Remove The Lyrics From MOST Songs

This will teach you how to remove the vocals from almost any song.
This is great for making your own Karaoke song

Now before i start i want you to know this won't completely remove the singer, but it will do a pretty good job of it so its worth a try.

Step 1: Download Audacity

You need to download Audacity, a free audio editing program.
First you need to go to google.com and search Audacity.
Then click on the first result which brings you to there homepage and has a download like right there.
I use the beta version but it makes no difference for this.

Comments

[gangsan1996]

i used this on Friday by RB

[zack247]

geez... please dont remind me of that song!
im not trying to me mean or rude or anything but i absolutely DESPISE that song! it makes my ears bleed!

[dvitale2]

I really like this because I can discern the harmonies easier. Thanks a lot man!

[JacobRoan]

If anyone's wondering how this works, what happens when you invert a track is the same if you invert an image, it becomes the exact opposite. If you were to layer these two over each other and they were both identical (mono) you would hear nothing because they would cancel each other out. The same thing would happen with the original image and the inverted one if you layered them with 50% opacity. Now the reason this cancels the vocals and not most of the other audio is because vocals are always recorded in mono, while most other instruments are recorded in stereo, giving them minute differences that stand out when the tracks are flipped.

So for an example of complete inversion cancellation you can split the stereo track in Audacity then change it from left or right to mono, duplicate it, and invert one of them. You should here nothing at all, pretty cool right?!

Well anyways, this doesn't really work to well, because some instruments are mono recorded, and you lose A LOT of sound quality with this technique, and the biggest problem is that there is a lot of added stereo reverb and effects added to vocals today.

Well I hope you enjoyed my little audio lesson today. :)

[scootero1211]

Tested it on two songs
The Decemberists - Calamity Song: Muted the vocals, still half-audible in the background.
Ellie Goulding - Lights: Removed all vocals except echo effects and chorus.

[ace_gatling]

When recording a music, sometimes the sound table controller selects Left channel for Voice and Right channel for guitar, bass and drums (or the opposite).

What I am saying is they SOMETIMES separate Voice for a exclusive channel. However, today, it's rare to see that; check out The Who songs, especially "Eminence Front"; without the Left channel you cant hear the singer except in the Chorus...

Left, Right Channels --> Search for Stereo Audio

[Little John J13]

This did absolutely nothing for me, did not work. I thought you were supposed to take pride in your work on this site.

[DancerBoi]

... Okay, this has worked for me many times with legitimate songs i have bought. The song you tried to use it on was most likely either recorded in mono or dual mono (meaning it's the same on the left and the right track) this would cause this method ineffective.

I posted this as a guide for others to try to accomplish a task i already know how to do, this was for you to enjoy, and i'm sorry it didn't live up to your expectations. Much apologies.

[tpennells]

nice, remove the whole song as well as the vocals. I thought you were gonna go for some EQ or something, would have been much more effective

[DancerBoi]

Feel free to post your own instuctable on how you would do it, this is just one way I learned to and thought I would share it with all of you.

[deiriz]

this technique will only render the song out of phase. it will remove alot of frequencies and the song will sound empty it is not the correct way to remove frequencies.

[DancerBoi]

Wow. This was just one way to accomplish the task. If you have a better way to do this for free, then feel free to post it, but saying what's wrong with the way i do it is not helpful. At all. Thank you.

[iceoss]

it didnt work for me at all

[Krayzi99]

tried Awake and alive, didnt really work
you can kind of hear the lyrics

[casey11]

i downloaded it but when i click on it a bunch of coding crap comes up. how do i open it?

[kratos404]

I made it, It Works, try to make one to Mute the Lyrics :D

[ryanavellanosa]

it worked for me. I tried The Wild Swans' song Liquid Mercury. and it worked good, and of course the accompanying sound did somewhat changed a bit. But it's good.. thanks!!

[DancerBoi]

Glad i could help =]

[theudsingh]

i didnot get you.. i download it but its not working.. :( please help me anyone.. :( [e-mail]

[Terry2030]

Hey Dancerboi,   I seem to be having a problem with step # 4.  Invert right audio.  I click in the grey area of the right bar, go click on effect the items in the drop down box are not operating.  They are all grey.  As I go down to invert it is high lighted but nothing happens when I click on it.  None of the steps after that work either.  Any suggestions ?  I have tried several songs but the same thing happens.  This a good instructable.  I think you did a good job.  I just think I am doing something wrong. 
Thanks

[nwolberg]

you need to actually press the Stop button. the big yellow square in your transport. (top left corner)

[DancerBoi]

Progenic is right, you must stop the song before you can apply any effects to the track.

[nbagf]

 you are doing nothing wrong just click where it says then use your mose to highlight the song.


p.s. the lyrics didn't go away for me

[Progenic]

Since im not familiar with audacity in any way im just guessing here but i would say that your problem might be caused by your attempt to change/edit the audio file during playback.
You should check this, because what you're describing does sound very similar to what happens in most of the common audio editors when trying to add an effect or adjust/edit the audio signal in any other way during its playback.

If the same problem occurs when processing the audiofile while it is not playing, i can only say good luck...

[foobear]

This is interesting. It would be cool if the instructable had a before and after play button for a song that this worked on.

[sgaudreau89]

 I am unable to get this to work, i've tried 3 or 4 different songs and none of them work. any explanation? they're all dragged and dropped from itunes into audacity and i'd expect they're relatively high quality encodings.

[MCzone]

import the actual file
itunes probably converted it
:{ [does it look like a man with a mustach

[Allowance10]

Audacity only takes Mp3...etc. Itunes uses MPEG4.

[aram.bv]

 this will only work if the song has a good quality, means it is recorded in a studio and not reconverted after, because most of the songs you can find from internet don't have that quality, so they don't really have lyrics in one side and music in the other, and it makes it impossible to remove them in this way, but instead Audacity has another feature called Vocal Remover, I don't really know how it works for this type of files with bad quality but it's made for that :)

[MCzone]

i am sorry i ment bad quality not bab

[MCzone]

the bab quality vocal remover did not work for me
I did me against the world by 2pac
i love the rattling at the begining

[macmilli]

I have the same problem with step 4. I have the part selected but all the effects are grey. why does this not work?

[DancerBoi]

this happened because you tried to apply an effect while the song was playing or paused, you must stop the song to apply any effects.

[RyanxRAGE]

I did it to "You Know My Name" by Chris Cornell and parts of the song came out garbled. Is this to be expected or is it just the song?

[freakyqwerty]

Congratz on using the best brouser in the world

[TYYYYLER]

Chrome is better

[ppatches24]

Chome alllll the wayyyy

[TYYYYLER]

fo sho

[freakyqwerty]

Nah firefox 4 is better(beta)

[Data643]

Safari FTW.