Agreed farss. There are many tutorials online (Google search) for accomplishing this...or ATTEMPTING to accomplish this. My results have been mediocre at best. You'll have better luck with source material that is not in mp3 format. Something with the way mp3 encodes the channels effects the polarity reversal (all processes I'm aware of separate the stereo tracks and reverse the polarity). Anyway, some tutorials are application specific and some explain a more generic process.

Sony Knowledgebase Answer 4239

Subject

How do I achieve the best results using the Vocal Eraser plug-in included with Sound Forge Audio Studio 9?

Answer

The Vocal Eraser plug-in will reduce or remove the lead vocal from most recordings. You will want to work with songs that do not have backing vocals. Songs in which the lead vocal is dry, meaning that it does not have effects or reverb applied, will also work best. Additionally, Vocal Eraser will work best with songs in which the lead vocal is centered in the mix. This type of song will give you the best results.

Finally, please be sure to adjust the template to the type of voice that you are working with. For instance, the Vocal Eraser plug-in has different templates for male/female vocalists, as well as for Bass, Tenor, Alto and Soprano. You will also want to adjust the suppression Method (Sharp, Normal or Smooth) to see what works best for that song.

Please bear in mind that, in order to completely and entirely remove vocals from a song, you would need to have access to the original studio master tracks from the recording session. Needless to say, these can be difficult to come by. By following the guidelines described above, you should see great results using the Vocal Eraser.


Mike

Thanks you everyone,

I'm trying to find out where I can get the file to download. Not how to use the program.

Thanks - Jim

It's not available as a separate purchase.
It's made by iZotope, licensed to Sony and included in Sound Forge Studio 9 ($55.00).

Mike

SF8 has the Process/Channel Converter function which has a Vocal Cut preset. As farss says though, it is unlikely to work very well on modern recordings.

Richard

Vocal eraser is packaged with Sound Forge Audio Studio 9, but NOT the version provided with Movie Studio Platinum Pro 9.

You can download it here: http://download.sonycreativesoftware.com/current/extras/sfas9_vocaleraser.exe

It integrates very nicely with Vegas, and even Goldwave, as it's a DX plugin. Integration with Vegas makes it much more useful and powerful as I can use FX Automation to control how it behaves over time.

As for results... it varies. It depends on the mix. If there is lots of reverb on the centre channel (vocals) forget it, but if the vocals are relatively clean, then the results are pretty good.

You can also remove the music, leaving just the vocals.

Overall, I'm really pleased with it.

I guess it requires a key. Will they offer this in SF or Vegas Pro in the future?

You can use the demo without a key, and as far as I can tell, it contains no restrictions.

There is no magic program to remove a vocal from a music mix. Generally the lead vocal is panned straight up the center so it can be removed to some extent using phase cancellation. You can use the phase trick in Vegas with varying degress of success depending on the mix.

1. Copy the original music track to another track making sure it is in perfect time sync with the original.
2. Reverse the phase of either one of the tracks. All center panned tracks will pretty much disappear. Of course cross delays, reverb, and other non-mono effects will still exist.

- Mark

I've uploaded a file that has been worked on (in Vegas) using vocal Eraser. It was a random music file from my collection. Not being much of a contemporary music listener, I've no idea what the song is or who performed it.

I used three tracks to create this sample:

1. Vocals removed
2. Music removed
3. Music removed + pitch change

Using a mix of volume and pan envelopes I mixed the three tracks to create the chimera you can find here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/215383268/VocalEraser.mp3.html

It's not the best example, but with a little more time and effort (and imagination) you can create some good effects.

TLF

"I use Vegas Pro 9" - I'm guessing this is a typo as you cannot be using Vegas Pro 9, but you could be using Vegas Movie Studio 9 Platinum Pro Pak. That, or your breaking an NDA on the Sony Creative Software Forums. :)

Dave

Or the OP is using Vegas 8 and SF 9, not Vegas 9 and SF8!

I've used this free plug-in to varying degrees of sucess as well.

Analog X Vocal Remover

http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/vremover/download.htm