How to get Accapella from a song

[Tommi's Love]

Hi all,
is there a way to extract the acapella from a song with Ableton?

[jlgrimes]

Hi all,
is there a way to extract the acapella from a song with Ableton?

No.

You basically have to find if a song has an acapella version. Sometimes it is available for DJs. You can try the Internet. Or find the copyright holder, producer, engineer which probably isn’t easy.



Only other way is to use filtering and maybe if you have a mid/side plug-in use it to solo just the mid. But this won’t be 100%.

Might work though in certain situations, especially songs where most instruments are hard panned.


Acapellas are probably hard to find for more obscure songs but it just depends on whether they decided to release it or not.


Good luck.

[Stromkraft]

Hi all,
is there a way to extract the acapella from a song with Ableton?

I haven't tried this on A capellas, but one technique is if you're lucky and there's an instrumental that more or less is the backing track with the vocals lifted out, i e not a completely differently mixed version. If there is, you can add this version to another track, switch polarity (reverse phase) making sure the tracks match up exactly and possibly adjust the volume somewhat. This will nullify the music mostly.

I don't think this kind of instrumental is that common these days and when it is, there usually is an A capella as well.

I've used this technique for cleaning voice samples with identified background music on them. It's a PITA and usually needs filtering, gating and other techniques as well to get something useful.

[Shift Gorden]

Hi all,
is there a way to extract the acapella from a song with Ableton?

I haven't tried this on A capellas, but one technique is if you're lucky and there's an instrumental that more or less is the backing track with the vocals lifted out, i e not a completely differently mixed version. If there is, you can add this version to another track, switch polarity (reverse phase) making sure the tracks match up exactly and possibly adjust the volume somewhat. This will nullify the music mostly.

I don't think this kind of instrumental is that common these days and when it is, there usually is an A capella as well.

I've used this technique for cleaning voice samples with identified background music on them. It's a PITA and usually needs filtering, gating and other techniques as well to get something useful.

Right on - and to further make this a PITA, the instrumental version has to be pretty much identical to the vocal version, i.e. it's the exact same mix apart from the vocal has been stripped. This was pretty common 20 years ago or so, but not that common now.

[Tommi's Love]

Thank you for your posts!
I have heard of that technique and I wasn't satisfied at all.
What about the idea singing the song by myself and using autotune on the recorded acapella?

[SuburbanThug]

Might as well write your own lyrics while you're at it.

[Stromkraft]

I have heard of that technique and I wasn't satisfied at all.

You heard of it or you tried it? With filters and gates too?

In my case it worked great, but I had exactly the same backing track and the dialogue I wanted was not part of the track.

[Tommi's Love]

I tried it by myself with a Hip Hop song. I matched the song with the instrumental version, reversed the phase, but I cannot remember which track I did it and the result was not an acapella of that song, but I have to admit I didn't use a gate and filter.
I am definitely going to try it again. Can you tell me which of both tracks I should reverse the phase?
Thank You, If you haven't done so in your previous post. Can't see them when I reply to post.

[Stromkraft]

I am definitely going to try it again. Can you tell me which of both tracks I should reverse the phase?

I don't want the song to be switched, so that'd be the instrumental.

Another tool if you don't have the instrumental is to work section by section and use bars without song similar to bars with it and match these with polarity switched. Chances are small this will remove all music, but it can render snippets of music where it's easier to filter and gate out the background.

Yet another way to is to play with the fact much vocals are smack in the center and use mid/side techniques to target. Then of course delays and reverbs might not be.

Even better might be tools like Melodyne.

At any rate, recreation might be more fun than messing with samples.