[Scott Dorsey]

Dec [Cluskey] wrote:
I have tinkered with trying to isolate and 'get rid' of lead vocals as
I am constantly asked by friends to 'knock off a back track' ... I
have never got involved in making back tracks [no money in it] but
from a curiosity angle have wanted to prove that it was IMPOSSIBLE to
complete obliterate a lead vocal and have a decent back track.

It depends on the original mix. If there is no stereo reverb on the lead
vocal and there is nothing else mixed to the center, you can remove the
vocal pretty effectively.

The last programme I used was 'Vocal Remover' a software based on
'Audacity' developed by a team of independent developers around the
world. The results were dissappointing and the system laborious to
use.

The standard unit for this is the Thompson Vocal Eliminator. Earlier ones
were just a difference amplifier that generated an L-R signal, and a
low-pass filter that brought back in bass that was mixed to the center.
Modern ones have some DSP smarts in them.

Also, my curiosity was spurred on by the excellent dub mixes around
and the mix shows here in the UK on Radio One. The DJs seem to have
access to absolutely clean lead vocals to drop into mixes at will.

Okay, this is a totally different issue. It's a _lot_ easier to remove
the vocals than to remove everything _but_ the vocals. There are some newer
pieces of software out there that can kind of isolate vocals, but as the
original poster points out, they aren't quite satisfactory. Still, they
are pretty damn miraculous considering what is involved.

I have always felt that the record companies supply these clean tracks
to top DJ's to promote their current chart entries of those vocalists.

They do, yes. They don't just supply them to top DJs either... you can
buy all kinds of weird alternative mixes ("vocal only mix... double bongo mix")
in the DJ shops. Somewhere around here I have a couple LPs with about
thirty different mixes of the same song....
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."