Disney Music Group and AudioShake, an AI strain separation company, are teaming up. As part of their partnership, AudioShake will help Disney break down the individual instrumental tracks (“stars”) for some of its classic back catalog and provide AI transcription of lyrics.
According to a press release, Disney says it hopes this will “unlock new listening and fan engagement experiences” for the legendary catalog, which includes everything from its earliest recordings Steamboat Willie (which is now in the public domain), in Cinderellato The Lion King, in contemporary hits such as High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
Since so many of Disney's biggest hits were made decades ago with now-obsolete recording technology, this new partnership will allow the company to use music in new ways for the first time. Stem splitting, for example, can help with re-mixing and mastering old audio for classic Disney films. It could also allow Disney to isolate vocals or instruments on old hits.
Disney's partnership with AudioShake began when the tech startup was selected for the Disney Accelerator 2024, a business development program designed to accelerate the growth of new companies around the world. Other participants included AI voice company Eleven Labs and autonomous vehicle company Nuro.
At the 2024 Accelerator Demo Day on May 23rd, AudioShake gave a hint of what could happen in their partnership with Disney when AudioShake CEO, Jessica Powell, showed how stem splitting could be used to fix muffled dialogue and music in his opening scene Peter Pan.
Disney explained at Demo Day that many of their previous recordings are missing their original stems, and that it has limited their ability to use past hits in sync licensing, remastering and emerging formats such as immersive audio and lyric videos.
“We were deeply impressed by AudioShake's audio separation technology and were among the first to adopt it,” he says David Abdo, SVP and General Manager of Disney Music Group. “We're excited to expand our existing stem splitting work as well as integrate AudioShake's lyric transcription system. AudioShake is a great example of cutting-edge technology that can benefit our artists and songwriters, and the AudioShake team have been fantastic partners.”
“Stems and lyrics are vital elements that labels and artists can use to open up recordings to new musical experiences,” he says. Powell. “We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Disney Music Group and honored to be working with their extensive and iconic catalog.”
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/pro/disney-classic-song-stems-audioshake-ai-technology/
