removing vocal track from song

April 28, 2020 7:21 AM

I have an audio file that has some vocals on it. I would like to remove those vocals. Is there a way to do so without destroying the file?

I'm trying to create a karaoke track. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

posted by nayantara to Grab Bag (7 answers total)

There's a very cool tool called Spleeter that can do this, but it requires some command-line expertise. If you want to give it a shot, Enkidude posted a how-to guide in the thread about it last November.
posted by theodolite at 7:27 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks theodolite. Unfortunately I'm a bit of a technology luddite.

Maybe this is something I should post on Mefi Jobs?
posted by nayantara at 7:30 AM on April 28, 2020

Best answer: I can give it a shot, send me a MeFi message if you're interested
posted by theodolite at 7:38 AM on April 28, 2020

Response by poster: Thank you theodolite! I just memailed you.
posted by nayantara at 7:45 AM on April 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

You can do a rough-job on certain tracks with (free) Audacity.
Often the vocals are mixed into both the left and right channels. So, one trick is to subtract one side from the other (effectively nulling-out the "middle" track). https://manual.audacityteam.org/man/vocal_remover.html
posted by Dub at 7:46 AM on April 28, 2020 [5 favorites]

https://moises.ai is a web host for Spleeter that lets you upload a song and have it try and separate the tracks out for you.

Spleeter does a pretty good job, considering, but no one will ever mistake it for an actual karaoke track.
posted by Ampersand692 at 8:16 AM on April 28, 2020 [4 favorites]

Strongly-seconding Spleeter. It'll do precisely what you asked for. (It's not /perfect/, but it should be perfectly adequate for karaoke!)
posted by Wild_Eep at 2:52 PM on April 28, 2020