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Posted by: Lycius_Down Sat 19 Mar 2005, 05:44

Does any one know of a way to isolate vocals from a CD or vinyl source? For example, I want to hear only the rapper in the hip-hop song, and not the beats.

The following link explains how to do it with Cool Edit and Soundforge (PC software), but I haven't found a complement on the Mac side.

http://nav.440network.com/out.php?mmsc=forums&url=http://ccmixter.org/forum/viewtopic.php?forum=7&showtopic=542

I'm assuming you could do it be a difference of the soundwaves. A soundwave anaylsis with just the beats, and then measure the difference with the vox and beats fromt he source. Or perhaps, messing with compression and a vocoder. But I don't see any software that does this on demand. Perhaps Csound ?

How do DJ's do it in the clubs? I know they use instrumental versions of songs, but how do tehy merge the vox so seemlessesly?


I'm using Cubase 1.06. on iBook G3 500, 576mb ram.

Any tips?

Posted by: lepetitmartien Sat 19 Mar 2005, 07:24

DJs use tracks on records with only the a capella, on some records, the voice is on a range of frequencies where there is nothing else, with a bit of EQing you can remove the non vocal element, but if it's a technique ok in a club, in the studio you ear the nasty things you are doing…

As i should be to bed, I won't go onto something I'm thinking about, I don't have ideas clear enough (sleeeeep nowww)

Posted by: coldharbour Sat 19 Mar 2005, 16:04

There's no good method of doing it.

The results are always more or less awkward. As said above, DJ's use accapella versions, accapellas are sometimes included in 12" / CD-Maxis.

If you still wanna try it, possibly the best chances for successfully separating vocals are if you have an instrumental version of the track - turn the phase of the instrumental track full 180 degrees and then overdub it with the vocal version. The files must be sample-accurately at the exact same position and at the same volume level. If all goes well the instrumental with 180 deg phase error cancels out everything else than the vocals in the original track.

If you don't have full instrumental version you can try to find instrumental bits in the track that matches the vox backgrounds and then again phaseshifting them to cancel each other out.

Also, the vox are usually mixed in the middle of stereo field, so scrapping everything that expands to L/R usually brings vox up a bit.. but of course drums and bass are usually in the middle as well so you need to tweak the EQ a lot.

If you're using the vox in your own track (so there's a backing track) it's usually enough to just cut the low / low middle frequencies (so the kickdrum doesn't cut through) and emphasizing the vocal range to bring vox up a bit.

Posted by: Lycius_Down Sat 19 Mar 2005, 21:46

So a capellas can be bought then alongside instrumentals?

I suppose it's a lot more work than I thought. The phaseshift idea seems like it's a good idea, but time consuming.

Posted by: lepetitmartien Sun 20 Mar 2005, 02:50

Phase shifting is the only "easy" way, as long as the voice is well centered (it's about the same problem as making an instrumental from a voiced version).

Posted by: coldharbour Mon 21 Mar 2005, 17:05

Sometimes accapella is included - usually not - and if there's an accapella it won't usually appear on the "consumer" CD, check out the 12" and special DJ promo-editions.