What can be done if no sound?

[chaos_theory]

Hi,
i downloaded the software, 1.2.x, and did all the neat things specified (vocal removal on audacity site as well as wiki) on splitting and inverting. Even tried the "center pan remover", but everything goes blank. what does that mean? it's not on any channel neither in the center? and how can i get just the music? your help is really appreciated.

thanks,
chaos

[steve]

If "centre pan removal" (either with the vocal removal effect, or doing it manually with inverting and so on) produces silence (a flat blue line and no sound) then it means that the left and right channels of the sound are identical. Or to put it another way, it is "2 channel mono", which means that all of the sound is "centre panned" and is therefore removed.

Centre pan removal only works properly for removing vocals if the vocal is in the centre of the stereo spread, and everything else is off centre.

This article in the Audacity wiki tries to stress that Centre Pan removal only works when all of the conditions are right. (it also makes a couple of suggestions for how vocal removal may be possible in other cases by using other tools. http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Vocal_Removal

If you want to try any VST plug-ins you should upgrade to Audacity 1.3.12.