[aj.carrier]

hi i was wondering if anyone knew or knew how to find out how radio1 remove vocals from their tracks (either what hard-ware or other ways), or whether they just aquire the non-vocal versions of tracks???

[SpaceBoy]

Do you mean an acoustic version perhaps? When a song is written the music score and lyrics are recorded onto multi-track session recordings and then the 'Masters' are then all overlayed together resulting in the finished piece that contains the synchronized recorded sounds. Most if not all music is recorded in different sections, like the guitar, piano, electric bass, drums, etc all these individual instruments are recorded then mixed together on a Mixing Console which then has all of the tracks and can be mixed together so if the drums are too loud and the guitar too quiet this can be adjusted. After the main soundtrack is completed the lyrics or vocals are overlayed onto the music.

So if you wanted to hear a piece of music without the singing part you would get the acoustic version which is the same music but without the vocals. But one song may have many mixes like the radio mix, extended mix Radio Version, Radio Mix, Single Version, Single Mix, Single Edit, Clean Edit/Version, Censored Version, No Rap Edit/Version or Remix. So sometimes you may hear a song played on one radio station and it may be different in composition than the one you may listen to on CD or have downloaded. So sometimes it may seem like there is a long musical intro where the DJ can talk over the record and yet on a different version the lyrics start sooner, it all depends on the version selected. Hope this clears things up!


Oh yes and welcome! I will let others say hi and who to lookout for and the like.

[MK Chris]

I may be making a tit of myself here, but I always thought 'acoustic' meant not electric or plugged in and songs without the singing are 'instrumentals'.

[TIAL]

Topher is right.
Song without the words: Instrumental
Song without the music: Acapella

[SpaceBoy]

You are probably right on this one, on reflection I think it would be a Instrumental, but I think both describe the general idea. It was the best way I could describe it so late on, and the old grey matter was letting the cat out by this point.

[Andy B]

Also I'd like to point out that the charts show generally get at lot of the instrumental versions as they use them the most.

As for getting hold of them. Well there are numerous websites (none of which I can be bothered to name) that specialise in "mash ups" which will have various acapella and instrumental versions. But here is a cheap and cheerful guide to making your own.

This method is far from 100% perfect but work in some cases to a reasonable standard.

Most modern songs record the instruments in stereo and the vocals still in mono so isolate the different left and right channels, invert one of them then mix them back down together to create one track. This should get rid of MOST of the vocals.

It's not foolproof!

EDIT- oh and obviously to create an acapella just invert this new instrumental and then mix it down over the original track in mono. Again, this SHOULD get rid of most of the instruments and leave just the vocals.

[Almond_Adam]

It's not that difficulto to perform a vocal cut yourself. I have software which takes the waveform of an mp3 can mix down and bury the vocals into the general mix, wehereas it doesn't completely remove the vocal track, it does make it less audible , although not every track works as well as others.

[aj.carrier]

Andy B- please could you be able to name these websites that u talked about as i hav googled it and cant seem to find any myself