How do I extract vocals from a 6 channel audio track? (Win10/3.1.3)

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

Noob here.

I’ve imported a 6 channel audio track and 5 of them are instrumental tracks and 1 is vocals + instrumental

I want to end up with a track with only vocals. I’ve tried invert + tender which for some odd reason doesn’t work at all even though all 6 are original and same.

Isolate vocals or Noise reduction produce very bad results.

2

I meant invert instrumental tracks + render mix instrumental vocals tracks which should theoretically result in only vocal but it doesn’t change anything.

3

You don’t have any cancellable work. You have vocal-plus-mono-mix, front left, front right, etc. etc. You would need to take the surrounds and create the exact mono mix that the studio used for the vocal background.

Have you ever performed a cancellation job? It’s not fun. It’s not.

Everybody thinks the cancellation effect gets stronger and stronger as you approach the magic point. What actually happens is nothing until you get right on top of the cancel point and then the sound gets honky distorted and then you miss it. So then you go back and find that your tool controls aren’t fine enough.

Keep in mind too that both the timing (phase) and the volume have to hit perfectly.

You don’t have six perfect WAV files, right? You have a single, six-channel surround track with compression and processing to produce tiny files.

Chances of doing this job are almost, but not quite exactly zero.

Koz

4

I will note that vocals generally have their own track. Center in Dolby is almost always vocal only with FR and FL stereo mix and RR and RL the surround.

You can’t reverse those, either. Dolby is highly compressed.

Koz

5

I meant invert instrumental tracks + render mix instrumental vocals tracks which should theoretically result in only vocal

That only works if you have a recording with instruments-only and an instrument + vocal mix. And the mix has to be “untouched”. And… if you have an instruments-only track you probably made the recordings yourself and you probably already have a vocals-only track.

The old vocal remover trick works by subtracting left from right and that can work perfectly if the vocals are identical and in-phase in both channels. And, then it subtracts EVERYTHING in the center, except you can filter to keep the bass. Vocal Reduction and Isolation is a lot more sophisticated, but still you rarely get “professional” results.