Making a "Soft-Vocal" Instrumental in Audacity

Okay, today I'm going to show you how to make a "soft-vocal" instrumental (An instrumental with soft vocals) in Audacity, a free, cross-platform sound editor. (An instrumental is lyric-free music or just instruments.) ***This instructable does not work with "mono" type audio, it must be "stereo."***

Thanks to LDW, I will provide these instructions on how to make you audio file a "Stereo" type file
::To make the audio file stereo simply copy the track to a new track and save the track as a whole file, making it dual-channeled! :D-Thanks!

This is kinda picky on which songs you use. Sorry about that, it's not for professional work. ;)

Step 1: Download Audacity

First off, if you don't already have it, you need to download Audacity here Home

Comments

[chipper35]

Exceedingly cool! I'm going to do this!!!

[dj maddshredda]

hey i cant select any of the effects?

[picbuck]

That fools everybody. Effects become available only when something is selected.

To select part of a track, drag across it. To select all of a track, click an empty spot in the left part of the track, where the volume and balance controls are.

[Seaspider1]

even when I amplify it after all 9 steps, it doesn't make a change in the sound, I know I highlighted everything correctly. Any ideas?

[Hoboman]

Like I said, this technique is very picky on what material it wants to work with...I'd really love to help you, but sadly I can't.

[mar007com]

hi!I've done this all instruction.but sounds disapear after inverting and make mono each channel.help plss..

[Hoboman]

Sorry for the long reply, I'm not really sure why that is happening. There should be no reason that the sound disapears. Are you sure you followed the directions complete? (i.e. invert only one track/mono a certain channel?)

[screamboy3000]

i do it all right but about the part after when u still here the lyrics a bit well ive tried lots like -4.8 -5.2 -6.5 and all lyrics still wont go! what shall i do?

[Hoboman]

I should make this clear, this will not make a lyric-less instrumental, but more of a soft-vocal instrumental. Sorry this title is misleading, I will fix it immediately.

[Father Christmas]

did it exactly the same wiht 7 diff audio tracks. didn't work at all :( i want CoB's "Lake Bodom" as an instrumental type. not fair. lol

[brownm09]

DjProToJeeX, please show me how to make an instrumental for a song that's meant for multiple types of music...I'm desperate to find something other than the "split stereo track" method, which doesn't work on any of my songs. Thanks!

[snoopdoggsaju]

the amplify method doesn't work for me. why??

[Hoboman]

Well the amplification isn't really a method, it just lowers the volume of the music so that the vocals are more disguised. Should I have made that clearer in the instructable?

[Teriaki]

Whenever I use this tactic It always ends up in a blank song with no sound, this never works for me. Hasn't in 3 weeks and I don't think it ever will.

[awkrin]

me too

[Hoboman]

Thats odd.

[DRADIS]

If I just want to cut the vocals out of part of the song do I just 'gray' the part of the song I want to change, instead of the whole thing?

[Hoboman]

I would think so, try it and post your results. :)

[DRADIS]

I used this to cut out certain words of an AC/DC song for a school project, and it worked great!

[Hoboman]

Glad it worked. did U get an A? :P

[DRADIS]

A- :)

[Hoboman]

thats good ;)

[Fro]

pretty cool idea and well-made instructible, but it's nowhere near perfect and didn't work that well for me. it's defininitely "picky". i saw some comments talking about how to do this better and more effectively though, so could you direct me to how to do it.

[Hoboman]

I couldn't exactly tell you what to do. I'd talk to DjProToJeeX about that. He seems to know.

[pyromanizak]

this is on the audacity website. but ur instuctable makes it a lot easier to understand plus thanks for the amplify tip :)

[Hoboman]

no problem, thanks.

[sterlingsilver]

Nice 'ible. Not perfect but definitely functional.

[Hoboman]

thanks.

[DjProToJeeX]

nice instructable. but you are misleading when you say make instrumentals. it doesnt make an instrumental. It Brings out the keys in a track to help make an instrumentals, vocals will still be present. and there is a few more efficient ways to actually produce a more quality key present track or "instrumental" as you call it useing pro tools. and this is also just the basics when you say its picky. its more cause you dont actually know what your doing to do it proper. it would be like a how to rebuild a cylinder head and you focus on a 454 head. well theres a few different style heads and you have to do things for each ya know. and BTW, I have to know Did you see this on the YouTube video from like a year ago from malfunction online. cause theres better methods that even say how to better this method. right in the comments, i give this a C overall. I was pretty dissappointed with this Overall.

[Hoboman]

I saw this on Youtube a while ago, but it was brought back to my attention, and I didn't see it on I'bles, so I posted it. I'm sorry you were disappointed with my instructable. And I never knew about the guitarist/bassist thing, pretty cool.

[DjProToJeeX]

maybe we need to collaborate so we can bring it a little more up to par for the average user.

[DjProToJeeX]

he doesnt tell you that this is meant for guitarists and bassist's to use for most music genres that have such instruments. so you can hear the keys and people that can play by ear then can learn the song and bring it to tabs or write it out. which is what the original magazine article that told people this method, then made it to youtube now here, pertained too. this Isn't to make a hip hop instrumental theres a much more complex and efficient way to do that.

[dchall8]

Looks fun...here we go!

[dchall8]

Hmmm. Not getting very good results. Tried on Beatles "Til There Was You" and on Blues Brothers "Rawhide." Results are unlistenable. Still fiddling around.

[DjProToJeeX]

i ahd great results with Beatles tracks this method and a little fiddling

[Hoboman]

hmmm, most of the music I tried works. And like earlyjp said, the Beatles did make some "unrealistic" stereo mixes. But I'm not exactly sure about the Blues Brothers, that should have worked...Tell me if you ever get it working.

[earlyjp]

Not sure about Rawhide, but the Beatles often released "unrealistic" stereo mixes. The song title escapes me now, but I remember one with backing vocals on the right and lead vocals on the left (maybe, Paperback Writer?). It's not surprising that such a mix would sound bad after summing the right and inverted left channels.

[DjProToJeeX]

the left and right thing is a production trick this happens in a lotta music. sometimes even with instruments. ive heard tracks with a 1 guitar on the left and another on the right. you couldnt tell if it werent for the speakers being seperated by 10 feet.

[DeadlySurfer]

Nice Instructable. Can anyone tell me if it is possible to use tracks from a CD? When I import they come out like 2 seconds long.

[DjProToJeeX]

.cda