Eliminating the vocal part means removing the singing voice thus obtaining only the backing track, excellent if we have to try the song with our voice or if we have to organize a karaoke evening with friends. This operation is still rather complicated (only professionals can get the best results with expensive instruments) but if we are not too demanding the results are more than discreet, the volume of the singing will be so low that it is almost no longer heard. In this article we will show you how to remove the song from a piece of music using only free programs, so that you can test them immediately with our favorite songs.
READ ALSO: How to extract sung from music and separate voice and instruments in a song
How to remove singing from a piece of music with Audacity
The program that we recommend trying immediately to remove the voice from a song so that we can sing over it or make a karaoke at the last second is Audacity, among the best open source programs for processing audio on PC.
We can download Audacity for free from the link here -> Audacity .
The program is cross-platform, so we can use it without problems on both Windows and Mac and Linux.
With Audacity you can eliminate the sung part and thus create an instrumental base only if the voice is placed at the center of the stereo and you can hear it on both speakers, both on the left and on the right.
We can still try the same with any sung audio track by following the steps as described below.
We open Audacity and load the music file that we intend to modify by clicking on File -> Open .
The song will be immediately loaded into the interface, showing itself in the center with its frequency peaks.
To remove the voice of the song in a simple way we can rely on the Vocal Remover effect, present among the Audacity tools; click on Effects and select the Vocal Remover item.
Once this voice has been selected, a small window will open where we will have to indicate the frequencies that will be cut by the song so as not to hear the singing voice anymore.
The default settings are sufficient to remove the sung (or at least reduce it until it becomes a whisper); click on OK to apply the filter and remove the song from a piece of music.
Now we will immediately see the frequency peaks of the song drop significantly in the center of the application; we can immediately check the result by clicking on Play .
As already mentioned, the removal of the voice is fairly effective: the instruments are heard (almost) all, a lot of bass is lost but the singing is transformed into a barely audible whisper (just sing on it to not hear anything anymore).
If the singing is on high frequencies (screams and high pitches) or there are multiple sampled voices they could be heard anyway, but let's ignore them and continue to sing.
We can still play with the plugin by increasing the cut frequencies to try to remove as much voice as possible, but remember that many instruments play on various frequencies and we could remove too much basic music, making the song too artificial and "muffled", effectively ruining everything the effect we wanted to achieve.
We try to stick to 450-3000 Hz so as not to overdo the filters; in any case we always try the default settings, they are fine for most of the songs sung.
If we are satisfied with the result we can save this song without singing (to use it as karaoke or as a basis for a new music project) by clicking on File -> Export Audio .
We can choose different formats in which to export the song, but remember to download the free LAME MP3 codec in order to export in this format (for licensing reasons it is not integrated in Audacity, we will have to download it separately from here -> LAME MP3 ).
Alternatives to Audacity to remove the song from a piece of music
Below you will find alternatives to Audacity that we can use to remove the song from a piece of music.
1) Vocal Reducer
As an alternative to Audacity you can use the simple Vocal Reducer software that allows you to remove the voice sung in a song, without attenuating the bass.
The program can be downloaded from here -> Voca Reducer .
All we have to do is load the song using File -> Load and once inside the program click on Vocal Reducer, then confirm with OK.
The result is very good, similar to that obtainable with Audacity but with greater precision especially at intermediate frequencies.
2) Audio Master
Another free program that we can use is Master Audio, which has a function that can eliminate noise from an audio track and, therefore, also eliminate the singing from the piece of music.
We can download it for free from here -> Master Audio .
Just load the song into the program and use the entry Effects -> Vocal removal to remove all the singing.
The result is practically identical to that obtainable with Audacity, but if we don't want to use the latter we can focus on Master Audio to immediately realize our song without singing.
However, we consider that finding a software that removes the singing from a music completely and without ever failing is practically impossible, because it also depends on how the music was recorded, the microphone used, the special effects, the choirs and many other factors.
It is better to download the songs in karaoke version or with the various frequencies that can be disabled, only in this way we will get the best results.
If we have been good and you have achieved a satisfactory result or if your goal was only to create a backing track to sing on, I can refer you to the article on Karaoke programs for singing on the computer.
Songs already sung and only with music can also be found on YouTube using Cantanding's online karaoke.
