How can I mimick this effect? Its just what I need!

dionnemay

I was trying forever to get the vocals removed from a song. Well, I was asking audio pros like you guys because Im a video editor and don't know smack about special audio effects.
Most of them told me it was immpossible. I downloaded vocal remover and it dosent do anything.
Well i was listening to the song one day on my mp3 player and I guess my little son had been messing with it because the headphones were all messed up-you know how one headphone doesnt have anysound and you have to wriggle the wire to get it?
Well, with one headphone out-I couldnt hear any vocals! All I heard was the music> THATS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED!!!

Is there anyway I can recreated that in an audio program?
If so, what program should I use and how do I do it?

Is it something to do with left and right channels?
I'd give anything right now to recreate the "screwed up headphones" effect....

TelePaul

dionnemay wrote:

I was trying forever to get the vocals removed from a song. Well, I was asking audio pros like you guys because Im a video editor and don't know smack about special audio effects.
Most of them told me it was immpossible. I downloaded vocal remover and it dosent do anything.
Well i was listening to the song one day on my mp3 player and I guess my little son had been messing with it because the headphones were all messed up-you know how one headphone doesnt have anysound and you have to wriggle the wire to get it?
Well, with one headphone out-I couldnt hear any vocals! All I heard was the music> THATS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED!!!

Is there anyway I can recreated that in an audio program?
If so, what program should I use and how do I do it?

Is it something to do with left and right channels?
I'd give anything right now to recreate the "screwed up headphones" effect....

You havn't really got it cracked....I think you just got lucky! Beatles tune by any chance? You're probably just hearing the left track of the stereo sound by itself.

In most case, vocals are played back right down the centre, but in certain tracks, they'll be panned left or right. Listen to the Betales Yellow Submarine....all the singing comes out of one side, the music comes out of the other.

cornbb

Its likely that the vocals were hard-panned to one side in the song on your mp3 player. As you probably know, stereo music is played back on 2 channels, left and right, and individual instruments/vocals can be panned to be more to the left/right in the mix. Your son probably partially pulled out the headphone jack which means the channel with all the vocals got cut off leaving you with roughly half the music.

Unfortunately for you in the vast majority of cases the vocals are panned dead-centre in a mix, meaning they can't be removed very easily - there are a few tricks but they don't usually work very well.

There have been a few threads here about this before, have a look here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055037908

cornbb

TelePaul wrote:

Beatles tune by any chance?

Hehe, it had me thinking of The Doors

frobisher

I would go along with the above posts and reckon it was probably that particular song that worked for you. HOWEVER, if for some reason what you're describing does for some strange quirky reason do exactly what you need there isn't actually any need to go look for a program that can replicate it.
Instead you should get an audio lead that has mini jack on one end and whatever connection corresponds with what ever you can record on to on the other, set your recorder or PC to record and repeat the exact same process with the mini jack end as you did with the headphones. Et viola.....

Neurojazz

The keyword you need is ' vocal cancellation ' - there are loads out there... try analogx.com or companies that make VST - i have one here but it's stuck in a powercore

crybaby

It is impossible to do it properly, best youll get is out of some sort of plugin or seperate program but even that will be very dependent on the particular song

Savman

Quite simply, it can't be done. With a Graphic EQ you could cut the frequencies that vocals usually sit (Mids/High-Mids) but you will be removing all clarity and emphasising the bass, which will sound like gank.
Best option is to buy or download karaoke backing tracks.

nobodythere

If something is panned right in the middle (vocals often are) you can remove it using noise cancellation (destructive interference for you physics people). Basically you take the right ear, phase invert it and mix it with the left ear.

In an MP3 player such as the Creative Zen Touch, each ear is already out of phase with each other for some reason. So if you had headphones with cuts in the wire and you connected the two wires together the result in the headphone would be the phased version.

There's a way to do it with software but if you've any soldering skills you should just wire the output of your son's MP3 up to a 2.5mm jack

david

With phase cancellation on stereo mixes, the sound common with both channels is cancelled. Basically its shyte. Youre left with half a bass and snare drum and bitcrushed-esque faint vocals...

nobodythere

Depends on the track really. E.g. with Yann Tiersens vocal stuff it's impeccable