vocal remover

[johnnie]

Can somebody please tell me how to remove a vocal from a audio track. I have been trying for ages without any success even partially. I understand that there are two ways to do this either the long way via split stereo, invert etc and via the plugin vocal remover cannot do either so I am doing something wrong or it cannot be done. I have tried both in mac and win 7 64bit

[kozikowski]

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tu ... ation.html

Vocal remover fails a lot more often than it succeeds. The list of requirements is long. Many downloaded MP3s fail because of compression damage. Mono audio files don't work at all and even if you have a stereo track, if you have the same thing on both tracks (two-track mono), that will fail too. Singer isn't in the left-right stereo center, sorry.

That guy on Youtube? If you used his exact same song in exactly the same quality, yours would work, too.

The Audacity Vocal Removal tool does the splitting and flipping for you, and I think even has a few more adjustments that the long version doesn't have.

Even if it does work, the result is not a stereo show. It's mono.

Koz

[johnnie]

Thank you for your reply I am trying a particular song MP3 childrens song that is not available as a backing track and the children would like to sing it in a local pantomime.

[kozikowski]

Is it mono? Magnify both of the blue waves and inspect them. If they are motion identical, then it's a mono track and Vocal Removal won't work. If you have only one blue wave, same thing.

Drag select a portion of the music and Control-E. Keep doing that until you can see the waves clearly.

See Illustration.

Control-F to zoom out full.

This is a stereo file, but it contains a mono show -- both waves move in sync. This show would not work for Vocal Removal.

Koz

[johnnie]

Thank you I did as you suggest and it is not mono the tracks are not identical. It does not matter what I do I cannot change the sound of the vocals. It is an MP3 file. I have tried to remove on different musical tracks and I can't make it different at all. I have spent ages trying this and now I am tired and I shall now join in the New year celebrations so Happy 2013.

[kozikowski]

Vocal Removal only works with voices in the exact dead-center of the show like most lead singers. If the singer or singers are a little left or right of center, they will not be removed.

Vocal Removal is an arithmetic tool. It has no idea at all what a voice is. If it's in the middle, it goes. Other stuff in the middle will go, too like drums and bass.

This is typical of the errors. This brief clip is after removal and before on a highly produced song.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/MysteryTrain.mp3

Koz

[johnnie]

OK thanks for your help. It seems that I will not be able to do anything with this file a group of kids choir so I shall give up on it.Nothing lost because I have gained some knowledge and a bit more experience.

[Robert J. H.]

Could you attach a sample of your choir song (up to 1 mb). I'd like to see what is the problem and what could be done about it. Which tools have you tried so far?

[johnnie]

Hi Thank you for your reply short clip enclosed hope it is not too small. Tools used so far are 1. split stereo/invert/mono 2. (effects )vocal remover

[steve]

The voices are spread right across the "stereo field". The Vocal Remover effect works by removing sounds that are positioned dead centre in the stereo field, but that is not the case for the vocals in this song (so vocal removal won't work).