ok im confused

[gotrich]

What do you think is the % of the time it works. I have done many songs and most of the time they dont work. I can get 18 wav files off a disk and maybe 3 will work.

I also know your not spose to go from mp3 to wav. I have put cds on my pc in mp3 format and tried to convert back to wav and use em. will that keep the voices from coming out? or will it just reduce the quality of sound?

I alos noticed that I use the high and low button and then run vogone is the same as if i just hit vogone and adjust the high and low accordingly.

What can I do to get more song to drop vocals

I also noticed very few take out all the vocals I useually get about 1/2 reduced vocals. then its just a anoying something in the back ground that if your not exactly on time with the singer he is heard

how much of a difference will the soundcard make when taking vocals out. I am sure the music quality will be better but doe sit help rip vocals better?

Thanks for the info

[orzelw]

gotrich,

I find that the rate of success depends a lot on which decade the music comes from. Songs from the 50s have a low success rate because they were monaural up until the late 50s, when they started playing around with stereo.

The 60s are a mixed bag, but much better than the 50s. Stereo was coming on strong and all the progressive producers were jumping on the bandwagon. But a lot of them were experimenting with how to separate the song elements betwen the two channels. Many placed the lead singer in the middle (equal on both channels) and everything else on either the left or right channel (resulting in the best mix for eliminating the lead singer). Backup vocals sometimes got equal balance, too, however, so they drop out along with the lead singer. Some producers stuck the instruments (and maybe backup vocals) on one channel and the lead vocalist on the other channel, like for Gary Lewis and the Playboys. In those cases, of course, you don't need Vogone. Just turn down the lead vocalist's channel.

From the 70s up to the present you get a variety of success rates, all for the same reasons. Some tracks carry critical instruments equally on both channels, so they drop out along with the vocals. The more echo, the less successful the vocal masking, also. I haven't run into problems with surround sound yet because I generally don't produce any contemporary karaoke tracks.

I've purchased a number of mp3 download tracks on the Internet and have had about the same rates of success as with wav file originals. I burn them to a CD through Windows Media Player, which converts them to wav format, then I run them through Vogone (imported with Microstudio) from the CD. Sometimes the sound is distorted a little; once in awhile the distortion is unacceptable, but not often. You can often estimate how successful Vogone will be with a given downloadable track when you play the sound sample in Windows Media Player. Set the visual display to the Plenoptic: Vox theme and watch the wave form as you play the sound sample. If the wave form is symmetrical about the center, it's probably a bad risk (but at 88 cents per song from Wal-Mart, it may be worth giving it a try anyway). If there's a noticeable difference between the left and right sides, or if you can hear differences between the two channels, but the singer sounds or appears like he's right in the middle, chances of eliminating him/her are good.

I have had different degrees of success with the same song from different albums as well. You just have to keep trying if you're not happy with the first attempt, as long as your budget permits.

The high and low adjustment buttons simply allow you to listen selectively to how much of the low and high frequencies you're allowing to bypass the vocal elimination. It gives a little more control than adjusting the high and low settings while trying to hear over the rest of the music. If you prefer adjusting high and low filters when you can hear the entire effect (during playback with the Vogone button), you can do that also. But adjusting the high and low settings separately may give you better results simply because you can hear how much of the vocals are getting through, or not, at both ends of the frequency spectrum.

On some of my favorite songs for which I have no hope of ever eliminating the vocals with Vogone, I try some alternate approaches, usually by using audio editing software. That involves doing whatever I can to minimize the vocals by any tricks the software provides so I have a better shot at drowning out the vocalist when I'm performing. The simplest trick is reducing the volume whenever the vocalist is singing. Sometimes applying a graphic equalizer in these passages will knock down the vocals more than the rest of the music. The next more complicated trick is grabbing some of the instruments (and backup vocals if you're lucky) from the introduction or interlude passages and applying these where the volume has been reduced to punch up the music you've lost. This can get tedious, however. When all is said and done, it's still a matter of practicing your timing so your voice is always covering the original vocals.

As for the effects of a better sound card, I'll have to defer to the gizmologists on that one.