You’ll still often hear some higher cymbals or some snare, but the melody will be isolated very well. You can drop the low frequencies easily and trim off the higher ones to get a specific range and it will come through quite clearly. In regards to the guitar-driven songs it Riffstation does a really good job.
I’ve imported some Satriani songs, Tony MacAlpine, Guns n’ Roses, a couple of songs from the Mass Effect 2 and Super Meat Boy soundtracks, the haunting Torgo theme, some of Bach’s harpsichord fugues, and a couple of songs from my improv band Hulk Big Knife. The guys at Riffstation have made it clear they are targeting guitarists, but I wanted to see just what all Riffstation could handle. The biggest concern regarding the filter is what song you are loading into it. It can be a bit cumbersome to isolate rhythm guitars and that will offer a bit steeper of a learning curve, but even that’s not too bad. If you’re aim is to learn lead melodies then rest assured that’s as easy as it gets. If you simply just reduce the tempo the sound quality is preserved quite well, but it can get a bit grainy sounding if you drop it down to the slowest tempo and then crank the filters up.
In the case of the tempo and isolation filter you’re in a circumstance where you’re tinkering with the song and the quality becomes altered. None of the tabs are so mired in tools that it’s remotely easy to get confused and, as I prefer it, just tinkering around with things will clear up any such mystery. While there is an online help option available it’s probably only necessary for the most perplexing cases. Riffstation’s learning curve is easily among its greatest asset. You can also tinker the pitch, tempo, and switch from open to power chord suggestions from this view. The Chord Viewer is an extension of the chord bar in the audio track and gives you a suggested chord shape to work with as well as giving you a heads up on the next chord to pop up. You can divide a song up into 16 pieces through 6 banks that can be organized through the riff bank selector. The Riff Builder is a fun and potentially incredibly funny way to take a song and rearrange it to either form a brilliant backing track or a manifestation of chaos. The isolate section is a filter that allows you to isolate specific parts of the song by frequency so you can hear a given part, be it the rhythm guitars, or a lead melody more easily. The pitch control allows you to increase and decrease the pitch up to one octave in either direction, one semitone at a time. The Jam Master section offers you the first line of defense to transcribing songs with the tempo control that tells you the starting tempo of the imported song and lets you slow it down or speed it up by 50%. Below the main audio track is a bar that shows the processed progression giving you a good nudge on where to start. Upon doing that you will see the track itself appear and below it a slimmer track for zooming and scrolling purposes. Importing is as simple as it is in any other program be it importing from the file menu or just dragging and dropping. The audio track is any MP3 you can get your grimy mitts on. Each tab offers you the means to bend the imported song to your will per your needs. The audio track that dominates the top, the play tools that hang out across the bottom, and the features in the middle, which are divided among three tabs of their own titled “Jam Master”, “Riff Builder”, and “Chord Viewer”. The interface can be divided into three sections. What we have when opening Riffstation up is a generally not very intimidating to look at. Being the anti-tab guy that I am I pretty much crapped right in my pants with joy over this and jumped on the chance get a more in depth look to see what the gun metal grey and orange themed program has to offer. Riffstation is all about learning with your ears. Riffstation is a modest and appropriately titled three-in-one stand alone program that’s primary function is based around helping you, the budding guitarist and/or seasoned expert guitarist, through learning songs the old fashioned way with modern approaches pitched in as well. Read Time 5 Minutes The Riffstation Low Down Jam Master