vocals out of music

rollysons wrote on 10/5/2007, 10:47 AM

So I am finished with my pictures/video part of my project and am trying to find music. I want instrumental but can't seem to find much of this. What I want to know after,going to the store to browse software is, is there a software that will take the words out the music. Essentially like Karaoke. I have tons of cd's and could probably find decent music if I could tske the words out. Does Sound Forge do that?

I've read that Karaoke will do this only if it references "digital" music on the packaging.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

Comments

richard-courtney wrote on 10/5/2007, 11:00 AM

Can't guarantee your selection will work but some mixes put the vocal
on both left and right tracks. If you invert the phase of lets say the right
track and sum it with the left track, you might remove the vocals.

Drums on other instruments might be removed also but you have a start.

Kennymusicman wrote on 10/5/2007, 11:25 AM

Indeed - as mentioned. For more info. It's a technique called "centre channel cancellation"

SF9 has an preset under channel converter to do this without much thought/knowledge as a place to start. It's a matter of luck on whether your track will work or not.

Can describe the methodology in detail if required.

Ken

rollysons wrote on 10/5/2007, 1:14 PM

I was pretty vague about my question before. If I wanted to pull the vocals out and leave the music can anyone recommend the best software to do this? Does Sound Forge do this?

Does Vegas Movie Studio 6.0 do this? I don't think/or I haven't found where it can. Is that center channel idea in movie studio or sound forge?

Thanks for your patience.

Shannon

Chienworks wrote on 10/5/2007, 3:25 PM

I don't think you can accomplish this in Vegas Studio. The full version of Vegas or Sound Forge can do this process. There's also a free plugin from AnalogX called 'vocal remover'. However, please be prepared for disappointing results. Generally this process is barely functional, and it often destroys the music more than it removes the vocals. Good luck ... you'll need it.

Kennymusicman wrote on 10/5/2007, 4:25 PM

The "centre channel idea" is in SForge as I mentioned earlier. But here is the method in case you want to recreate is by hand in 'any' package. The convention of centre channel is a virtual channel that is created by the mind on listening to 2+ sources in phase with each other in a stereo field.

Image your stereo file, as 2 mono files, Left = ch1, Right = ch2.

Take ch2, and invert it (in SF, under Process). Now, take this inverted ch2, and combine with ch1 (paste mix or similiar). This will have the outcome of leaving anything that was not in phase, or, put another way, takes out what was in phase. The stuff that was in phase is the stuff that was panned centrally in a stereo field. Usually vocals, but then again also usually several parts of the drums, the keys/strings, the upper harmonics and "nice sounding bits", the solos..etc

So you may get lucky and have a result that works for you. Usually the result is akin to a low sample rate mp3 put through a reverb at 100% wet mix, and 0% dry. (ie, not that great)

HTH

Ken