Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1469840
72 S U M M E R 2 0 2 2 I C A S Q U A R T E R L Y Close-up of the Other stem during the bridge of Led Zeppelin's "Good Times Bad Times." ("Sixteen, I fell in love with a girl as sweet as can be"). Here, the guitar has a lot of chordal movement that bleeds prominently on the Vocal stem in SpectraLayers. It is also present on the Other stem, though with a different frequency presence (it's brighter on the Vocal stem). This area was also a little troublesome for RX, with the guitar also having a presence on the Vocal stem (though not as prominent as with SpectraLayers). However, the Other stem had guitar, some percussion, and even the bass sneaking in. RipX had some really solid isolation here. Going to the guitar solo, RipX had the cleanest representation, with the rhythm guitar and solo being pretty isolated on the Other stem, while RX and SpectraLayers had a good amount of cymbal presence mixed in with the guitar. Each software did follow the proper panning that takes place during the solo, which was nice to hear. If I had to create an instrumental or needed a moment to adjust Glyn Johns' awesome mix of this song so that it could blend under dialogue or VO better (something that could be considered sacrilege), I'd gravitate toward using RipX. The other song I chose is one of my speaker reference songs, Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can." This song has very solid drums and bass, piano, Chamberlin (precursor to the Mellotron), single-tracked vocals that are panned center for the verse, and double-tracked vocals panned hard left/right for the chorus. L-R: Stereo imaging and spectrum analysis of the Bass stem for Fiona Apple's "Fast As You Can" in RipX, RX, and SpectraLayers