Is there a way to remove vocals from a song?

smurferoni

New member
Not sure where to ask so I thought I'd ask here. I tried some of the tutorials on Youtube with Audacity but none seem to work anymore, do you guys have any idea if there is a way to do this ?
 
Some of those tools do a "relatively" decent job. Couldn't believe how somewhat reasonable the Adobe (can't remember what it's called) DAW thing did. But keep in mind - You're basically trying to take a baked cake and reduce it to flour, eggs, sugar, etc. It's not going to be an "instrumental" version in the end. It's going to sound weird, it might not have a snare or a kick, far reduced bass, etc.
 
When you say they don't work anymore, I'm guessing that you've previously had some success and you took this to mean it's possible? Stop for a moment and work out what actually happens. The process is basically like trying to remove an ingredient in a recipe. You don't like carrots - so you look at the plate and remove anything that is long and orange. The plate becomes a bit empty in places, but it's fine. However, if the chef was one of those modernists who loves sauces and drizzles of this and that, the carrots could be totally or partially covered in different colours and some of the carrot will be covered in jou or other concealing but tasty substance. You can cut out the bits you can see in the clear, but the carrot covered in gunge is there for good. So it is with music. Perhaps it's even fair to say many people recording and mixing are more interested now in sauce and extra spicing and flavours, so the basic ingredients are more disguised than they were. Maybe it's also an excuse for using poorer quality ingredients that you then disguise with more flavours to make the palatable? Could this be why removing vocals is more tricky nowadays? More effects, more processing, more disguise making removal more difficult. The sum and difference technique we use for removal requires certain features in the music. Centrality, minimal reverb on the component to be removed, and a mix that is 'open'. I just spent ages trying to remove a vocal and it's clean and in the middle - I now have a perfect hole, with a wonderful ghost image of where it was been. I suspect a plate reverb, and all that colour is so obvious. I guessed it would be a simple job because of the simplicity - jazz drums, voice, bass and piano - all very clear and all spread across the soundscape.
 
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