There was a video that spliced the vocals of Absolutely Invincible British Gentleman with Mein Gott, but it was taken down,.
I have no idea how it can be done without garbling the remaining channel, but the vocals and instruments are commonly separated, and anything Pro Tools can do, there's probably a plugin for Audacity.
Fresh-eyed movie blogI myself have done this with Audacity, though you do need to download a plugin (one which I don't think I have on this computer). And you need to hope that the way the song was originally mastered allows for it.
Even then, though, the method I used only removes the center channel. If what you want isn't squarely in the left or right channels, good luck.
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.You're just stripping a speaker channel? Yeah, it's possible to do more than that. One specific case I know: the Beatles' original masters were on four-track tapes. The remastering process involved isolating all the vocals and instruments into their own tracks.
It's really crazy what they can do with modern audio editing software. Cirque Du Soleil remixed a bunch of Beatles music, and made Ringo's "Octopus's Garden" vocals sound like they'd been recorded at less than half the tempo, without any warping/artifacting.
edited 26th Apr '12 11:35:26 PM by TParadox
Fresh-eyed movie blogGranted, my method is an extremely ghetto method using free software, whereas what you're referring to is really really expensive.
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.
Karaoke, and I don't think that's how they work.
Karaoke needs specially mixed discs that have the vocals on a separate track. You can play non-Karaoke discs, but the original vocals will still be there.
Fresh-eyed movie blogPlus, karaoke tracks generally sound like cheap imitations (that may or may not be mostly comprised of synth imitations of the original instruments).
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.That's because they usually don't have access to the original mix, and probably don't have the money for the rights to the original recording.
@OP: Is the tool you used to clean the vocals off the instruments able to be used in reverse? If it can isolate one kind of sound, it should be able to isolate another, assuming the interface allows for it.
Fresh-eyed movie blogTrue, but they could at least get musicians who put some effort into it, rather than people mechanically going through the motions.
Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.Get an instrumental version of the track, then invert it in Audacity and mix it with the track with the vocal. The instruments will phase cancel, leaving you with the vocal.
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.That only works if you CAN find an instrumental...
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I think part of the reason karaoke tracks are like that is, when it comes to anonymous studio band cover versions anyway, it's actually possible to get sued if your version sounds too much like the original. For instance there was this case where the band The Romantics attempted to sue
over the cover of "What I Like About You" in Rock Band because the cover version was too good, and thus might confuse people into thinking they'd licensed their version of their song.
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Hmm, I hadn't thought about that. I just got a fIREHOSE reissue that includes instrumental versions of a couple of songs (not instrumental demos or anything, just the album version but without vocals), so maybe I'll try that out, then attempt some mashups for my own amusement.
edited 28th Apr '12 3:18:26 PM by MikeK
This page
on the wiki for Audacity has more information about how to remove the vocals from a song.

Okay, so I've found a few programs that can remove the vocals from a song, thus leaving the instrumentals, but I'm wandering if there is anything that can work in reverse, removing the instrumentals and leaving the vocals.