# Taking vocals out of music........ **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 8, 2001, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068 "2001-06-08T15:47:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pezpunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@pezpunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezpunk)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/1 "2001-06-08T15:47:16Z")
I was curious if anyone knew of a program or a way to extract vocals from music? I have been playing with acid pro and a few other programs and wanted to play around with remixing songs. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/2 "2001-06-08T16:10:04Z")
It is possible, but I’m not sure if it can be done with Acid Pro. Essentially, with stereo music, if you look for signal elements that are exactly the same frequency and amplitude on both channels, these will be from whatever sound source was exactly equidistant from the two microphones when it was recorded. Ok, so what if the singer was not in the centre? you look for signal elements that are exactly the same frequency, but one is, say 10% louder than the other _and slightly out of phase_ because, being closer to the mic and therefore louder, the sound will have reached one mic ever so slightly sooner than the other. That’s the theory, and I’ve seen working demonstrations of this, however, the above is all well and good if we’re talking about a conventional live recordings, but if something has been mixed (which is pretty much inevitable nowadays) then it might not be so simple. ---
**Author:** ![Opengrave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/919ad9/32.png) [@Opengrave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Opengrave)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/3 "2001-06-08T16:31:13Z")
I think Delta9 is a sound engineer - maybe she will see this and offer some help. ---
**Author:** ![mongrel\_8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e274bd/32.png) [@mongrel\_8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mongrel_8)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/4 "2001-06-08T16:48:47Z")
I have a friend who claimed his brother had a stereo that could remove the vocals from music. I always wondered how this would possibly work. I now wonder if he didn’t know what he was talking about. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2001, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/5 "2001-06-08T21:16:20Z")
[WinAmp](http://www.winamp.com/download/) has some plug-ins that will let you do that. Down load WinAmp then look at their DSP/Effects plug-ins. There should be a couple of them that are “vocal removers”. The way they work is by subtracting out anything that comes from both channels, but not if it comes from only one channel. Typically vocals are recorded in both channels while the instruments are in either the left or right channels only. ---
**Author:** ![pezpunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@pezpunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pezpunk)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2001, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/6 "2001-06-09T15:45:38Z")
Thank you all very much for your help. I actually found some free software at [http://www.analogx.com](http://www.analogx.com). I also found that cool edit pro 2000 will do it. Thanks for the suggestions! ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2001, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taking-vocals-out-of-music/68068/7 "2001-06-09T15:54:18Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by mongrel\_8_: > > I have a friend who claimed his brother had a stereo that could remove the vocals from music. I always wondered how this would possibly work. I now wonder if he didn’t know what he was talking about. This is probably a defect. I’ve seen it several times. If the signal ground becomes open (usually bad solder at the input jacks), the input pre-amps (if designed as differential amps) will effectively supress the vocals (being that they appear in both channels with similar amplitude & phase). Some of the non-vocal information is lost also, but the most striking effect of an open ground is the loss of vocals. Got that?