ATTENTION STUDENTS:  EXTRA CREDIT to anyone that can demonstrate to me how to do this with a normal song about History such as Don MacLean's "American Pie."

 

Try downloading Audacity (a free software download) and use it to remove the lead vocals from your music file (it doesn’t work 100% of the time!). Just follow the directions below:

*LAUNCH THE AUDACITY SOFTWARE PROGRAM, AND FOLLOW THESE STEPS CAREFULLY.

1. Import a stereo recording, then click on the track pop-up menu. (It’s the black down arrow over the Mute & Solo buttons on the left side of the track.) Select “Split Stereo Track”.

2. Select the entire lower track (the right channel). One way to do this is to click in the area around the mute/solo buttons.

3. Choose invert from the effect menu.

4. Use the track pop-up menus again  (They are the black down arrows over the Mute & Solo buttons on the left sides of each track.) Select “Mono” for each of the 2 tracks.

5. Listen to the results by pressing the play button. In most cases the vocals will be completely gone or drastically reduced!

6. Highlight both tracks: Choose the Edit menu, then Select, then ALL. Then quick mix the tracks: Choose the Project menu, then Quick Mix.

7. Save your new song without vocals to a file using the “EXPORT AS WAV” option from the FILE menu. (see below if you want to export files in the MP3 format) For the vocals to be completely removed, the song must be in stereo and the vocals should have been recorded directly in the center of the track. If there is still an echo from the vocals, they were probably not recorded in the center of the stereo, so no software will be able to completely remove them.