Removing vocals from MP3s ??

deadl0ck

A guy I know is a DJ and he was wondering if it's possible to remove vocals from MP3s, kinda like a karaoke without the video and lyrics, i.e. just the music.

I have downloaded a few trial programs that claim to do this but the were all prertty crap.

Anybody know anything about this ?

Ta !!!

cornbb

This is a very difficult process. MP3 files do not use seperate tracks to represent individual instruments so the task of removing a particular instrument, such as vocals, is akin to trying to seperate the ingredients of a cake after it has been baked...

Karaoke machines use a workaround to try to achieve this. In stereo imaging of music, the vocals (as well as some other instruments such as some of the drums and the bass) are usually panned to the centre. If the phase of one of the stereo channels is reversed and mixed with the other stereo channel, any component of the sound which is identical in both channels (such as the vocals, if they are centre panned) will be removed. This is a very rough and ready process though, it will never work properly. This is probably why the software you have tried seems to be crap.

deadl0ck

I thought it might be something like that.

Thanks !!

cornbb

Np. You can try to achieve this yourself if you're feeling adventurous. Try Audacity, its a freeware audio editor: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - there's an article on how to do it here: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/sep04/articles/qa0904-7.htm

jimi_t

If you can get an instrumental of the track (of the exact same length mind) then you can do another stereo-phase trick to get an Acapella off it. Somewhere like GYBO (Get your bootleg on) is usually very good for acapella mp3s and advice.

squibs

In practice it's usually like trying to separate a cake into eggs and flour.

frobisher

squibs wrote:

In practice it's usually like trying to separate a cake into eggs and flour.