At some point of life, everyone feels the need of a karaoke track of their favorite song so that you can really enjoy the feeling of singing...
At some point of life, everyone feels the need of a karaoke track of their favorite song so that you can really enjoy the feeling of singing with a real band. Whether you love singing or not, once you get over the initial embarrassment and start picturing yourself on stage and singing with a real band, it truly becomes an uplifting experience. You're here which implies you're interested in creating a karaoke yourself without any help, so without wasting time lets see how you can do it. There are two very easy methods to make karaoke of any MP3/Wav track: One is manual [Using Audacity] and one is automatic [Using Karaoke Anything!].
Now lets start the tutorial for "How to remove vocals from a song or MP3 track?"
Method 1: Remove vocals using Audacity [Manual Method]
Audacity® is free, open source, cross-platform software for recording and editing sounds [works on Windows, Mac, Linux]. You can download latest version of Audacity for free here. This method is manual and usually yields better result than the automatic method, it supports almost all audio file types. Step by step tutorial for creating karaoke track using audiocity:
1. Download Audiocity.
2. Launch it & import the song [File > Import > Audio]
3. After importing, usually you will see two blue stereo tracks of your song, now we will split these audio tracks into two separate audio tracks which we can edit individually. To do this, click on the small black triangle on the top left corner of track and choose “Split Stereo Track” [As shown in screenshot below].
4. Now we have two separate tracks, double click on any of them to select all of it, then go to Effects & choose Invert. [As shown in screenshot below].
5. Now the most important step, click on black triangle of track and change it to mono. [Make sure to do it for both tracks]
6. That's it, you can now play and listen to your karaoke track. To save it in a audio file, click File > Export Audio. [You can save it in many file formats like MP3, Wav etc]
So how well it worked? This method will not work with every song, but it should work with most. Without getting too technical, most songs are recorded on two stereo[mean two] channels, with some instruments balanced more to the right, and some balanced more to the left. The vocals of the song are usually in the center, therefore appearing on both the tracks. When we split the tracks and invert one of them, the vocals on the inverted track cancel out the vocals on the other track. We then switch them both to mono, and we’re left with only instruments. If your song uses reverb, you might hear a slight echo of vocals, but this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. If the song you chose is different than most, and the vocals are not dead centered, this method might not work at all. The best way to find out is to give it a try!
Method 2: Using Karaoke Anything! [Automatic Method]
Karaoke Anything! is a simple program that offers two modes [Mp3s & CDs]. Simply File > Open your MP3 track in the program, use “Karaoke Effect” slider to adjust the volume of vocals in output. That's it. Download it here.
Which Method Should You Use?
Generally both methods gives the same result, although some songs may end up better using one method than the other. If you want to create your own vocal-free music files, if you want to use anything other than Mp3s or CDs, or if you’re not using Windows, Audacity is the only choice. Otherwise, give Karaoke Anything a try, and you might be able to get awesome results in no time, small size 2.5MB installer.
You can share your experience & problems in the comments section below. If you know any better way to create your own karaoke track then do share it in comments. Enjoy!!
