Extracting vocals from a song is easier than ever thanks to huge advancements in stem extraction plugins. These powerful tools use complex algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) to separate individual instruments from pre-recorded material, giving you in-depth control over each element.
Whether you’re a DJ creating remixes or overlaying a capella vocals, or you’re a musician wanting to mute vocals to learn instrumental parts, being able to remove vocals can be extremely useful. And, for a bit of fun, you can even create karaoke tracks for home entertainment.
In this blog post, we’ll explore how to remove lead vocals from a song, showing you the tools you need to achieve professional results.
In a hurry?
Here are the best pieces of software you can get at the moment for removing vocals:
| Acon Digital Remix | The world’s first real-time stem remixing plugin with incredibly simple controls and user interface. | Check the current price |
| Audionamix XTRAX Stems | AI-powered stem separation with added export functionality in multiple formats, straight from the plugin. | Check the current price |
| iZotope Ozone 11 Advanced | Isolate instrument groups and process them independently with the onboard mixing and mastering modules all inside of Ozone. | Check the current price |
| Image Line FL Studio Producer Edition | For existing users of FL Studio Producer Edition, no additional plugins or purchases are necessary! | Check the current price |
| Native Instruments Traktor Pro 4 | Onboard stem separation uses iZotope's RX technology for accurate track manipulation. | Check the current price |
How to remove lead vocals from a song
The best and easiest way to remove lead vocals from a song is to use a dedicated Vocal Remover plugin. A vocal remover plugin is a simple bit of software designed to help you separate vocals from songs.
Whether you’re looking to create karaoke tracks, a capella versions, or instrumental practice tracks, a vocal remover makes the job easy. It’s a godsend for those who need to isolate or eliminate vocals without diving deep into complex audio editing.
Vocal removers work by employing a few different techniques to separate vocals from the instrumental parts of a track. Here’s a quick rundown of the main methods:
Frequency filtering
This technique zeros in on the frequency range typically occupied by vocals and filters them out. While it can be effective, it might also remove some instrumental elements that share the same frequencies.
Phase cancellation
This method works by flipping the phase of one stereo channel, causing the vocal and instrumental signals to cancel each other out. It’s a clever trick but can sometimes leave behind remnants of the vocals or affect the quality of the remaining audio.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Modern vocal removers often use AI to distinguish between vocals and instruments. This technique analyses the audio, identifies the vocal parts, and isolates or removes them. Thanks to advances in machine learning, AI-powered vocal removers are becoming increasingly precise and efficient.
The different kinds of vocal remover software
Most vocal remover tools come in the form of plugins that can be loaded into your Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) as VSTs.Once you’ve loaded the plugin, it’s usually just a matter of uploading your track and letting the software do its magic.
The process is typically quick and requires no prior audio editing experience. These plugins make it possible to remove vocals in one simple step, making them incredibly user-friendly.
It’s not just VST plugins that offer vocal removal capabilities.Some DAWs, like FL Studio, have started to integrate these functions directly into their software. This means you don’t even need to load a separate plugin to separate stems.
With FL Studio’s built-in stem separation feature, you can achieve this directly within your project, saving time and streamlining your workflow.
What features are there on vocal remover plugins?
When it comes to removing vocals from a track, the features of the plugin you choose can make a world of difference. Acon Digital’s Remix plugin is a game-changer in this realm, capable of separating stems in real-time, saving you precious time compared to other plugins that can take up to 20 minutes to process.
Remix offers five individual volume faders for each extracted stem, allowing you to rebalance the music to your liking, with the ability to mute or solo each stem and adjust the volume on the fly.
It also includes a sensitivity control, enabling fine-tuning of the AI algorithm for more precise vocal removal, minimising unwanted artefacts and spill from other instruments.
For those seeking more comprehensive tools, DAW-based solutions like FL Studio Producer Edition and RipX DAW Pro allow you to treat each stem as any other audio file, providing maximum creative flexibility with features like muting, chopping, editing, rearranging, and pitch-shifting.
RipX DAW even allows exporting stems as MIDI files, displayed in a Piano Roll-style editor for extensive editing possibilities.
Each vocal remover plugin offers unique features catering to different needs and workflows, whether you need quick, real-time separation or comprehensive editing options, there are solutions for every ability and need.
What other stems can vocal remover plugins extract?
When choosing a vocal remover plugin, it’s important to note that different plugins allow you to isolate different parts of the recorded audio, and not all plugins function the same. For instance, Acon Digital’s Remix provides five faders for Vocals, Piano, Bass, Drums, and “Other”, which groups together all remaining instruments.
On the other hand, plugins like Audionamix XTRAX Stems offer the ability to split the audio into four distinct stems: vocals, backing, drums, and bass, with intuitive parameters and a De-bleed slider for real-time refinements.
RipX DAW focuses on creating individual stems for vocals and bass while grouping drums, percussion, and other instruments together. It also provides an option to separate the guitar and piano or group them into one stem. For those who only need the stems to process the audio elsewhere, there’s a “Save Stems Only” option, although it takes up to 20 minutes to process.
FL Studio offers another approach, asking you to specify which stems you need – drums, bass, instruments, or vocals – but it doesn’t allow for individual separation of guitar and piano.
The choice of plugin depends largely on what you need from your stem separation. For instance, if you’re a guitarist looking to learn and isolate specific parts, FL Studio might not be suitable since it doesn’t allow for isolating the guitar. Conversely, if you’re a DJ aiming to create remixes, XTRAX Stems might be your best option as it can isolate a capella, drums, and bass effectively.
Do all vocal removers sound the same?
When it comes to vocal removers, not all sound the same. Each tool uses a different set of internal parameters, techniques, or AI-powered processing to achieve its results, leading to noticeable variations in the sound quality of the extracted stems.
Acon Digital’s Remix, for instance, provides a real-time separation of stems. However, its bass stem can sound woolly compared to other removers. Faint vocals can occasionally be heard in the background of drum stems, although this kind of bleed can be mitigated by adjusting the Sensitivity control.
Despite these minor issues, the real-time processing capability of Remix makes its results quite acceptable, especially considering the speed of separation.
RipX DAW, on the other hand, produces stems that sound fuller, brighter, and with more presence. The “Other” Instruments stem, which includes guitars, sounds particularly impressive.
However, the fidelity of the snares in the drums stem could be better. RipX DAW Pro handles vocal stems well, delivering results that, while not entirely artefact-free, are certainly good enough for sampling and remixing.
FL Studio’s stem separation holds its own against other tools, producing solid vocal stems and largely satisfactory overall results. The bass stems tend to come out a bit woolly and muffled, similar to RipX DAW, but they still retain much of the original punch.
These differences in sound quality do not necessarily make one vocal remover better than the other. Instead, they offer different sonic characteristics that might be more suitable for various applications.
How to choose the right vocal remover
When choosing the right vocal remover for you, consider the following points:
Functions
Many different vocal removal plugins have different features. Find the plugin that offers the right functionality that you need when separating vocals from a recorded track.
Accuracy
The accuracy of vocal removal plugins varies. The key thing to be aware of is the speed at which they can be extracted, as this can dictate your workflow in the studio.
Number of stems extracted
Sometimes less is more, as generating more stems may come at a time disadvantage.
Sound quality
Find what sounds the best for your intended use. Often, extracting stems will maintain a small number of artefacts which may be covered up when remixing, or can stick out if creating a capellas.
Why remove vocals from a track?
So, why remove vocals from a track anyway? When using the right tools, it’s incredibly simple and a massive time-saver for many different applications.
For DJs remixing a song, removing the vocals can provide you with independent control over the instrumental and vocals, allowing for more flexibility to further process the stems to create your remix. For musicians learning new songs, removing vocals can make way for the instruments, letting you hear the intricacies, notes, and patterns played to learn the parts better.
It’s not all about production though, you can remove vocals to create karaoke versions of your favourite songs to belt out the notes with family and friends.
FAQs
Do vocal removers work?
Vocal removers do an excellent job of removing vocals from pre-recorded tracks. Within any pre-recorded track, vocal removers let you isolate the vocals and other instruments independently, typically providing a volume fader, pan control and solo/mute functions for more in-depth control.
How does a vocal remover work?
Vocal removers use AI algorithms or mid-side channel separation and spectral processing to isolate vocals from pre-recorded tracks. Once isolated, the vocals and instruments will be separated into two stem tracks which you can export independently for further remixing.
Which is the best vocal remover?
Here are the best vocal removers:
- Acon Digital Remix
- Audionamix XTRAX Stems 1 year license
- iZotope Ozone 11 Advanced
- Image Line FL Studio Producer Edition
- RipX DAW Pro
- Serato DJ Pro
Final thoughts
With the influx of modern plugins, removing vocals from a song is now easier than ever. Offering fast and efficient stem separation without the loss of quality that comes with traditional audio editing, vocal-removing plugins can save you a lot of time when creativity strikes.
Whether you’re looking for a fully featured plugin that offers comprehensive editing and mixing tools such as Izotope Ozone 11 Advanced, RipX DAW Pro, or the streamlined Remix or XTRAX Stems, there’s a solution that will fit any kind of musician.
Ultimately, learning how to remove vocals from a song is another tool that producers and musicians can use to enhance their creativity.
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