Removing Vocals from Music

[Samhein]

Does any one have any tips/tricks on getting the best results for removing of vocals from mastered music tracks? EQs? Specific plug-ins? Outboard gear? Thanks.

[doug_hti]

Yeah, by getting the special "unmastered" (aka multitrack) version and pulling down the vocal track, works great... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

sorry don't know, good luck...

[mdvirtual]

You can pretty much eliminate the lead vocal on a track by panning both channels center, putting a plugin that has phase reverse on both channels, and flipping the phase on one channel.

The bad news is: Anything else that was panned center is gone as well (typically kick, snare, bass), leaving you with a mono mix that sounds very little like the original. You also end up with a ghost of whatever stereo effects were on the center elements.

I believe this is the same principle used in those old "Vocal Eliminator" boxes you used to see advertised in the back of music mags. Anybody ever hear one first-hand?

[Shawn Simpson]

I have used a vocal eliminator once and you are entirely accurate as to the effect. It does that exact thing to the incoming signal and the effect is somewhat interesting, if not disturbing. Definitely usable in the right context though. The snare and kick drum did remain somewhat present in the mix, but I'm pretty sure that was due to the stereo rooms and overheads. I never tried it on anything programmed that wouldn't have leakage. Logic (not by emagic/apple) would tell me that all mono components panned to the center would be eliminated.

give it a try!!

[Esteban]

Hey, Samhein, If you by chance have a friend with a Roland VS-880 or the like, it has a surprisingly good vocal remover. I used my brothers to remove vox on a church song, and all that was left of the vocals was a bit of reverb trail.

Good Luck!!

Live in Texas.
Esteban.

[Samhein]

Thanks for all your input. Wouldn't a combination of band rejection filter or EQ be able to achieve this as well? Are there any of the plug-ins with some existing presets for this already? Thanks again [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[bjorn for a reason]

in addition to the mono phase trick, inserting a eq on each channel "pre phase invert" can be used to "bring back" frequencies not in the vocal range by changing their l/r balance. This helps with bass and kick. by listening to the track and
making slight changes to l and r eq you can improve the result. [img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]

[FajitaTone]

Maybe BombFactory will do a "Thompson Vocal Eliminator" plugin.

[img]images/icons/wink.gif[/img]