Remove Vocals from a cd/mpg

[Harmetheous]

Hi guys i am new to the forum altho used this site many a time for a few things here and there

Jus wondering if anyone can help ....

I am trying to remove vocals from an audio source (CD or Mpg)
so that i can use the main music as backing track

Is audacity a good program to use for this?... i have used it to convert wav to mp3 but wondered if it would do the job of removing vocals

i have searched thru the threads and had no luck in finding any help.

any help appreciated or if anyone kows a good program


Cheers Guys

Harmetheous

[guns1inger]

You didn't search too hard. If you type Remove Vocals in the search box at the top of this page you will get dozens of posts.

The short answer is yes, sometimes, but rarely well.

It only works on a very clean stereo source (compressed audio is useless, especially MP3) where the vocals are recorded evenly down the centre of the stereo mix, and every thing else is spread. Reverse the phase of one channel, overlay it on the other, and everything that was identical in both channels will be canceled out.

The reality, however, is that ;

a. Often percussion or bass is also recorded down the centre of the mix, so these will be canceled out as well

b. Vocals are rarely recorded purely down the centre. There is often out of phase chorus applied to boost the sound. This will remain as an echo or ghost

c. You end up with a mono audio track

The simplest I have seen is the Vocal Remover plugin from AnalogX. It comes in two flavours : DirectX for use in Sound Forge and similar, and a WinAMP plugin. Audacity cannot use either.

[Harmetheous]

Ok im prob being really dumb here ...

i got sound forge and put the audio source in ... reversed one channel but couldnt overlay it on the other ... i jus got a revered track and one other channel


sorry to be a pain .....

[guns1inger]

You don't reverse the track, you reverse the phase of the track.

If you have sound forge, save yourself the trouble and get Vocal Removal from AnalogX ( http://analogx.com ) and use that in Sound Forge. It does the same thing, but automates the process and lets you preview the effect.