Creating a "studio" acapella

[Flei]

If you go on Youtube, you will see a bunch of songs that are called "studio acapella". People claim to have "ripped" the vocals from the finished song. They could be full of crap for all I know...

How are people taking a mixed song and extracting the vocals? I'd venture to guess that there is more than one way to do this, since some sound really clean, and others sound like crap. Other than getting your hands on the "real" studio acapella track, how do you extract vocals from a mixed song?

 

[mjbphotos]

You can't.

 

[Flei]

From what I've heard, you need to swap invert the original stereo wav, and that will leave you with only the sounds that have center panning - usually the vocals. I might be leaving out a step, but has anybody heard anything like that?

 

[CrowsofFritz]

Yes, you can do that with Audacity. The only problem is, you better damn hope the vocals are panned to the center and that the other instruments are not. You're probably going to get some bleed from the other instruments. You will never get the vocals solo usually.

Just do the opposite of what I am about to show you, as I can't find the instructions online.

Audacity: Can I remove the vocals from a recording to make a Karaoke track?

 

[CrowsofFritz]

Actually, I've never put this into practice. Is that even possible to do what I said before? I'm too tired and lazy to try.

 

[Steenamaroo]

There's another step to it.

If you take left as is and right inverted and sum them, all the stuff in the centre will be cancelled out.

Now, if you take that new summed wav and invert it as a whole and play it along side the original song, everything except the centre info will cancel.

Keep in mind though, that'll probably be vocals but it'll be snare, kick, bass and god knows what else.