SynthMaker

Vocal Remover

Archive · 2010 3 old posts

From the original SynthMaker forum (2004–2014), with its members’ names and dates.

doug4350 ·

Howdy Folks,

Been quite a while since I posted here. I do drop in from time to time to see what's going on though...

I'm faced with a challenge... My daughter is a singer and (through my wife) ran into a prestigious musician that can hook her up with some professional producers and possibly lead to a music career for her. I've been putting together a demo cd and arranging the accompaniment on my h/w synths. It's pretty slow going programming sounds I need, but I'm able to prepare midi tracks fairly quickly in Sonar after fixing up free internet versions of the material.

I'm between jobs and have had time, but I am suspecting I'll be back in the workforce soon and won't have time. So, I'm exploring options to speed up the process to get the demo cd done. I have 2 ideas, one of which is creating a vocal remover from the original cd and have been exploring that the past couple days. I've tinkered with Sonar by crossfading the right channel inverted to the left and vice-a-versa, which I read is one way to do it with no success. I think there's something in Sonar that doesn't match the docs which is why.

Anyway, I've searched the S/M forums for Ideas and came across this [old link] posting, but the link to the osm is dead.

Is this method still the best method for vocal removal (I'm aware of the unpleasant side effects), or has there been new ideas floating around? I also don't care about looks, just need something to get the job done.

If anyone can point me to a working osm (I could probably whip one up, but I'm quite rusty) or something to run with I'd greatly appreciate it. Also, I'm not a DSP whiz, so please be gentle 🙂 . My other option is to search for karaoke tracks, but it's more fun doing it the nerd way.

Thanks, - Doug "Nothing is impossible if ImPossible"

MichaelBenjamin ·

if you invert a channel you only cancel the center portion of the stereo signal (the part which is equal on both sides), so to make this technique work, your signal has to be with vocals dead center and everything else hard panned left right. since most music is not mixed that way you will always end up with a often weirdly phase warbled thin (bassless) version with lots of vocal artifacts from delay chorus and reverb.

also "the producer" does not care if the backtrack music is a million dollar orchestra with ultra clever filtered out vocals, or blip blops from a 8bit nintendo soundchip - if its about the voice of the singer. therefore to give ground for the clearest impression to the voice its best to have a completely voiceless karaoke track. since all filtering out techniques will end up with vocal artifacts from the original singer, its no option to do it this way if you want to achieve best preconditions for the success of your daughter, so i would try to render the midi files arranged with soundfonts or synths. try to find good midi files that change tempo or are recorded in realtime (piano tracks), have variation in velocity and modulation.

doug4350 ·

Thanks for the reply Michael. I'll take that into consideration. Being a keyboardist, I'm more concerned about the instrumentation/accompaniment over the vocals, but I guess in this case I need to turn it around. I may proceed with less detailed accompaniment to get this done.

Take care, - Doug "Nothing is impossible if ImPossible"

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