The EDL Utility is a Win32 utility for accessing the Qualcomm Emergency Download interface on Qualcomm processors.
In the pantheon of popular music, few songs are as instantly recognizable as Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” From the snare crack that opens the track to Eddie Van Halen’s incendiary guitar solo, it is a monolithic piece of pop-rock history. Yet, to listen to the final stereo mix is to witness a polished illusion. To truly understand the genius, the tension, and the meticulous craft behind the song, one must delve into the multitrack master tapes. These individual stems—drums, bass, synths, vocals, and guitar—reveal “Beat It” not as a simple rock-disco hybrid, but as a meticulously constructed architectural marvel, a warren of sonic details where every track fights for space, and every note is a deliberate choice.
If you are exploring these files for a specific project, let me know: Are you planning to , cover , or analyze the song? What Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) are you using?
Instead of one large sound, they used multiple specialized guitar tracks to create a dense, modern sound. Michael Jackson - Beat It -Multitrack-
"Beat It" has become an iconic song that continues to inspire new generations of music lovers. The song's influence can be heard in a wide range of genres, from rock and pop to hip-hop and electronic music. The song's memorable guitar riff and catchy melody have made it a staple of popular culture, with references in films, TV shows, and commercials.
When listening to the isolated lead vocal stem, several remarkable elements stand out: In the pantheon of popular music, few songs
Jackson sang all of his own background harmonies. The multitrack shows him triple-tracking his voice in perfect unison, creating a dense, choir-like effect during the choruses that sounds massive even without artificial reverb.
In the age of grid-snapped, auto-tuned perfection, the Beat It multitrack is a time capsule of "feel." The drum sticks are uneven. The bass pops pop. Eddie’s guitar bleeds into the adjacent microphone. These are not mistakes; they are the fingerprints of human beings. Instead of one large sound, they used multiple
So, what makes up the "Michael Jackson - Beat It - Multitrack"? Let's take a closer look at the individual tracks:
It is important to note that officially, the complete commercial multitracks for "Beat It" have never been released to the public. However, several "stems" have leaked over the years from video game sessions ( DJ Hero , Rock Band ) and from archival leaks.
To prevent the machine from sounding sterile, Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro played live acoustic drums over the programmed beat. Listening to the isolated drum stem reveals how Porcaro locked into the electronic grid, adding human swing, powerful snare cracks, and heavy bass drum resonance. The Melodic Architecture: Bass and Guitars
Michael Jackson ’s "Beat It" multitrack offers a rare window into the meticulous production of the Thriller album. Consisting of approximately 13 to 15 individual audio channels (or "stems"), the multitrack reveals the raw layers—from Jackson’s isolated beatboxing to Eddie Van Halen’s legendary improvised guitar solo—that were woven together by producer Quincy Jones. The Core Instrumentation
The usage has changed and /e is only for erasing NAND memories.
To zero out sections of eMMC or UFS use the new /f fill command.
/u takes a hexadecimal value.
This should make no difference on the standard LUNs (0-7) but will make things clearer on LUNs 81, b0, c4, d0.
Qualcomm processors support two different protocols, "Sahara" and "Firehose". Sahara is supported in ROM and is always present. Firehose is implemented in downloadable loaders in ELF format.
The usual procedure is to first get your device in EDL mode, i.e. where it is presenting USB VID/PID 05c6/9008. This can be achieved by:
Everything under Windows needs some kind of driver. Zadig is a simple generic driver generator. Select "WinUSB" as the type of driver to install. Do NOT use any Windows drivers from Qualcomm. They will try to present your device as a serial port. Now you can do a simple check if you like.
This shows you that the device is connected and has the right driver.
Next, you must use the Sahara protocol to load a loader for the Firehose protocol.
Loaders are specific to processor, device manufacturer, possibly flash memory type and hash.
To decide which one you need you need to collect some basic info.
There are reports that Sahara protocol version 3.0 does not support querying the HWID or Hash.
If this happens to you, use the /qbc quirk (see below).
These files often use .bin or .mbn as the extension despite it actually being a normal ELF file. The file names are based on the 16 hexit HWID and the first 16 hexits of the Hash. By one website they are listed under the last 8 hexits of the Hash. As the filenames tend to be cumbersome, you might rename them something short and mnemonic.
To look up available loaders by Hash see this table.
For Boox Onyx devices see this table.
From this point on the processor is using the Firehose protocol and you need not (can not) reload the loader unless you reboot.
A device might be using eMMC storage (older devices), NAND storage or UFS storage (newer devices).
The /u flag must be used for all operation in Firehose on devices with UFS.
The flags /d (slot), /u (LUN), /p (partition), /s (start block), /c (count of blocks) and /b (block size) are used to specify the range of operation.
If the partition is specified then the start block is relative to the start of the partition.
If partition is not specified, then the start block is absolute.
Zero is the default for both start block and count of blocks.
Partition operations often do not specify either start block or count of blocks.
Operations on raw devices (i.e. not a partition) require an explicit /s and /c to prevent accidents like edl /f.
| Start | Count | Partition | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unspecified | Specified | ||
| 0 | 0 | Whole device | Whole partition |
| 0 | + | Start of device | Start of partition |
| + | + | Middle of device | Middle of partition |
| + | 0 | End of device | End of partition |
| − | 0 | End of device | End of partition |
| − | + | Part of end of device | Part of end of partition |
The major operations are /r (read), /e (erase), /w (write).
The erase and write operations can be combined which yields the non-optimized operations of full erase and (possibly) partial write (depending on the size of the input file).
Be very careful when you specify /e (erase), /w (write) as not specifying a partition means the whole device!
Partitions are sized for the maximum anticipated size of the contents.
Often the fraction of a partition that is actively being used is as low as 20%.
(There are often many partitons with all zeroes in them also.)
There is no particular need to transfer a whole partition when 20% will do.
Of course, if you still want to transfer another 50MB of zeroes, just don't use the /t flag.
Also note that some images have signing or other (sometimes) necessary things after the end of the normal image.
Currently the EDL utility has the capability to recognize the actual size of:
Android images are naturally aligned to pagesize (normally 4096 bytes) but ELF files can be any size. Therefore, when they are read, even when truncated, they are rounded up to the current device blocksize (normally 512 or 4096 bytes). This simplifies matters when/if they are written back to the device.
NAND memory has two peculiarities that require special handling. The first peculiarity is that they have "bad blocks" (an erase block is sometimes 64 x 4096 bytes). During a read the output file will be filled with 0xff wherever bad blocks are to maintain alignment. During a write the input file will be skipped over wherever bad blocks are to maintain alignment. The second peculiarity is that because of the hidden CRC32 and ECC on each page, a freshly erased page must never be written with all 0xff values. The EDL utility will do explicit multiple writes (in the hundreds) around the bad blocks and the empty pages. The EDL utility will do explicit multiple reads (a few) around the bad blocks. You must explicitly erase whichever region of the NAND memory before writing but this may be combined in the same command. The EDL utility now supports NAND volume tables analogously to GPT partition tables.
Quirks are idiosyncracies, anomalies or incorrect implementations of Firehose loaders.
By specifying the /q flag you can bypass problematic parts.
/qabcd, for example, will not query serial number, HWID, hash or SBL version.
There is a default of /qad so you need to /q to display serial number and SBL version.
| A | Do not query serial number |
| B | Do not query HWID |
| C | Do not query hash |
| D | Do not query SBL version |
| E | Allow CSD read to fail (Sony Vivo) |
Show usage:
Query basic info:
Load a loader (needs to be done only once after a fresh start):
List the partitions:
Download the MBR of a UFS LUN:
Download the boot partition (and truncate to its actual size):
Erase the the last 4096 bytes of /vendor (removes FEC correction):
Flash the recovery partition:
Erase and write to NAND memory blocks:
Read accessory SD card:
Try some random XML:
Reboot to normal system:
Reboot to fastboot (probably only works on Motorola):
Multiple compatible commands, reboot to recovery:
Download edl.exe, the EDL utiliy.
Download ubi.exe, a simple utility for examining full dumps of NAND/UBI.
See also: QcomView – a utility for analyzing Qualcomm xbl/abl/Firehose loaders