Trying to Remove Vocals . . . Tried Tutorials . . .

[selayma]

Hey, Everybody . . . new to Audacity; it was suggested by a friend. Got a project that I'm working on for another friend and need to be able to create some "karaoke" tracks. I've followed the tutorial . . . many times . . . but with no luck. If I can get the vocals to even fade, the instrumental is also faded. Anybody got any ideas???

And of course, if anyone is using the "stable" version, let me know if that works better for this function at this point. I have WindowsXP . . . everything flows in terms of it seems to be working when I hit all the buttons, bells and whistles . . . I just either get no reduction in the vocals, or I lose the instrumental with the vocals . . . nothing in between Thanx!

[kozikowski]

Vocal removal doesn't actually work -- or almost never.

There is a very long list of things you can do to screw it up. One of the things is to start with a two track mono show, which is what it sounds like you have. The show must be in stereo -- real stereo -- the singer must not have special effects, the singer must not have stereo echo, the singer needs to be in the middle, most MP3 files fail, etc. etc.

There is a very long list of those.

So you're normal. If you're desperate...

Voice Removal or Isolation
--Center Pan Remover (Voice Remover--Search the page for "Center Pan Remover")
http://audacityteam.org/download/nyquistplugins
--Voice Trap
http://www.cloneensemble.com/vt_main.htm
--Extra Boy
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1651.html
--Kn0ck0ut
http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/

Enjoy,

Koz

[bat]

It really depends on the song, you need the vocals to be CENTER PANNED. I use "vocal remove" on my rockboxed ipod and 1/3 of my songs have the vocals completely muted, reverb is the only problem on many...

[kozikowski]

More from the list:

Any instruments in the dead center -- usually drums and bass-- vanish along with the voice.

Normally you end up with a mono show, not stereo.

Mono masters in any form fail; two track mono or actual single track mono.

Chorus singers are a crap shoot. If they're in the middle, they go, too. If they're off center of stereo spread out, they get left behind.

Koz

[selayma]

[sigh] . . . and now Audacity is only appearing in a language other than English . . . I'll give the links you gave me a try, Koz . . . and these songs are older/remastered versions so it may be the recordings themselves and I may have to figure out something totally different . . . I'll le'cha know if I have any more questions Thanx Mucho! S

[bat]

sorry, when i said it worked, I meant as a quick, junky "karaoke effect" not for a studio recording sound...in that case it'll never get close

[kozikowski]

<<<and now Audacity is only appearing in a language other than English >>>

Edit (third selection) > Preferences > Interface (fourth selection) English (on the right). These settings are different on my machine, so I'm guessing a little.

If that appeared to change by itself, you may have some serious machine stability issues. Have you ever done a Disk Properties Error Test? How much room do you have on your drives?

Koz

[kozikowski]

<<<older/remastered versions so it may be the recordings themselves and I may have to figure out something totally different>>>

If they're old enough, they were never in stereo at all. Stereo is a big deal to getting all these tools to work. The tools make good use of the spacial separation between left and right music. If they were mono performances -- no left and right -- then the chance of getting this to work really is zero.

Koz