Removing and saving vocals from music help needed

[TechnoPhobe]

Hi. Hope someone can help. I am trying to find free software online that would enable me to remove and save vocals from music.

I think there is some software to remove vocals from music so that only the music track is left (useful for karoke etc) but I want it the other way around - i.e. separate the vocals from the music and save the vocals to listen to without the music. Is there a way of saving the separated vocals? Any free software around? Any ideas? I would be very grateful. Thanks.

[TechnoPhobe]

Or is there a way of muting the music somehow? E.g. silencing it or using some sort of 'noise reduction' to do it?

[transmothra]

That's a really involved process, and difficult at best. Plus, you almost always end up with a vocal track that still includes some of the backing tracks, and usually quite audibly so. If you listen carefully to your favorite mashup or remix records, you can usually hear more than just the vocal or main instrument in the samples used. Creative mixing usually covers it up, but never completely. In some cases, access to the original masters is provided to the remixer, from which the vocals can then be sampled more cleanly.

The easiest thing to do is to use extreme EQ to boost the vocal around the middle, but that still leaves music.

You can sample an identical range of music from the same recording, if possible, and use it to subtract from the mix using some plugin, but that can be a long process.

I'd recommend checking out harmony-central's or tapeop's forums for more information.