Audio Editing

[falcon]

Does anyone know where I can download free music editing software? I want to be able to remove the vocals from mp3s but every program I tried removes the centre track and makes the song sound like crap. I just want to be able to play it and force our actors to actually sing with it instead of waiting for the band to be there to sing.

Trials are okay as long as I can remove the vocals and save the entire song in any format.

[moojoe]

filesharing

[Andy_Leviss]

Um, NO, FILESHARING IS ILLEGAL, AND NOT AN OPTION. But, since you put that in teeny, tiny print, I'm assuming you knew that you were endorsing an illegal activity.

Besides, it's unnecessary when there are free/cheap options out there, such as the shareware Goldwave or the open source Audacity.

Of course, what the original poster wants to do is pretty much impossible. The only real technique for eliminating vocals at all is by cancelling out the center track. Other than that, there's no way to magically unmix a mixed-down track. It's just not physically possible. Sorry!

[RelativeMischief]

ProTools has a free version that works on 98 and an older mac OS (9 I think). It's fully functional but only allows you to use up to 8 audio tracks. If you have the right system you can play around in that. SoundForge might have what you're looking for and there's a couple more free ones around.

But in the end Andy's right, a mixed down track is impossible to seperate JUST the vocals without hitting anything else.

[Peter]

I am thinking that theoretically you could take a program that lets you draw a wave form and draw the waveform that is exactly out of phase with the vocalist's voice and not draw the other instruments etc.. and play both those tracks at the same time which would cancel out the vocalest. (probably would have to do it seperatly for the right and left channel) In practice though... I dont know, you would have to have some kind of super human ear or something to be able to do that.

Someone please tell me if I am off base in my idea, although I know when it comes down to it it is 100% inpractical.

[cutlunch]

I have just played with goldwave and it's reduce vocal function works but there will always be a shadow of the vocal. It also depends on how the track is recorded if the vocal is centered then it's not to bad. I tried on a couple of musicals and it dropped out the vocal enough to be useful. On another musical it took out the instrumentals as well. As well as the show disc, did you try other CD's as well, it may not be your programs but how the show disc was recorded. A simpler thing might be to get the keyboardist to record the piano line to a CD.

[falcon]

well, i've just played around with goldwave and some other programs and with all of them removeing the vocals puts pops and crackles in and it removes half of the instruments. I guess the cd I have is all compressed into one wave so i can't separate them properly

[VipermanGTX]

dude.........no matter what you do...the songs going to sound like crap...you gotta understand this......your song is one solid track...not several track of vocals, music, drumms....... trying to eliminate just the vocals and try to keep the music intact will be one hell of a pain in the ass. Ask my Buddy Milkcow

[jedijeffp]

Since you mention you need this for your actors to practice with, I will assume it's for a musical. Check with the publishing company of the musical. Many offer a split track CD. This will put all instruments to the left and all vocals on the right. If you can get one you'll need to plug your output from the CD player into two separate mono channels on the board. The fader and AUX pots for one channel will control the instruments, the fader and AUX pots for the other channel will control the vocals. The reason I recommend two mono channels rather than a stereo channel is that on most mixers, the AUX sends you're probably using for stage monitors are usually summed mono prior to the balance control (even on the post-fade AUX sends). This means that the vocals will be heard on the monitors (and any effects returns) even though the channel is balanced hard left. Using two mono channels will work around this issue by giving you full control of the fader and AUX pots of each track (left and right) separately. All this advice is of course only good if the publisher of the musical you're doing offers a split track CD.

Jeff

[spiwak2005]

Along with the piano scores and orchestra parts, we were able to rent RehearScore (from MTI Shows) for West Side Story. It is a program that includes a player (allows tempo changes and repeating of certain sections) and midi files of the entire score to use for rehearsals - just piano and some pseudo percussion. It really has worked out great, but it's not cheap. Just thought I'd mention that this is an option though.