Song Surgeon 4620 Derby Lane, Doylestown, PA 18902 Tel: 866-423-0413, 215-371-3909 (F) www.songsurgeon.com

Thursday, March 6, 2025

Dear Customer

It has been several months since I have sent out a Song Surgeon newsletter. We have a lot going on so I wanted to write and give you some updates.

Most Valuable New Feature

As most of you know Song Surgeon Version 6 was launched late last summer. Based upon customer feedback it has been well received. Of all the new features, the most popular one seems to be Audio Stream Capture (ASC).

ASC enables users to capture streaming audio from any source that is playing on your computer. This includes audio from sites like Apple Music, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, YouTube to name a few. Song Surgeon captures this audio via a digital recording feature which allows you to save the audio stream as a audio file (mp3, m4a, wav) and then use it within Song Surgeon.

Many people no longer own or have audio files stored on physical devices but rely solely upon streaming sites for music. This allows such users to be able to use files from streaming sites, by creating a digital file and then loading it into Song Surgeon.

Two Newly Implemented Features

Since launching Song Surgeon 6 last summer, we have been working non-stop to continue to improve the program. Recently we added two new features to the program. If you don’t have these features you should uninstall your current build and then download the newest build using the links found in your My Account page on our site.

VRII Tool

The first of these we call the VRII tool. This stands for Vocal Removal and Instrument Isolation. VRII is an AI based tool that can isolate or separate instruments from a mixed down track. This list of instruments includes: vocals, drums, bass, piano, and guitar.

Once a file is processed, VRII returns two tracks. One contains the isolated instrument and the second which contains the entire mix absent the instrument that was removed.

This separation isn’t perfect but it is sufficiently good on most songs as to be very useful. The VRII separation can be very helpful because it allows you to hear the notes being played by the instrument of your choice. Secondly the mix without your instrument gives you a track to which you can play along. For example, if you removed Bass, you can now play along with your Bass allowing you to practice and add the bass line which was removed. Go hear if you'd like to hear some examples of processed tracks.

https://songsurgeon.com/vocal-removal-tool/

Important Note: This feature was not slated to be incorporated into Song Surgeon until Version 7 but, because of its usefulness we have included it, on a trial basis, in Version 6.

Auto Beat Graphing

Version 6 of Song Surgeon has a greatly expanded marker function. Previous versions of Song Surgeon could only create information markers. Version 6 also can create Beat and Measure Markers. The creation and insertion of beat and measure markers was semi-automatic in the initial builds and required some user input.

Recently we augment this system to ALSO include the automatic insertion of beats. The ability to automatically DETECT beats is both art and science. What SS is able to do is not perfect but it can be helpful as a place to start – and can also save you a considerable amount of time. To turn this feature on, go to: Options >> Program Settings 2 >> Automatic Beat Graphing >> Select Yes to turn it on.

Under Development

We currently are working on three additional features/functions which should be rolled out within the next 1-2 months. One is the ability to select a light vs. a dark theme user interface. A second is the addition of a small question mark icon next to each function, which when selected will take you either to a specific training video or to the appropriate section of the User Guide for that feature. The last thing that is currently in the works is a functionality that will allow you to save and open files directly from your Google Drive account.

Under Investigation

A couple of additional things we are investigating as possible additions to Song Surgeon are:

1. The ability to automatically detect the frequency of music or a song. Most digital music is recorded in A440 but there are some songs that are not, and this means that your instrument has to be RETUNED to be able to play in-tune with such songs. We hope to be able to measure this frequency of a file that you open and then if you need be able to adjust it to a different frequency, be able to do that.

2. A second feature under investigation is the addition of a feature to remove clipping or noise from audio files.

If you haven’t tried Song Surgeon 6 yet I would encourage you to download the demo and take it for a test drive. You can grab the demo here: https://songsurgeon.com/demo.html

Alternatively, if you are ready to order, you can do that here. https://v6.songsurgeon.com/ If you are a previous customer, make sure you log in at the top of the page so we can apply our existing customer discount.

James Todd
Song Surgeon