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[Michael MacLennan]

Anyway know of free software for ripping out the main vocals of a song? I remember hearing something about it before, but wouldn't know where to look. If I remember such software takes out the centre of the track, which is usually where the main vocals are...

any help would be appreciated xxx

nothing like that works.
if i understand what you mean you mean the centre of a stereo image?
which is where the vocals usually lie, but everything else lies too to a certain extent, some sort of filtering might help in getting it just vocals, but it just doesnt work properly, any filtering you do will take out vocal components aswell, and just sound shit.

i reccomend just cutting up bits of vocals that have little or no instrumentation in the background and using that, or if its a band you know, asking for a vocal track

[Doc]

What you need is a very accurate parametric equaliser with selectable frequency bands. It'll still remove bits you want to keep though.
Bear in mind re-mixing is done with the originally recorded tracks.

[spellchecker]

if you are trying to exclude the vocals, then you can sometimes do it by switching the polarity of one side of the stereo waveform. it works only if the vocals are dead center, by the signals cutting each other out completely. I've never tried it but you can read a lot about it on the web.

in my multi-tracking app, you can import a stereo wav file as two separate waveforms, one for left and one for right. you can then put them in two separate mono tracks, panning the left to the left, and the right to the right, obviously. then just flick the polarity switch on one of the tracks, and theoretically it should cancel any centered vocals out.

i've heard a couple of plugins try to do this, i assume they use the above method to do it. it obviously isn't done very well, because it mixes everything to a mono signal by the sounds of it. it works differently for different artists - for example, i tried using it with scarling, and it hardly worked at all. i also tried using it with led zeppelin (albeit the remastered stuff) and it worked quite well - there were still the presence of reverbs and delays in the mix though.

the weirdest effects occurred when used with nine inch nails. on the fragile's "we're in this together", it made it sound like a big piece of shit, being played through an AM radio with a bad reception. yet, on the downward spiral's "piggy", it does exactly what it says on the tin, a little too well - the only thing left in the mix is the drums! it's truly bizarre!
your milage may vary, and it depends very much on the way the source music was mixed down.

[Stripey]

The only realistic way to recover the vocal in pristine condition, is taking the instrumental of the track (it has to be exactly the same recording, just without the vocal), inverting the phase and then mixing it together with the vocal version. Trying to EQ or filter out the instruments will just sound totally ropey.

dang you beat me to it spellchecker

[Michael MacLennan]

Originally Posted by lime ruined my life

nothing like that works.
if i understand what you mean you mean the centre of a stereo image?
which is where the vocals usually lie, but everything else lies too to a certain extent, some sort of filtering might help in getting it just vocals, but it just doesnt work properly, any filtering you do will take out vocal components aswell, and just sound shit.

i reccomend just cutting up bits of vocals that have little or no instrumentation in the background and using that, or if its a band you know, asking for a vocal track

Yeah, it never sounded like it'd be too effective, but I'd just heard of such methods before... was going to try and do 'Army of Me' remix for the Bjork album, but it becomes a bit harder without any vocals. And there's no way in hell I'm going to do it as a cover and try and sing like Bjork, it's just too horiffic to think about...

you could just play the vocals on a keyboard and work with that till you can find an instrumental or vocal track, theres proabbly one somewhere. crabcraft by console is an instrumental track of son in my mouth, you could do the above technique with that perhaps...

p.s you old goat

[Alex]

might be worth looking for accapellas on soulseek mikey, i've got a few bjork ones.

[David]

i was once trying this with a programme called goldwave (its free, check google for the site)

it didnt work too well though, sometimes it cut part of te vocals and left strage effects in the background, i tried it on a track with a female singer and it made her sound like a pensioner somehow

i dont think an rq qould work too well, since vocals share a lot of frequencys with guitars so you endup cutting both or noeither a lot fo the time

David