reducing vocals, but keeping the stereo

[atenzor]

There are two plugins that can achieve some sort of vocal reduction while at the same time keeping the stereo to a decent degree: VoiceTrap and ExtraBoy (Pro). Now I have a couple of questions and I hope I will get some answers:

1) Any other softwares/plugins that can do what VoiceTrap and ExtraBoy do?
NOTE: I really don't want software/plugins that produce MONO, but it's good
maybe to even list those, who knows, maybe there are some I don't know.

2) I heard about that technique where you first have to extract vocals only (which is easily done with ExtraBoy or VoiceTrap also) and then you have to
somehow combine that with the original file and it will subtract them to leave
you with the background music only. Any more info on that, does that technique have a name even? It requires precise adjustments in a audio editor, it's a
manual technique, but kinda hard to do, that's why I need more info on it.

3) I see time to time some people saying to reduce vocals using EQ and some
other basic stuff like band filters, etc. Any info in details how to achieve that for vocals?

4) Also, tell me all the ways if possible where I can remove vocal frequencies,
but it terms of frequencies, so perhaps a plugin or EQ that does that, have presets maybe.

5) Is there a way to boost the volume of the other frequencies so that
the vocals are not heard a lot?

6) What are the most efficient ways to get good quality tracks without vocals
in them? In terms of techniques or tricks?

Thanks a lot for this!

[kozikowski]

1. I'm sure there may be others, those two are the only ones that popped up and we could demonstrate any success. There is a YouTube video where somebody went to the bother of manually phase inverting one track of a stereo show, etc. etc to get voice removal. That's what the Vocal Removal in Audacity does without all the work. Ours is the Betty Crocker pre-packaged filter.

2. Did you find out from the author how they did it, or is it the stuff of legends?

3., 4., & 5. Human Voice frequencies are common with many instruments. You must have heard the singer singing a duet with a slide trombone and they sound remarkably similar. Large pipe organs have a stop called Vox Humana -- human voice.

This is a frequency analysis of one (1) piano note.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/piano_G1.jpg

The big spike on the left is the fundamental, but all those other spikes are the overtones and many of them land on overtones generated by your voice.

The equalizer tool doesn't do anything for you.

6. There are no good ways to do reliable Karaoke or Vocal Isolation without the original studio tapes. Sometimes you can get some songs to Center Pan Remove (Vocal Removal's original name) enough to get you all excited about doing your collection, but songs that work well are celebrities. You can't start with a mono show and you can't use compressed MP3 downloads. That kills most music right there, and yes most tools give you a mono show at the end -- missing not only the voice, but the instruments in the middle too, like drums and bass. The instruments left have phase problems because of the cancellation.

The only reason any of these tools work at all is by using direction as the hook (the need for a stereo show). The easy one is managing anything in the center of the stereo field left to right. That's straight, simple arithmetic. There are some software packages that can manage other directions like half-left or half-right and other variations. I think one of them in that list can do that. But that's it.

Let us know if you find a better way.

Koz

[Trebor]

Any other softwares/plugins that can do what VoiceTrap and ExtraBoy do?
NOTE: I really don't want software/plugins that produce MONO, but it's good
maybe to even list those, who knows, maybe there are some I don't know.

Kn0cK0ut (free) does vocal isolation, but the result is mono and has digital artifacts.

You can always make mono into pseudostereo.