How do I remove vocals?

cordura21

cordura21

New member
hey guys. A guys is making a movie and asked for a song of my band, but without the voice.
What can I do to remove it, the best way possible (I know it's hard to do it without the opened tracks, but I don't have them)?
Can you tell me how to setup things? I kinda know how it works but I am not pretty sure. Tell me how to invert phase, remove middle channel,etc...

Oh, and recommend me a good shrink for the singer.

Cheers, Andrés
 
Take the stereo track... invert the polarity of one of the channels... pan both channels to center... bring up the fader of one channel... adjust the fader of the second channel to the point where the vocal level is reduced to almost nothing.

This won't work if you don't pan both channels to center, and of course, the polarity inversion is the key.

The signal you are left with is the L-R (left minus right) component of the stereo signal - which is the signal component that gives you your phantom stereo image.
 
thanks, NYM.

Bruce: I also thought that. But then how do they do the karaoke thing in home stereos and such?
 
They do the out-of-phase thing, but also EQ and other filtering....

It works only to a point..... but most consumers aren't very discerning........

Bruce
 
cordura21, this technique will remove most center panned content but I'm VERY sure you're not gonna like what comes out. It won't sound anything like the original track minus the vox.
 
Also using a Hi-Pass filter (like the 1 found on my Intelligate) can also assist in removing vocals at certain frequencies!
 
Pardon me for asking, but if this is going to be for a movie, don't you think you should maybe re-record the song? Perhaps you could even do some editing and loop the parts of the song where there's no singing . . . like the intro, solo, etc. and stretch that out over 3 minutes. Anything other than what you're thinking of doing.
 
I agree with Chess on that one. Even if you can remove most of the vocals there will still be a slight ghosting of any reverb or delays. That is not a big deal if somebody else is singing over the top but for an instrumental it will be pretty obvious.
 
We have no money at this time to re-record it. When we did we hire a studio and a brass player. We can't do that now. Many studio costs multiplied by 3x since the devaluation. I home-record, but I can't do drums yet.

You're right about the reverb, it's everywhere. I wonder if it wasn't too much.
I founda previous version of the song with no vocals. It also doesn't have the brass, but maybe mixing both of them will do. The scene is at a club, and there's a part when you hear the song at full and then is heard as background of a dialog.
 
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