Removing vocals from MP3

geezer

geezer

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I have a colleague that asked me if such a thing would be possible. He has a daughter at school who has entered in an "Idols" type of concert. She wants to sing a well known song, but with the vocals removed or "muted" so that it does not overwhelm her own singing. Is such a thing possible, and if so, what software can be used? He tried to buy a backtrack, but he was asked an enormous amount (±R1000) of money for this single track. It is just for a once off school concert, not to go out and make a living from it!
 
geezer said:
I have a colleague that asked me if such a thing would be possible. He has a daughter at school who has entered in an "Idols" type of concert. She wants to sing a well known song, but with the vocals removed or "muted" so that it does not overwhelm her own singing. Is such a thing possible, and if so, what software can be used? He tried to buy a backtrack, but he was asked an enormous amount (±R1000) of money for this single track. It is just for a once off school concert, not to go out and make a living from it!
Click to expand...

It is possible I can do it with my onboard soundcard software.
 
I doubt whether this is possible. The 'tracks' are NOT separate on the CD. This may be the case with the original studio tape, but not with the releases. It would be difficult to remove just a particular voice by other means. You can try and filter certain frequencies to remove those used by the singers, but you will inevitably be left with gaps where music and voice frequencies overlap.
 
ya... there is software avaible but it's expensive and is hard to work with. my brothers friend is a sound engineer and when i tried to use it i just got confused. that and he pay something like R5600 for it
 
The basis behind these programs rely on the fact that the vocals are 100% identical between the left and right channels, while the music varies, whiuch is very often the case, but I really dont think the do much good.
 
Hi there geezer,

It's fairly simple to do this with a sound editor, but you'll obviously
not get perfect results. I use an app called Audacity to edit mp3 files, and
found this quick tut on their site:

1. Import your stereo file into Audacity.
2. Open the track menu (click the arrow next to the track title), and choose “Split Stereo Track.”
3. Select the lower track (the right channel) by clicking it in the area around the mute/solo buttons.
4. Choose “Invert” from the Effects menu.
5. Using the track menus, change each track to “Mono.”
Click to expand...

You can find Audacity here : http://audacity.sourceforge.net/



Hope this helps.
 
Not going to happen. Once it's been mixed down, you're not going to be able to extract the vocals :(
Best you can do is remove mid-ranges around 1Khz where vocals usually are, but that removes other things as well as said above.
Try get the midi online, if its that popular the midi should be available to download. Just google it. :)
 
Or just get a software to play the song in kareoke mode. Which basically muffs all the frequencies that vocals can be at, which leaves it with the treble and bass and most of the time, the main tune of the song.
It will sound crap though if she doesnt sing well.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. I am well aware that you can at best just "mute" the vocals on the MP3, but that is just what I want to achieve. This girl just wants a MP3 to provide the backing music while she delivers her rendition of a particular song. I will try out what Lian has suggested because it sound like what we want to achieve. DigitalSoldier, if you can do it with your onboard soundcard, how will I be able to give her the MP3 to use at home?
 
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