Regretted Purchasing Vogone

[peteralias]

I purchased Vogone 2.210 recently and regretted. Most of the wave stereo centre pan songs vocal cannot be removed or reduce as claimed. I am fully aware that this software is not a miracle solution.

However the basic of at least reducing the vocal from songs cannot be achived. I am very dissappointed. Verdict this software "is a failure" as far I am concern!!!

[Wallymeister]

peteralias,
Let me say that firstly if you are looking for perfect vocal removal, this cannot be achieved by any software. Multitrack recordings that are mixed down to left or right channels or center panned or any combination therein will not be a real good quality sound after vocal removal. Some are pretty good but the key is if the vocals were recorded dead center pan. If they were you can get a pretty good end result but again, not without some loss of music quality.

I have tried removing vocals on about 25 or 30 songs and only ended up with about 7 that are good enough quality that I am actually using. It's the nature of the beast.

Hope this explains a little,
Wally

[George]

Originally Posted by Wallymeister

Some are pretty good but the key is if the vocals were recorded dead center pan.

Exactly, Wally, and as MTU points out in their literature this wipes out any digitally remastered stereo recordings, which a great share of the of the "oldies" are.

One must also consider that the recording engineers aren't stupid. They know that in order for any current vocal removal program to be successful, the vocal must be recorded dead center panned from a single mike source. Obviously this can only be effectively done in a studio with the singer isolated in a booth, which would eliminate any live concert recordings.

With this in mind, how many stereo recordings would one logically think are being produced these days with the lead singer dead center panned? I'd bet NONE, NIL, NADA, ZERO.

If they're not intentionally staying away from center panned stereo, and shifting the track off center and or adding echoes and reverb to the same track, to defeat vocal rmoval, then they aren't near as bright as I give them credit for.

Just some more thoughts on the subject.

George

[orerockon]

George, there is a way to remove non-dead-center panned vocals, and, theoretically, a way to remove articicially added reverb. I suggest you investigate these methods for your next upgrade. I found plenty of suggestions using, surprise! GOOGLE. Until then, I too consider vogone to be practically useless software, unfortunately...

[George]

OREROCKEN,

Are you talking about using an audio editing program to reverse the left channel phase, merge both tracks into one monaural track, split them back to dual channel, and then reverse the left channel phase again?

I've personally not bothered to mess with it, as it's my understanding it isn't 100% either. I may get curious enough one day to fool with it.

I find that rather out of the realm of what our average user would want to do, or easily integrated into Vogone, but the I'm not on the MTU product development team, so that would be their call. I have flagged your suggestion to the team..

I'd imagine it would be hard to come up with a viable method that they have not explored, but that once again is speculation on my part, my technical knowledge being somewhat limited.

Take care,
George

[orerockon]

George, your sticky post, by kjzone, correctly explains that reverb cancelling is not only possible, it is a standard feature of modern speakerphone systems. I have also found that algorithms exist to dermine exactly where the vocals are panned to. Once again, google works, try it!

[George]

Originally Posted by orerockon

George, your sticky post, by kjzone,........

I'm not on MTU payroll. I'm a customer who helps moderate the forums, that's all.

George

[MTUSUPPORT]

I did search using Google and we are on the #1 site under "Vocal Removal" and we were listed on the Very first site in a Review recommending our software.

The software does work, it is all about your Audio and how you got the files. If they are not removed from a CD in .wav format then you have little chance of making it sound good.

Here is the Link to the Search I did: http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...cal+Removal%22

[orerockon]

Are you guys daft? I am talking about removing reverberation and off-center vocals, not center-panned vocals. Read what I wrote before doing such a self-congratulatory search. How about this for hand-holding:

"speakerphone reverberation removal algorithms"

Duh.

[orerockon]

P.S. I am very familiar with the requirements of the audio file for vocal removal. Your user kjzone stated the requirements more succinctly and precisely than your help files. You could learn a lot from your customers, I suspect, if you put away the EGO and LISTENED.

[MTUSUPPORT]

Our company does listen to our customers, which you can ask any of them on the forums.

I searched on your above posted keywords and here is what I have found: http://www.google.com/search?sourcei...+algorithms%22

This doesn't seem to be even close to the same type of things that are needed to remove Vocals from Songs.

[orerockon]

Originally Posted by MTUSUPPORT

Our company does listen to our customers, which you can ask any of them on the forums.

I searched on your above posted keywords and here is what I have found: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-50,GGLDn&q=%22speakerphone+reverberation+removal+algorithms%22

This doesn't seem to be even close to the same type of things that are needed to remove Vocals from Songs.

Wow, no wonder your product seems to be "frozen in time". It seems to be EXACTLY what is needed to remove off-center-panned vocals and reverb. IMHO. Guess your hearing is rather "selective". Even non-professionals like your user kjzone & myself can tell that much. So you found the paper on removal of atificial reverberation to be useless for devocalization? Fascinating... and I guess the patent for Method, apparatus and articles incorporating a step size control technique for echo signal cancellation was also beyond your comprehension as well then? Are there ANY DSP engineers at MTU? Even one? Hello???

[George]

Well, here's a non-professional who highly questions the validity of the paper you refer to as applied to vocal removal in audio tracks.

The reason I question it is because that paper was written in 1998, and it seems strange that in all that time no one in the music field has applied the concept to a vocal removal product. Show me one vocal removel product being marked today that absolutely works. Rather odd wouldn't you say?

Apparantly Vogone is not the only one frozen in time, and I'm tempted to agree with SUPPORT that this application does not fit the need here.

I think it's mixing apples and oranges when you try to put mike feedback and harmonics, in the same bucket with vocal reduction. Most mike feedbacks I've ever heard all lie in approximately the same frequence range, and would be easy to nail as compared to the complexity of the human vocal range.

That's my humble opinion.

George

[orerockon]

George, I tend to disagree. What is added digitally (reverb) can be subtracted digitally. It's the exact same principle as noise/echo cancellation. The frequency range/complexity of the "noise" has absolutely nothing to do with digitally recognizing the exact same frequencies that are repeated (i.e. delayed) over and over, panned left-and-right, and cancelling them out using the signature of the center-panned frequencies. Vocal removal is a tiny little application in digital engineering. Speakerphones are a BIG application in the same discipline. It takes time to trickle-down. And nudging.