Karaoke Forums

Hello all!  In a previous post I was trying to find a song.  I don't think there is a karaoke version of it anywhere so I thought about asking another question about the same song.  The song's title is:  "Starting Over Again" recorded by Natalie Cole.  Since I am unable to find it anywhere, I would like to ask if there are any technologies that remove the main voice from a traditional music cd?  I don't want to get involved with this myself, but if anyone knows of an online company that specializes in this type of work I would greatly appreciate a website where this work is done (ie) Voice eliminators etc.

Thank you for any and all help.
Sincerely,

Pete Healey (mrpete1939)

This is a frequently-asked karaoke question. The answer is yes, but they don't work very well. Some songs come out better than others -- the key is whether the vocal is the only thing in the center of the mix.

Claims for miracle solutions notwithstanding, there isn't any one package that is significantly ahead of the pack. (I am sure there are some awful ones.)


Watch out for snake oil! There are no magic bullets.

I would just get a program and run it through yourself. Or if you have a live sound mixer, you might find it has that feature and you can listen to the result.

If you like karaoke, I would get PowerKaraoke's Karaoke Sound Tools. It has a key and tempo changer as well. (Don't get Tricerasoft -- I tried their key changer and it is *bad*.)

MTU's suite of programs is pretty easy to use.

Someone can remove the vocals and get the lyrics in karaoke format in an hour or two on the first time one uses it, if you are moderately computer savy.

After that it takes about 30 minutes a song (5 minute song).

If I really know the song it can be done faster, the major limit is to learn the timeing of the song for syncing the words. To do that I generally have to listen to a new song a few times first.

The vocal removal part can be done very fast, maybe only 5 minutes or so.
One can play around a lot with controls, but the default settings are genrally going to produce something close to the optimal results in most cases.
The program may not be the "best" at quality but it is pretty good and very easy to use.

Remember not all songs work. Generally real old songs that were not done in stereo are not at all possible. Also a lot of newer stuff has various effects that were added to the voice (reverb etc...) and that is a result of the new cheap electronics of the last decade. If any effects were added to the voice, the effects pretty much ruin any chance to succeed in vocal removal.

Even at best you are only going to hope for a 10-15db decrease in the singing without ruining the rest of the music. A good singer can drown the residual vocals, and sometimes harmonize with them for good effect but a quiet or shy singer will make them apparent.

If you want the best job possible, in terms of quality it is possible to separate the song into the parts with and without vocals by time, and then only do the vocal removals on the portion of the song when there is singing, leaving the short insturmental breaks origional. This is possible with sofware like "Audacity" (freeware) but it is a complex task and could easily take hours to do a song.

I tried over 400 songs, and only got about four I would consider "good". six others are just "okay"... the rest... forgetaboutit!

Yes one can be very picky listening to the music in ones office on the computer, one realizes that either the backing instruments suffer or the voice is not removed enough. One can be very critical when listening to the music in a controlled setting.

Try listening to a few karaoke cds without singing along and many of them are actually not "great". I had three sound choice songs in a row last night that were definite dogs quality wise, but the next one from SGB was good...

None of us has the time to listen to all of our songs and determine if their quality is acceptable.

On the other hand put an imperfect song in front of a crowd who likes the song and a good singer who wants to sing it, it will sound pretty good. I have only done about 30 songs so far, but 2 or 3 get sung every night (different ones).

Sure they are not perfect sound wise but it is what the singers want to sing, and that makes up for a lot of failings.

when it bleeds the song weird, yeah, you BET I care!!!

Like others here...I have tried software vocal removers with some.. but very  little success.    Seeing this topic made me think of a new device thats out that supposedly can remove vocals no matter where they are in the mix.

You must check it out for your self though... because I haven't had to chance to try this new unit out yet, so I cannot give any advice other than let you know about it.

Here is the link....http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/VocalZapper/

Product Manu claims:

Zap almost any vocal!
the Alesis Vocal Zapper is a stereo vocal remover in an ultra-compact 1/4-space rackmount chassis. With its ability to remove vocals from a CD or stereo music source, the Vocal Zapper works well in any vocal performance, music education, or karaoke application. Regardless of whether the vocals are coming from the center, left or right channel, the Vocal Zapper can track them down and cut them out.


Disclaimer:..>>>>...I am not promoting this product!! My only intent is to let the person know about this device...that is "New" & claims to serve the purpose that the person who posted this thread is looking for.

Thanks  

ALL vocal eliminators work on the same principal!  Basically cancelling out the like frequencies on both channels.  Which means that ANYTHING recorded equally in both channels will be reduced - usually vocals, kick & snare drum, sometimes lead guitar, sometimes keyboards - these will also be reduced, sometimes to the point of noticeability, sometimes not - again depending on exactly how they were recorded originally.  Like stated earlier, ANYTHING that was recorded in mono will not work 1 spec.

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You will not like the final result. You will be better of with a midi version of the song> Yes it is not good but it is still better than what you get from passing a song through a vocal eliminator program.

Try do a search in for midi using this search engine:

http://www.vanbasco.com/

Edit: OP request this thread close  ........lock

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott