Can songs be stripped of the vocals?
- Thread starter bobafet1
- Start date
manglerBMX
Veteran
no.
usually karaoke songs are instrumentals, or made for karaoke machines with a lower vocal track.
usually karaoke songs are instrumentals, or made for karaoke machines with a lower vocal track.
It depends on the song. Some are mixed so that the vocals alone take center track, but most include percussion in that. If vocals are mixed center, or you can guess the offsets, you can duplicate and invert the music, mixing it to cancel out the vocals. But this only works for some songs.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Pretty much what he said. A lot of main vocals are up the middle and you can invert one channel and sum it with the other and the center will cancel out and you will end up with a mono version with out the vocal. That is how "vocal eliminators" work. A much easier method is to find a MIDI file of the song and "render" it with a good sound module.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Not sure what you mean by "in the frequency" but in fact you can always remove the vocal, it's that often what your left with isn't very usable. Also "vocal eliminators" can be very effective on the right material, on the wrong material they are worthless. Early "stereo" records generally work pretty well, much less so than more modern recordings.
Wow, I just realized I have my work cut out for me so that I know what the heck you guys are saying.LOL...thanks for the info everyone...this gives me a starting ground. But yeah, my intentions to minimize the vocals was so that what is left is in fact usable.. I guess I started thinking about this when I heard a song remix. I'm not sure if the artist puts out music stripped down so that club dj's can mess with it or if the dj's are that good at messing around with the song so that the vocals are gone, slow, or different all together....sort of like Kanye West's version of Billie Jean
unclebob6958
Well-known member
It's been an awful lot of years since I went clubbin', but it was common practice back in the good old days of vinyl to issue DJ 12"ers with the extended version on one side and the instrumental on the other. That's what a lot of the original rappers used for source material.
Oh yeah, I remember now...thats right..
mrmoe
Well-known member
Frequency, meaning within the audio waveform. And the point being, "vocal eliminators" don't "ELIMINATE" or remove Vocals, they just turn the source into something unusable. Many people believe you just plug the device in and the voice magically is removed. It was design as a marketing scheme. The only way is to mute vocals in the master mix.
Early recordings like (Ex: beatles, or james brown) were mixed 4 track mixes with music on left and vocals on right. Stereo = Channels 1 and 2. Station DJ's would balance their mix during broadcast.
Hope that helps.
Gohanto
Veteran
Wait, what's vinyl? Is that like an early ipod or something? :grin:
unclebob6958
Well-known member
It was a disk with a spiral groove. A needle was put in the groove and the disk went round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and >>>>>SKIP<<<<<< and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and >>>>>CRACKLE POP<<<<< and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and >>>>>SKIP<<<<<< and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and >>>>>CRACKLE POP<<<<< and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
Well everything is within the audio waveform, so I still don't know what your talking about. And you are incorrect they did eliminate anything mono that was centered. For instance on the original release (LP) of Yellow Brick Road you could completely remove the vocal on most of the songs and you ended up with something that did not sound awful. You are correct that it was mostly a marketing scam but there were also higher end units. You are not correct about the early recordings. The american release of the early Beatles recordings had led vocal on one channel and everything else on the other but that was because Capitol records didn't understand that the masters they were send were MONO masters and they took the two track master and released them as "stereo" recordings. In the rest of the world they were released correctly. Geoff Emerick was appalled when he found out what the stupid americans had done many years later. And what you describe would be a two track mix not a four track mix. In fact depending on the date most of those early recordings were on four track masters, but mono masters (or later stereo masters) were what went to the cutting facility. EMI kept their mono masters as two track masters so there could be fine tuning at the cutting stage if nec., they were not stereo masters. As far as I know tapes were never sent to radio stations, DJ stands for "Disk" Jockey. Even PSA's and ad's were cut into records and delivered that way.
Noiz2
Sound Ninja
LOL, but you forgot the runout grove where it goes
round and pop, round and pop, round and pop, round and pop, round and pop, round and ...
round and pop, round and pop, round and pop, round and pop, round and pop, round and ...
puredrifting
Major Contributor
White labels, baby, white labels!
Talk to any professional re-mixer or DJ. They are kind of an under the table thing to get the artists out into the clubs and onto the charts although they are the usually the opposite, the vocals stripped of the music so that the DJs and re-mixers ca do their thing. I know that the instrumental versions of a lot of popular tracks are issued as well though.
Dan
Talk to any professional re-mixer or DJ. They are kind of an under the table thing to get the artists out into the clubs and onto the charts although they are the usually the opposite, the vocals stripped of the music so that the DJs and re-mixers ca do their thing. I know that the instrumental versions of a lot of popular tracks are issued as well though.
Dan
Noiz2 is correct that in a small number of cases where the vocals are dead center, the vocals can sometimes be removed be removed. It does not always work. There are software and hardware solutions. The following is from the rec.audio.pro FAQ
Q12.3 - How do I remove vocals from a song?
You probably want a device called the Thompson Vocal Eliminator made
by LT Sound in Atlanta, Georgia. The device will cancel out any
vocal that is mono and panned dead-center. The unit works by
filtering out the low frequencies, phase cancelling the rest of the
signal, and then mixing the filtered bass back in. The result is a
signal with the center, common information cancelled out. Sometimes
it works well, other times it sounds awful. [Gabe]
Obviously, if it were easy or worked all the time, you would see a lot music floating around without the vocals.
Q12.3 - How do I remove vocals from a song?
You probably want a device called the Thompson Vocal Eliminator made
by LT Sound in Atlanta, Georgia. The device will cancel out any
vocal that is mono and panned dead-center. The unit works by
filtering out the low frequencies, phase cancelling the rest of the
signal, and then mixing the filtered bass back in. The result is a
signal with the center, common information cancelled out. Sometimes
it works well, other times it sounds awful. [Gabe]
Obviously, if it were easy or worked all the time, you would see a lot music floating around without the vocals.
DadinWestchester
Well-known member
FYI, tapes were sent to stations for automation. I programmed many Shaffer and Harris automation systems that used 14" reels. Two track only, no 4 track. And DJ's (broadcast) never had to mix tracks. I did both on air and engineering when I was a kid. Started in radio back in the '60s. I've built them, ran them and owned them....
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Good advice here so far. Let me sum it up for you. There are a couple of routes for you to explore:
1. Look to see if a karaoke version is available to the public. Search Amazon, Google, etc. That would be your best bet, since it would be rendered from the master tracks. Chances are you won't find this for most songs.
2. Try to use a "vocal eliminator" on it. If you download the free Audacity sound editor and Google a few tutorials, you might get usable results. You'll have to try it out though, as results will vary between songs. Depending on how far you want to take this, you could learn the basics in an hour or two and do the process in as little as a few minutes.
3. Find a MIDI. MIDI files are basically arrangements constructed of songs by enthusiasts. They use virtual instruments to simulate the sounds of the song (even often using an instrument to play the vocal melody). You can almost definitely find a MIDI for most songs, but they will sound more computer-y than the real deal. You can minimize the difference by looking into VSTi's, or virtual instruments, also called soft synths or samplers (software synthesizers). Expensive soft synths can approximate the actual songs pretty closely with minimal fuss much of the time. There are free and cheap virtual instruments out there that also work well, but you'll obviously have to do some more research. This is probably the most surefire route, but could also involve the most research / work on your end.
Those are ranked pretty much in order of convenience. If you find a karaoke CD, fantastic. If not, you'll have to ask yourself how badly you want instrumental versions. A regular MIDI file playing off your computer (without any extra VSTi's) might be good enough for you. Or, maybe a vocal suppressor will work with a few songs. But ultimately, it will probably require a little bit of learning on your end. Don't feel too overwhelmed. The audio world is a big place and you've already discovered a very valuable learning resource here.
Good luck!
1. Look to see if a karaoke version is available to the public. Search Amazon, Google, etc. That would be your best bet, since it would be rendered from the master tracks. Chances are you won't find this for most songs.
2. Try to use a "vocal eliminator" on it. If you download the free Audacity sound editor and Google a few tutorials, you might get usable results. You'll have to try it out though, as results will vary between songs. Depending on how far you want to take this, you could learn the basics in an hour or two and do the process in as little as a few minutes.
3. Find a MIDI. MIDI files are basically arrangements constructed of songs by enthusiasts. They use virtual instruments to simulate the sounds of the song (even often using an instrument to play the vocal melody). You can almost definitely find a MIDI for most songs, but they will sound more computer-y than the real deal. You can minimize the difference by looking into VSTi's, or virtual instruments, also called soft synths or samplers (software synthesizers). Expensive soft synths can approximate the actual songs pretty closely with minimal fuss much of the time. There are free and cheap virtual instruments out there that also work well, but you'll obviously have to do some more research. This is probably the most surefire route, but could also involve the most research / work on your end.
Those are ranked pretty much in order of convenience. If you find a karaoke CD, fantastic. If not, you'll have to ask yourself how badly you want instrumental versions. A regular MIDI file playing off your computer (without any extra VSTi's) might be good enough for you. Or, maybe a vocal suppressor will work with a few songs. But ultimately, it will probably require a little bit of learning on your end. Don't feel too overwhelmed. The audio world is a big place and you've already discovered a very valuable learning resource here.
Good luck!