Vocal Removal

[steve]

Moving this here so that it does not get lost:


From a comparison of the Audacity Vocal Removal effect with the Karaoke LADSPA effect:

@steve

@Gale Andrews

Maybe they are saying they find it easy to play with a slider?

The slider control is a “mix level” control.
At the default maximum setting the result is a dry mix (input signal only)
When moved to minimum it’s a wet mix (centre pan removed).
At the half way setting it is 50% effect and 50% original input.

We could easily add a wet/dry slider, though I think that the usual concern is that it does not remove enough vocal, not that it removes too much.

Attached is a reworked version of Vocal Remover. It probably needs a bit of tweaking, but it looks a lot less intimidating and is more in keeping with other Audacity effect.
The error checking is considerably improved (the text input is only checked if it is used). Also the “Remove Frequency Band” option removes a lot more of the selected frequency band than the current Audacity version. I only finished this 5 minutes ago so it’s not had much testing or checking yet.

vocalremover.ny (3.71 KB)

[kozikowski]

Since we’re changing Vocal Removal. I’d like a different pan pot. “Follow the Singer.” Suppose the singer isn’t in the middle? The current tool is wedded to Middle Cancellation, but if you change the ratio of left to right, you can “find” a singer anywhere in the performance and cancel them.

It may be necessary to limit the range so as to not have the resulting music track be All Left or All Right, but maybe not.

Koz

[kozikowski]

Any thoughts for Vocal Isolation?

Koz

[steve]

@kozikowski

Since we’re changing Vocal Removal. I’d like a different pan pot. “Follow the Singer.” Suppose the singer isn’t in the middle? The current tool is wedded to Middle Cancellation, but if you change the ratio of left to right, you can “find” a singer anywhere in the performance and cancel them.

This works in theory, but in practice I think it would be very difficult to “find” the correct pan position.

Attached is a plug-in for you to play with called “Panned Sound Cancellation…”
Can you work out a good way to “find” the right pan position?
PanSoundCancellation.ny (475 Bytes)

[steve]

@kozikowski

Any thoughts for Vocal Isolation?

Buy Melodyne editor http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=products_editor
It’s expensive, it’s fiddly, but it’s one of the few that actually work.

[Robert_J_H]

I love the voice trap plug-in:
http://www.cloneensemble.com/vt_main.htm It’s not fully functional in the free version but is still very useful with some audio material.

[Robert_J_H]

I wonder if we shouldn’t implement some of the features proposed by Koz.

• Stereo output
• Choice Control for remove or isolate of the vocals
• width of the center portion removed
• optionally, the sound’s position in the stereo field.

Some of the points require an innovational and open minded approach because they are harder to program than to put down in writing.