Removing Vocals from a Finished Recording

[magritte]

Is there any way to do this?

This is my situation: a few years ago I recorded an EP. I was listening to it today for the first time in years and felt it's good except for the vocals. My current girlfriend is a good singer, and I was thinking if i could remove my vocal and record her it would be improve the recording. Is this possible?

[vvv]

The best answer would be to get the original multitracks, assuming there were some and are available.

If not that, I think not.

[magritte]

The best answer would be to get the original multitracks, assuming there were some and are available.

If not that, I think not.

Yeah, unfortunately I did them on 8-track tape, and I sold that machine years ago.

Damn.

[vvv]

Well, if you still have the tape you might be able to rent the machine, or get some machine-owner to transfer them to a hard drive or other media ...

[Gregg Juke]

Yeah, what/which 8-track machine, just for funsies?

There is the world famous Thomson Vocal Eliminator (tm), which now has a software version if I'm not mistaken. But it never really removes ALL of the vocal, and it might remove other center-panned info as well.

GJ

[telepathy]

8-track 1/2"? cassette? shouldn't be too difficult a transfer.

[jhharvest]

There are ways to go about it but nothing that would produce good enough quality. The photoshop painting method is sometimes used in electronic music but only when it's intended to be mixed with other stuff.

You could always re-record if you can't get the original multitrack to work for whatever reason. While you are at it you could write a couple more songs and have a full album. Win/win.

[fossiltooth]

Multitracks are your best bet by far. You can kinda sometimes remove vocals from mixes with spectral analyzers like RX2, Spectral Layers and R-Mix. It's not perfect, and there's often some subtle ghosting, but in some cases it can work surprisingly well. There's also Vocal Eraser by Izotope/Sony.

But yeah, if you want to replace your vocals, I'm going to recommend getting access to the original multitrack masters, and only pursuing these options as a last resort.

Either that or consider a done project done and focus now on making an even better one. That's almost always the best call if you ask me. Put it out there, move on, do something new. To paraphrase Woody Allen, art is like a shark. It has to move forward constantly or it dies.

[Snarl 12/8]

Sing the vocal over again absolutely identically to the original track and then flip phase.

[jhharvest]

To paraphrase Woody Allen, art is like a shark. It has to move forward constantly or it dies.

Actually sharks can also find a nice spot where there's a good current and just sit there, which sums up how I feel about Woody Allen. (:

[vvv]

Sing the vocal over again absolutely identically to the original track and then flip phase.

[fossiltooth]

I like the way this thread has turned out : )

[drumsound]

I wouldn't doubt there is someone here with a compatible machine that could do a transfer for you. Do you still have the tapes even though you don't have the machine?

[goose134]

Sing the vocal over again absolutely identically to the original track and then flip phase.

Amazing. LOL doesn't even do this justice.

[TimOBrien]

Redo the whole song over from scratch.