How to Remove vocals from songs?

Question

I need to remove the vocals from mp3 music file and want to keep the other instrumental sound. I have tried to do with YoGen Vocal Remover 3.3.9, but it does not remove voice completely.

Is it possible ? If yes, what is the actual way to do this ?

Answer 1

Is it possible?

No.

When you look at a piece of music from a signal processing standpoint, it's all just signal with certain frequencies. Humans are great at psychoacoustically filtering out human speech or singing from music, but a computer cannot do that.

The problem is that both music and vocals are mixed together, and that the frequencies of the human voice (300 Hz – 3.4 kHz) overlap with most musical instruments (e.g. a piano from 28 Hz to 4.1 kHz). So you cannot cut off certain frequencies and get only vocals in return. It's just not feasible.

"… but there are "vocal remover" programs?" you may ask.

Some vocal remover programs make use of the fact that pop songs are typically mixed in such a fashion that vocals are equally loud on the left and right channels, making them appear centered in a stereo panorama. If you filter out everything that is centered, you're left with panned instruments (typically guitars), but you'll also remove other centered instruments like bass drums, the bass guitar, or snare drums.

So, simply said, even if you find other programs like Vocal Remover or the one in Audacity it might just sound crappy. Because not every song is mixed in such a way, and reverbation effects on vocals appear in the stereo panorama too.