Taking the words

...out of a song

[kodaks]

I am wondering how you go about taking out the words of song, so only the music is left.

[TheDoctor]

Hum it?

[kodaks]

lol...thats not exactly what I had in mind

[bunltd]

buy a karaoke version?

LisaB

[HelenDev]

Buy an extended or 12" version. The ones released in the 1980s in particular mostly just had 6 minutes of extra backing track stuck in the middle somewhere.

[herewego]

Don't know how technical you are about music and recording but...
The standard way is this - you can do it quite well by reversing the phase in one channel, then mix the 2 channels together in mono. Anything in the centre of the stereo image gets cancelled out. This is usually where the vocals are, so they all but vanish. Down side is that anything else centre-stage also goes (such as kick drum, bass) which will sound wierd, but you can get around this by applying a high pass filter to one of the channels. Oh, and any stereo reverb effects that were on the voice will probably hang around too.
So it's not perfect.
Actually, humming it may be a better suggestion :)

[kodaks]

Thanks, but that sounds a little too much for me. The only reason I need it done, is that I host a small radio show, and I want to use a song as some of my starter music. Does anyone know of a good downloadable vocal remover?

[herewego]

Have you tried the Yogen software? A quick google will get you their site and there's a free trial-period download available. It does what I described automatically, you can use a slider to add/decrease the bass stuff that gets lost in the process. It works better on some kinds of music than others,you'll have to decide for yourself if the quality is good enough for what you need.
There's also analogX (google them) but last time I looked their program also lost all the bass/kick with no option to fade it back in.
To be honest, no system works brilliantly well, although I guess some people find them OK for Karaoke. All you can do is try on the music you have in mind, and see what the results are like.
Have fun :)

[vkaryl]

kodaks, have you searched for an instrumental version online? There's a couple of Crystal Gayle songs I love for the music but the words aren't my thing. I found them as midi cuts on some site or the other - just the music, no words.... midi seems to be sort of out-of-favor these days, but you could still luck out.

Alternatively, have you contacted the original artist, explained what you have in mind, and asked for an instrumental-only cut?

[kodaks]

Thanks for posting!

herewego-
I'll look int othe software that you specified.

vkaryl-
Yes, I have looked around napster, iTunes, connect and walmart music downloads for the instrumental version of the song. I'll try and contact the record label company, i'm afraid the artist is too popular to contact directly.

[edit_g]

So when we hear a remix of some track or other, has the remixer got a hold of the master tapes from the artist/record company and just taken out what they didn't want?

I guess you could take the part that you like, slice it out and loop it - that would be one way of getting what you want.

[herewego]

[has the remixer got a hold of the master tapes from the artist/record company and just taken out what they didn't want?]

Yes, the record company will often give the remixer/producer copies of the original masters, or mix elements (such as just the vocal), or an instrumental version to start from.

[take the part that you like, slice it out and loop it ]
That's more common especially for unauthorised remixes.

[Leosghost]

Cool edit, Fruity loops , Acid etc ..maybe even the latest versions of some stuff in open source such as Audacity ..Basically the vocals are usually balanced to be in the middle of the sound stage ..IE in front of you ..So to isolate them from the music you just remove "common elements" from both channels of a"stereo recording ....
I've vastly over simplified and so it's not strictly true cos you'll lose some other stuff this way but it may do what you want ....
Try it ( you can get cool edit and fruity loops and acid in trial version to see how its done ..if you like em they are not expensive to buy ) ..and then you can read up on how to do it exactly with no loss and go play ...
Oh yeah ..you'll need a big HD and lots of ram to keep them going but you can run them all on Pentium II or eqivalent ...
If you go for Cool edit ..get some "loopfiles" at the same time to experiment with ..

[lawman]

Cool Edit is now Adobe's Audition 1.5.