guitarslinger @ Mon Oct 12, 2009 12:29 pm wrote:
hi im new. i manage a talent agency in new york. i sing, play guitar, am a dj and a kj. my heros are bobby darin, eric clapton, dean martin and the beatles. i love old standards and the blues. i was wondering if anyone out there has ever tryed any of the VOCAL ELIMINATORS that are supposed to remove vocals from audio recordings. i understand that they dont work well with MONO recordings, but im curious as to how effective they are in general. any feedback would be appreciated. thanks, danny
This question comes up periodically. The answer is that they are generally unsatisfactory. You can get some halfway-good results on certain songs.
Vocals tend to be stereo-imaged in the center. The basic principle, and the reason they don't work on mono songs, is that they look for signals identical in both channels and remove them. So if you find a track imaged in a way that will work well, it will work pretty well. If it isn't at that ideal, it won't work well at all.
You'll find claims for an expensive device -- "The Thompson Vocal Eliminator" or somesuch. As far as anyone here knows, they are just claims and not real performance.