Here’s a tidbit about me: you will rarely find me not wearing my headphones. They’re on most of the time, and music is constantly playing. I don’t want to state the usual oh-I-love-music-so-much line, but let’s just say I’m not comfortable if there’s nothing playing. You need to know this because sometimes I would just be in this sort of trance, hooked on a track; be it just the beat, or the way an instrument sounds, or how well everything just fits together. So imagine my surprise a couple of years ago when I discovered MOGG files, which with the right software allowed me to experiment and edit each individual instrument of the song.
The audio format OGG, or OggVorbis, has been around for a while and is an open-source container designed for efficient streaming and high quality digital multimedia. MOGG files are basically containers that contain multiple OGG tracks. In other words, it’s a single file that contains multiple streams or audio tracks.
You will have to do some searching to find these tracks, and I believe the library is growing. Most (if not all) MOGG files you can find online were ripped from games such as Rock Band or Guitar Hero. Sometimes you will come across a folder that has each individual track as MP3s rather than just one MOGG file that contains them all.
The very first MOGG file I have come across was for Iggy Pop’s Search and Destroy. I never knew at the time what one can do with a MOGG file and it just so happened to be that the file I downloaded was in that format. After doing some quick research I found out that Audacity was the software of choice to open this file (which I then could convert to MP3), and I realized I was upon something great! The curious and creative sides of me started creeping out, and I started making some adjustments here and there.
This is what Search and Destroy looked like untouched:
As you can see, each track is an instrument (however in some cases they can be a group of instruments). You can play them as a whole and you’d be listening to the song as you know it, or you can play the tracks individually, and get to hear a whole different side of the song, a side you may have never known to exist. As for Audacity itself, it didn’t take long for me to know what the tools can do and ultimately what I can do to with the song.
I kept thinking of this as Photoshop for music. Every track translates to a layer that I can do with as I want; remove, add or manipulate the data in it.
Below is what the tracks of the song looked like after I had my way with it. I am no sound engineer nor am I experienced with mixing music. Obviously this is professional work, but the beauty of it is that I can alter the song the way I would like it to sound. I muted the bass throughout the whole track, added extra percussion and some more alteration here and there with the remaining tracks. This is what it looked like.
And this, my friends, is what it sounds like:
I’m not doing this because I’m trying to start a career as a DJ or something. I do this because it’s fun and because I get the chance to emphasize on the parts that make the song great for me, which don’t necessarily have to apply to you. Love it or hate it, at the end of the day it’s my personal touch, and you too with some time and creativity can apply your own touch onto these songs. It’s like magic.
