Vocal Removal Plug-ins
[[deprecated|https://plugins.audacityteam.org/}}
| This page describes techniques which on some stereo tracks may allow you to remove or isolate vocals (or other parts of a recording) from the rest.
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As well as the above method supported in Audacity itself there are various third-party plug-ins that can be used to try and remove or isolate vocals.
Contents
Audacity's built-in Plug-in
Audacity has a built-in effect for vocal removal Vocal Reduction and Isolation, accessed by: see this page in the Manual.
Windows VST Plug-ins
There are several Windows VST plug-ins that can be used in Audacity for vocal removal and isolation. For installation of VST plug-ins, see below.
- Voicetrap is a commercial plug-in featuring center channel removal by frequency-based and cepstral methods (that is, not a simple subtraction of one channel from the other). It has an advantage over kn0ck0ut of providing stereo output for the "vocals removed" track, as well as offering isolation of center-panned content. There is a demo version with a "mild" vocal removal setting (but no isolation ability) that works in Audacity.
- Brainworx have a free (registration-required) VST plug-in bx_solo that lets you solo mid and side channels so provides opportunity for vocal isolation or removal in the right circumstances.
- There is a commercial VST plug-in called Extra Boy Pro which offers useful functionality for those interested in vocal removal, isolation or modification of the different components of an audio track. This claims to be capable of isolating, removing, suppressing or enhancing any component of a stereo track, based on its identified frequency and spatial "signature" (components are selected inside a "2D Mode" spectrogram window). Naturally the author points out that the exact results are subject to the particular characteristics of each track. Multiple components of a track can be processed simultaneously (for example, to isolate piano and vocal, or enhance piano and bass). A 14-day free trial is available which periodically silences the processed output.
macOS / OS X Plug-ins
- There is an voxReducer PPC Audio Unit plug-in (14 day free evaluation) you can try in current Audacity. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 to 10.6 (using Rosetta on an Intel Mac). It will not work on OS X 10.7 or later as there is no PPC support.
VoxReducer is similar to the Nyquist Center Pan Remover in that it aims to reduce the strength of center-panned vocals, but differs in having a phase offset adjustment and a slider for adjusting the intensity of the vocal reduction. Place the voxReducer.component in either /Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components or ~/Library/Audio/Plug-ins/Components.
- Brainworx have a free (registration-required) VST or Audio Unit plug-in bx_solo (download link here) that lets you solo mid and side channels so provides opportunity for vocal isolation or removal in the right circumstances. See voxReducer above for Audio Unit installation or below for VST installation.
Linux Plug-ins
- kn0ck0ut-LV2 A port to LV2 of the now discontinued kn0ck0ut VST plug-in. It usually requires compiling but you can obtain a few kn0ck0ut packages for Ubuntu.
Plug-in Installation
For instructions on how to load new effects into Audacity please see these pages in the Manual:
