stem separation.
Note that this is an "unofficial" feature and we cannot support it if you have run in to problems.
Last edited by TheMaartian; 12/15/2408:32 AM.
ThinkPad i9 32GB RAM 7TB SSD; Win11 Pro; RME Fireface UCX II; BiaB 2026 Ultra Studio Pro 8; Tonalic Studio 1; Reaper v7; Bitwig Studio 6; Melodyne Studio 5 Gig Performer 5; NI S61 MK3; Focal Shape 65; Beyerdynamic DT 880 & 770
Maybe there still are some dependency on the audio how the quality falls out within the two models.
If one of the stems does not fall out so good e.g. the Bass stem. It could be worth it making two sets of stems, just to check. One with the new 4-stem model and another with the 6-stem model and then compare them. (it is easy to compare just listen or otherwise drag them all over to the DAW and compare).
I just made some simple tests, and with one of the audio tracks, an old classic recording on mp3 picked up from YT the Bass stem was surprisingly better with the older 6-stem model than with the new 4-stem model (at least from what I could hear and see). Maybe it is very rare. Folsome Prison Blues - Johnny Cash
BIAB 2026, Studio Pro 8, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
You may be right that the best strategy to get the highest quality stem might be to try several of these stem-splitting programs. Although I most use Song Master Pro, in one test Studio One produced a better-sounding bass track. The tone was fuller -fatter.
I have not repeated the test yet by selecting the four-instrument split in Song Master Pro. Indeed, it has two more tracks by default and perhaps reducing the number of tracks (now an option) improves the audio quality.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
My test was within SMP testing the two options the new 4-stem-model vs the 6-stem-model both within SMP.
I thought the new 4-stem model should have higher quality without exception so I was a bit surpriced when I found one audio track were the Bass stem was better in the old 6-stem model within SMP. It is easy to switch between the two models within SMP to check and compare. My suggestion to drag them over to the DAW was only if one wanted to have all stems for both models side by side for comparisment
BIAB 2026, Studio Pro 8, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
Glad to hear the SMP programmers are pushing and stretching. Crisp bass stem separation followed by automatic tablature of that stem would be way cool!
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Steve, write to the developer. I did, and it resulted in a change very quickly.
This is a groundbreaking program for me as it ties together several functions that formerly required multiple programs. And I really love working in the interface. Finally, all those decades we used to say that you can't unbake the cake, well, now we have our cake and unbake it too.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Glad to hear the SMP programmers are pushing and stretching. Crisp bass stem separation followed by automatic tablature of that stem would be way cool!
Notation would be relatively simple, but tablature? I don't know. Since there are multiple ways to play/finger a given bass line, how would SMP know which one to choose? Would you want it to suggest several tabs and let you pick the one that works best for you?
ThinkPad i9 32GB RAM 7TB SSD; Win11 Pro; RME Fireface UCX II; BiaB 2026 Ultra Studio Pro 8; Tonalic Studio 1; Reaper v7; Bitwig Studio 6; Melodyne Studio 5 Gig Performer 5; NI S61 MK3; Focal Shape 65; Beyerdynamic DT 880 & 770
For example, the open string G and the fifth fret G on the D string and the tenth fret G on the A string are all the same note even though they sound slightly different. Bassists can choose where to play a given note based on the tone that best fits the sound they're after.
Last edited by TheMaartian; 12/16/2409:49 AM.
ThinkPad i9 32GB RAM 7TB SSD; Win11 Pro; RME Fireface UCX II; BiaB 2026 Ultra Studio Pro 8; Tonalic Studio 1; Reaper v7; Bitwig Studio 6; Melodyne Studio 5 Gig Performer 5; NI S61 MK3; Focal Shape 65; Beyerdynamic DT 880 & 770
Thanks for elaborating. I do understand that. I’ve spent a lifetime transcribing songs for musicians who could not do notation. While a lead sheet doesn’t require my knowing how (which string) they produced a note, some patterns are no doubt harder than others. As a horn player, I use occasional alternate fingerings to perform a difficult passage or correct a particular horn’s intonation flaws. My experience is that no one would even notice. I think guitar and bass players have many more alternatives to consider.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Notation would be relatively simple, but tablature? I don't know. Since there are multiple ways to play/finger a given bass line, how would SMP know which one to choose? Would you want it to suggest several tabs and let you pick the one that works best for you?
The problem may have to be attacked by solving the standard-notation subproblem first, but I’m certain the final tab problem can also be solved.
I look at this as a classic dual-optimization engineering problem.
Optimization “A” would be to minimize the error between the truth and the proposed bass line from a sonic perspective. The truth is the extracted bass line stem and the proposed is what the algorithm comes up with at any given iteration. Thousands of iterations may be needed.
The differences between the open string G and the fifth fret G on the D string and the tenth fret G on the A string would be dealt with at this stage. Frequency analysis (FFT), harmonic analysis, amplitude enveloping and/or timbre analysis could be used.
Optimization “B” would be to minimize the amount of finger gymnastics required to play the tab. This could be accomplished by dividing the fretboard in zones with the goal of the final tab to minimize the number and/or the frequency of moving from one zone to another. Thousands of iterations may be needed here too. But a few thousand iterations on an i9 machine may be a handful of seconds.
These optimizations could be sequential or one could be nested inside the other. Either way, the objective would be to a) sonically represent the extracted bass line as closely as possible and b) to make it as easy as possible for the bassist to play the tab.
I’m sure there are other approaches to solving this problem; using elements of AI may be another approach. Of course, this could be extended to 6-string guitars as well.
And sure, SMP or any program, could provide a choice of tabs to choose from. An easy, medium or difficult set of choices would be a great learning tool for us non-pros.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Optimization “B” would be to minimize the amount of finger gymnastics required to play the tab. ............................
This should be the goal of any sting instrument musician.
Tabs do not give you that option. Notation does as most of the time notation does not indicate what position to play the section, that is left to the musician and sometimes how the tone(s) sounds in the song.
Of course there are some options where large jumps are required for a song but they are in the minority. YMMV
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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