Separating Vocals from Beats

[djnickiek]

I'm curious what you guys do in order to do something similar to separating vocals from beats. (assuming you're using a regular radio edit of a song)

I've heard a lot of mixes where people cut the beat out of the back and do a sort of acapella count of 8, and then come in with a different beat or something.

I just turn down the bass usually and some of the mid, and the come up on the other tracks beat and bass.

any other techniques? or is there any equipment out there that can do this specific task better?

Thanks!

[Sigma]

There's only really 2 ways to do this well, one of which is hit and miss: -

1. Get a proper acapella version of the song, if one exists.

2. Make an acapella. This is done using the full version of the track and the instrumental. You invert the instrumental, then line that up perfectly with the full version in a DAW. As you have inverted the instrumental, where there was a peak in the waveform there will now be a trough and vice versa. The idea is that the inverted peaks/troughs of the instrumental "cancel out" the peaks/troughs of the beat in the full version, leaving you just the vocals. You can then do some further tweaking/EQing to try and get as clean an acapella as possible.

The issue with option 2 is that while the theory behind it is sound, in practice, it never cancels out the beat perfectly. Also, the instrumental version has to be identical to the full version (aside from having vocals on it, obviously) or it won't work at all. It also requires you to get hold of an instrumental and there may not be one.

[Manu]

Rule of thumb: can't get the eggs out of a pancake :)

[thehadgi]

What they said

[djnickiek]

yeah. ive done the instrumental method before as well, but when you're only using two decks, it's slightly annoying. and then when you go to add a different vocal, youve gotta do it quick haha. was just curious if there were better methods out there.

[Sigma]

I think you're misunderstanding man. You can't do that technique with decks, because you need to invert the instrumental. It's something you would pre-make using a DAW, then you'd play the acapella with a DVS or CDJ or whatever.

[Mephs]

There's no clean way to do this yourself, you have to find an acapella or somehow know the artist and get the project. You can do the inversion trick with the instrumental of the track but it's still going to be sloppy, some EQ might improve it slightly more but you'll always be able to hear the background noise to some extent.

[djnickiek]

I think you're misunderstanding man. You can't do that technique with decks, because you need to invert the instrumental. It's something you would pre-make using a DAW, then you'd play the acapella with a DVS or CDJ or whatever.

nooo i got that part. i was saying just using the instrumental in sync with the vocal

[Fultron]

Sing it yourself.