Have any of you experts out there had good results with isolating the vocals of a track,
or know where I can get the acapella of Karl Denver's 'Wimoweh' - a single from back in the 60's.

I heard that if you get the intrumental and the full track and invert the intrumental in a mix with the full track, does a very good job of isolating the vocals but I have had no joy with finding the instrumental or acapella anywhere.

Hope someone can help me out with this.

 

the thing is that if the vocals weren't recorded/mastered panned at the Center of the song(meaning the vocal being mastered within the same channel with the instrumental you're talking about)

then i'm sorry, in no way that's possible even with cutting frequency. otherwise that'd kill the vocals/instruments(the Whole song.)

 

Just get a sample replay from Scorccio if you're serious about using samples, because they can give you a brand new acapella at any tempo, pitch or key to match your new track. The replay will sound just like the original sampled version and it will save you from all that inverting nonsense, which just sounds like a crap mix job anyway. Plus getting a replay will be legal and you get to keep it forever (just gotta get publishing clearance). Here's the link; www.scorccio.com. Good luck with that and let us know how it went once your new track is finished.

 

Scouse I'll sum up what the other's said before I say anything

Chubawuba says in short that it's from an era where there was a lack of channels on the master tapes so it'll be merged in with at least 1 instrument unless the vocals had a designated channel, not very likely.

London007 says contact www.scorccio.com they specialise in this stuff. Never heard of them so he's got me interested.

ArticStorm says that useing software to create a acapella is impossible due to the stereo spread of the vocals (he is right, most plug-ins created to strip backing tracks won't work for this song)



The inverted phase trick, where you take a instrumental and invert it's phase to cansle out the backing behind the vocals. It works on the principle of deconstructive wave addition.

This will only work when you have a instrumental that is exacterly the same as the track with vocals. The only way I have ever managed it myself is where I bought a single (CD format) and used the instrumental track and the corrasponding track from the same medium (in other words the same CD).

Audio volume is often normallised to match a song's volume to the level of the over-all album, single, tape, ect.
The change in volume means you need to mach the volumes if they are from differant sources, as if you don't it will be too much and remove the backing track, then add it back in at a differant volume inverted.

Your best bet for this methoud is finding a record with the song and instrumental version on. Good luck.


On the other hand you could contact the record company and ask them if they have one?
You never know they migh help if they can sell your final mix
or try www.scorccio.com like London007 said

 

This is what's great about AudioZ, its got members who really know there stuff,
and for members like me your input is 2nd to none.

I thought it would be difficult to isolate vocals but not impossible.

Out of the above suggestions, I'm interested in what London007 said: contact www.scorccio.com.
and also what Zalbadar said: contact the record company to see if they can help.

Many many thanks for your responses and if I come up with something I'll be back.

Thank you.

scouse

 

It may be possible with some of the new technologies to isolate and extract vocals (ie; Roland R-Mix, Sony SpectraLayers Pro, or iZotope RX 2) -- I've seen these demo'd and used to remove vocals and other harmonic artifacts from audio recordings -- Can't see why they couldn't work in reverse -- though I have yet to see this done, and I'm not sure you'd get the 'quality' output that you're likely expecting in an acapella -- has anyone here attempted using any of these products in that fashion ? I have no use for acapellas personally -- so I've never attempted such an extraction

Edit: Check here ---> http://www.izotope.com/support/portal/index.php/kb/article/325-iZotopes_VocalRemover_technology

 

Thanks PYRUS MALUS.

I check it out...everything is worth a try.

Scouse

 

Just in case you haven't seen this (though I reckon you will have) acapellas4U

 

removing the apparent center of the audio field, where the vocals usually are, is not to hard. trying to keep that and suppress everything else is a different problem, harder. And usually there are other things in the center besides just vocals. You can notch filter some of that, or create a phase inversion to cancel some of it. But I've never heard a good one.

 

Thanks Senorite

I joined acapellas4u a while ago, its got some very interesting ideas on their forum.