isolating vocals for my dad

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Bombastic
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isolating vocals for my dad

Post by Bombastic » Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:31 am

sorry if this question has been asked before.

my dad has asked me to remix a song of his he recorded in the 80's (he's a singer), apart from the bad quality, I pretty much forgot how to isolate the vocals.

I have live 7, I think I read on the forums once that it could be done (isolating vocals from a song). I literally want to use his vocals and modernise the whole thing, but at the moment, cant seem to get it done.. I tried Utility, but got no where..

any help would be great!

DrDJ
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Post by DrDJ » Sat Dec 15, 2007 9:54 am

Hi,
Try search extraction vocals

forge
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Post by forge » Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:42 am

cant you see if he can record it again?

Isolating vocals is a dark art and rarely leads to good things
Last edited by forge on Sat Dec 15, 2007 11:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

Mr Man
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Post by Mr Man » Sat Dec 15, 2007 10:49 am

heres an overview of the different methods used for extracting vocals...

1. THE PHASE CANCELLATION METHOD
Get an instrumental of a song, invert the phase (sometimes refered to as flipping), and mix it with the original.. If done right everything besides the vocal is cancelled out. You can do this in any sequencer like cubase or acid.. The instrumental must be excatly the same time/pitch however. and mp3s might not work if they are badly encoded. Zoom right in to see the 2 waveforms next to each other (look for kick drum hits) and line them up.

2. THE KNOCKOUT METHOD
using 'knock0ut' (http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/) you can spectrally subtract one piece of audio from another. Start by extracting the centre mono of a track (soundforge or cooledit will do it with the pan/expand feature). then try and make an instrumental out of loops from the track and 'knock them out' of the vocal parts. This can work even if the instrumental isn't excatly the same as the song.

3. OTHER METHODS
Besides these methods you can try Cool edits (now audition) noise reduction feature, which is very powerful. Analyse a bit of instrumental and get a profile (6000 or 4096FFT is a good size).. reduce than from the whole song.
You can also try the soundhack spectral plugins and Voxengo's Transmodder to futher reduce spikey nosies like drums.. (don't ask me how .. its all trial and error).


You will NEVER make a totally perfect acapella with 2 and 3. You can however make something good enough to work in your mix.. USE YOUR EARS! LISTEN and learn and you might get somewhere

Bombastic
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Post by Bombastic » Mon Dec 17, 2007 7:50 am

thank, knock0ut is OK, but not good enough, havent had much time over Xmas, but will try more experimental efforts later..

tricil
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Post by tricil » Mon Dec 17, 2007 1:26 pm

try doing a search on this forum for the "Utility Trick" (should be in the top tips & tricks sticky) and use a combination of that with some intense EQing
MacBook Pro T7600 / OS X 10.5.7 / Ableton Suite 8.0.2 / Peak Pro XT 6.1.1 / ReMOTE 37SL

djsandman
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Post by djsandman » Mon Dec 17, 2007 3:47 pm

Sorry for the small highjack, but does anyone know what method was used to subtract Jay Z's vocals from the Black Album when DangerMouse created The Grey Album?

forge
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Post by forge » Fri Jan 04, 2008 5:39 am

I just found this plug-in which is better than Knockout in another thread - it's still a pretty fruitless task, but it can produce some interesting results

http://www.elevayta.com/d_plugins.htm

DJ VAKIS
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Post by DJ VAKIS » Fri Jan 04, 2008 4:08 pm

forge wrote:I just found this plug-in which is better than Knockout in another thread - it's still a pretty fruitless task, but it can produce some interesting results

http://www.elevayta.com/d_plugins.htm
Very good,but it is only for pc.
http://www.myspace.com/djvakis
http://mix2r.fm/audio/user/221


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Bombastic
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Post by Bombastic » Thu Jan 10, 2008 11:00 am

djsandman wrote:Sorry for the small highjack, but does anyone know what method was used to subtract Jay Z's vocals from the Black Album when DangerMouse created The Grey Album?
hi, i beleive in those days, records were recorded in pure stereo, ie vocals were panned to the left or right, drums on the right or left, etc... so it might be a little easier with their stuff..

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