Extracting accompaniment

Special Interest Groups Audio Processing
1

I’m aware that I can use Audacity to remove the vocals from a song. However, what I’m looking to do is to remove the melody (that’s played by a flute) so that I’ll only be left with the piano accompaniment of the recording. I really need the piano accompaniment for my next flute exam but I can’t find a recording of just the accompaniment which is why I’m hoping there’s a way of removing the flute melody from the current recording I have of both the flute and the piano together.

If any of you know how this could be done with Audacity (or any other audio editor), please let me know (step by step guide would be appreciated since I’m no pro with audacity). You’d be saving my life (and my grade!). Thanks.

2

It is very unlikey that a completely successful flute-ectomy can be performed with Audacity or any audio processing programme …
https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-remove-music-and-keep-vocals/11524/6

If the flute is higher pitch than the piano, the flute could be attenuated by a low pass filter (equalization).

3

<<<I’m aware that I can use Audacity to remove the vocals from a song. >>>

That may not be reflected in reality. Most of the time that process fails because many conditions must be met at once and they never are. The sound file must be in perfect, uncompressed stereo (that kills most people right there) and must have no stereo special effects added. The singer must be in the middle and all the instruments in the middle vanish with the singer. It basically never works right.

However, if your performance was produced with good quality stereo microphones, one of the paid packages may be able to help. One of them claims to be able to locate an instrument by direction (any direction) and remove or isolate it.

Voice Removal or Isolation
–Center Pan Remover (Voice Remover–Search the page for “Center Pan Remover”)
http://audacityteam.org/download/nyquistplugins
–Voice Trap
http://www.cloneensemble.com/vt_main.htm
–Extra Boy
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1651.html
–Kn0ck0ut
http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/

Koz

4

BTW I can’t get Kn0ck0ut to work with Audacity 1.3.9, it doesn’t even appear in the effects list.
Kn0ck0ut appeared and sort of worked with earlier versions of Audacity.
This is not a problem for me, (I have other software which can isolate), but I thought I should mention it where Kn0ck0ut is being suggested.

This is odd because other VST plugins work better in 1.3.9 than earlier versions of Audacity,
e.g. Spitfish/Blockfish now work perfectly in 1.3.9, they even show their GUI (with knobs on).

5

I’ve just tested Knockout on Audacity 1.3.11 alpha (Nightly http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Nightly_Builds ) and it works fine. You may need to set Audacity Preferences to rescan the VST plugins.

6

I just tried to look at my Audacity 1.3.9 preferences, not happening: it just shows “has stopped working” window,
(this may also explain my problems with Kn0ck0ut).

7

If you’ve not done so already, start a new topic with all the details.

Quite likely I’d guess.

8

Reinstalled 1.3.9, still no preferences :frowning: , downloaded 1.3.10 preferences now visible :smiley:

This problem may have been an installation problem due to having two versions of Audacity on my computer,
(although only one appeared on my installed programmes list). I’ll just have one from now on.

9

Audacity 1.3.10 has a little bug that affects “Export Multiple” and “Export Selection” (it incorrectly increases the length of the selection to the next 5 second mark). If you use either of these features you should update to Audacity 1.3.11 which has this bug fixed. You can get 1.3.11 from here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Nightly_Builds