Vocal Remover: Remove Vocals and Sing Over the Band

How to remove vocals from a song

1. Drop an mp3, wav, flac, m4a, or mp4 onto the page. It runs in your browser, and your song isn't uploaded.
2. If this is your first visit on this computer, try the six-second preview on the chorus. When it sounds usable, press Separate full song.
3. The Karaoke preset is already on: the vocal fader is down, and drums, bass, guitar, piano, and other keep playing.
4. Loop the part you're learning. Export the backing as WAV or MP3 when it sounds right.

What's left when the vocal is gone

The vocal stem holds the lead voice and anything else the split heard as singing. Everything else stays where it was: the kit, the bass, guitar, piano, and the "other" stem with strings, synths, and pads. Added together, that's your instrumental.

Because it comes from the record itself, the backing keeps the cues you sing against: the drummer's push into the chorus, the guitar fill after a line.

Practice ideas for singers

Learn the line before you lose it. Solo the vocal stem first and loop one phrase until you can sing it back. Then switch to the Karaoke preset and sing the same phrase over the band. Going back and forth is faster than guessing at notes under the drums.

Find your key. If the chorus sits too high, move the pitch down a semitone or two. The tempo doesn't change, so the song still feels the same. Once you've settled on a key, export the backing with that pitch applied and take the file to rehearsal. From there you can make a karaoke track in your key.

Slow the hard runs. A fast verse or a long run is easier a few steps slower. The pitch stays put, so you're still practicing the notes you'll sing at full speed. Bring the speed back up a step at a time.

Nail the entries. Turn on the count-in so every loop starts with four clicks. It helps most with pickups and lines that start just before the downbeat, which is where most singers come in late.

When the vocal doesn't fully disappear

For practice, a faint ghost of the singer is often useful: it tells you whether you're on the right note. Running the split again won't remove it. Comparing other ways to remove vocals? See six methods compared.

• Backing vocals and stacked harmonies often land in Other instead of with the lead. If a harmony is still singing along, pull Other down a little on that section.
• Reverb and delay that were printed on the vocal can leave a faint tail. Under a full band you rarely notice it; in a quiet intro you will.
• Loud, heavily limited masters leak more than open mixes. Old mono records and live room recordings leak the most.
• A guitar or synth that doubles the melody can get partly pulled into the vocal stem, so it may sound thinner when the vocal is muted.

Playing the melody on an instrument

The vocal remover isn't only for singers. Horn players, violinists, and guitarists learning a melody by ear can use the same backing. Solo the vocal to hear the phrasing and where the breaths fall, then mute it and play the line yourself. If the original key is awkward on your instrument, shift the record to a friendlier one and keep the speed.

For a different practice mix of the same song, the drum remover leaves the singer and takes out the kit, and the bass remover does the same for the bass line. To take the piano out and keep the singer, use remove the piano from a song. Need more than one part out? The backing track maker mutes whichever mix you are covering.

Saving the instrumental

Export writes a file from this browser: the mix as WAV or MP3, with your current speed and pitch applied if you've changed them. You can also save the vocal stem on its own as a WAV, which is handy for learning the line on the way to rehearsal. Nothing is sent anywhere to make either file.