Ableton Forum

I am new to producing and when I am not finding directly any recent information how you get the best vocal extractions from a song without having the instrumental one.
I see some posts using EQ8, some others claim using other software like Melodyne or Adobe Audition. Kindly advise what is best way forward considering limitation that there is no acapella version avaiable or neither an instrumental one...

Kr hagegouwer

hagegouwer wrote:I am new to producing and when I am not finding directly any recent information how you get the best vocal extractions from a song without having the instrumental one.
I see some posts using EQ8, some others claim using other software like Melodyne or Adobe Audition. Kindly advise what is best way forward considering limitation that there is no acapella version avaiable or neither an instrumental one...

Kr hagegouwer

Yeah - that's a tough one. I think the answer really is "it depends." The more complex the track, the harder it's going to be to get that vocal out. I don't think Audition can do anything any differently to Ableton when it comes to removing vocals (I use Audition a lot).

Isotope RX 6 can do some absolutely magical things with vocals. If your track is simple, maybe a vocal and a beat, RX might be able to do something there (I've used it a lot to remove background noise, pops, clicks in interviews/testimonials - blew my mind). Then again, it's expensive.

I think you just need to be prepared that you're probably not going to get a clean vocal at the end of the day. You could use the structure of your production to cover up or mask the "unclean" parts of the vocal though.

There is no magical way to extract vocals and will never be. Even if you extracted the vocal precisely, it would still be covered with reverb and other mix effects, as well as master effects. WHich might not sit well on its own.

https://audionamix.com/technology/#how-it-works

Does a good job but takes some tweeking.

Warmonger wrote:There is no magical way to extract vocals and will never be. Even if you extracted the vocal precisely, it would still be covered with reverb and other mix effects, as well as master effects. WHich might not sit well on its own.

nevers say never!! for example:
10 years ago nobody thought that you could edit polyphonic audio like in melodyne today.

i know it`s hard to imagine but with all the development around AI and stuff, maybe......

Funny you should mention this, a producer called Jon Sine made a video on this literally a week ago.

Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy49niE1sUg

He makes his video in a vlog format so you will need to skip ahead to find what you are looking for. But it works pretty well. He is using Logic X, but everything he does is possible in Ableton.

I spent a long time trying to figure this out as well about a year ago. I came over to conclusions.

1. Download a cappella tracks from the beginning, either from YouTube or other sources.
2. You songs with vocals it inspires arrangement. With this approach you end up with unexpected and very interesting layering of sounds along with the vocals.