I think this is what I need...help before I buy?

[ewiener]

My daughter is involved with elementary school projects in music. She is in 4th grade. She needs me to remove the lead vocals from mp3s. This looks like it has what I need. In the end I will wind up with .wav files. Can i convert them to back to mp3 and burn to CD?

[ddouglass]

Take a look at Vogone. That may be a bit closer to what you need. However none of the MTU programs will convert back to MP3, so you will need to do that with a different program.

[admin]

Thanks for asking us. I moved this to the Vogone Help Forum where it belongs.

You want to perform what is called Vocal Reduction/Removal, which our Vogone product is designed to do.

First, using MP3 compressed songs and trying to remove the vocals is not the ideal solution. If you can get the actual CD and import the track without MP3 compression, you can do a much better vocal removal/reduction job on the file. The mp3 compression damages the file in ways that prevent or reduce how much of the vocal you can remove. Having the original will allow you to be happier with the results.

Second, Vogone only processes .WAV files, which is the format imported from CD Tracks using most software, including our Microstudio software.

With Microstudio 4.000, you can write .mp3 audio files to an Audio CD disc. The audio tracks can then be imported back into Microstudio as .wav files. Thus, you can convert mp3 to wav now with Microstudio 4.000. We are working on version 4.002, which adds a format converter where you could convert your mp3 files directly to wav files, then process with Vogone.

We have a demo of Vogone you could use if you can convert your mp3 to a wav. Vogone will NOT do a perfect job on all songs, but it will do a better job than any competing products based on what users of both have told us.

There are about 25% of songs that no vocal reducer will do anything with. Please read our Expectations document on Vocal Reduction. It will help you understand what is feasible, to see if that is what you want to do.

Again, thanks for asking us. I hope this helps you.

[bryant]

Originally Posted by admin

The mp3 compression damages the file in ways that prevent or reduce how much of the vocal you can remove. Having the original will allow you to be happier with the results.

Admin,
Is it also correct to say that if you convert an mp3 back to a wav, you have not reversed any previous damage done by the original compression, and therefore, it is ALWAYS better to get the wav file from the original disk, as opposed to using Mstudio to convert from mp3 back to wav.
Bryant

[admin]

Originally Posted by bryant

Admin,
Is it also correct to say that if you convert an mp3 back to a wav, you have not reversed any previous damage done by the original compression, and therefore, it is ALWAYS better to get the wav file from the original disk, as opposed to using Mstudio to convert from mp3 back to wav.
Bryant

Yes, MP3 removes frequencies differently between the left and right channels, and that damages the ability to remove the vocals that are center-panned; i.e. identical in both channels. When they are NOT identical, the difference between the channels will NOT be removed.

So, having the pristine original CD is always better than converting. However, in some cases, and it may be this way with ewiener, you don't have an original CD. With Apple Ipod/Itunes delivering MP3 files, and over 2 billion sold, CD's are becoming more a thing of the past.

[ewiener]

Using the demo Microstudio product I am able to take MP3 format songs, and, using the built in Vogone processor, strip out the vocal. I can actually listen to it within the package and it sounds fine. Certainly not professional quality Karaoke, but for 4th graders, more than fine. When I save the resultant file it saves as a huge .wav file which, upon playback seems to have nothing in it. When played back at max volume you can faintly hear the actual song playing. Is this what you mean by not being possible to do this going between formats? I guess what really has me befuddled is that when I listen to the song before saving it, it sounds great. Is this a built in limitation to the demo version that would go away with a registered copy? Anyway, assuming it did save the file properly after registration, I could then just use the Microstudio product to burn a CDA for playback in any CD player? Oh, in most cases, my use of the product would be for songs that I only have as MP3, not original CD.

[ddouglass]

The record function does have some problems with the some computer/sound card combinations. This is being worked on and tested currently. I would wait until it is released which should be very soon as the record function is working correctly now.