Many of us in good company love to sing and go to various kinds of popular karaoke bars for this. But sometimes you want to sing your favorite song to a phonogram in which there is no original vocals at home, but you don’t have the right karaoke file at hand. What to do How to make a “backing track” quickly and efficiently? It is not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. However, when performing the actions described below, it should be taken into account that it is unlikely to make a high-quality professional “minus” at home. Therefore, you have to be content with the simplest solutions.
How to make a "minus one": the main areas of action
In general, the creation of a “backing track” can be interpreted in the broadest sense, and the actions performed do not relate exclusively to removing only the vocal part from the original composition. However, since in most cases, “minus” means precisely cutting out vocals, we will proceed from this.
So, how to make a "minus one"? The whole procedure usually comes down to cutting out a certain range of frequencies, which correspond to the vocal part present. Just note that a normal equalizer will not work here, and the deleted frequency range will still affect other instruments, except for vocals. The best option, of course, is considered to be an independent recording of all parts except the vocal in the studio or in some kind of sequencer program. But without musical education and hearing, reproducing the original will be quite problematic (maybe it could be some kind of distant similarity). Therefore, we will proceed from the fact that vocals need to be cut from the original track.
How to make a backing track of a song using audio editors
From audio editors, consider Cool Edit Pro and Adobe Audition. The second package is a direct descendant of the first, very similar to it, but has several more features. First of all, let's see how to make “backing tracks” with Cool Edit Pro. She has for this the simplest vocal removal tool.
You can call it through the Favorites menu, where Vocal Cut is selected, after which processing will be performed. When listening to the result, it will be possible to notice the presence of vocals in the background, but in order to sing under the resulting phonogram, this does not play a significant role.
Now let's see how to make a backing track in Adobe Audition. In this editor, in the effects, you can select Stereo Imagery and go to the Center Channel Extractor tool.
In the predefined templates, either Karaoke or Vocal Remove is selected. In principle, both effects give almost the same result, so the question of preferences in this case is not worth it.
Creating a minus in the AIMP player
It’s even easier to remove vocals from a song using the popular AIMP media player, in which you need to go to the effects section and find the voice removal filter in the factory settings.
Processing takes place in real time. But there is one drawback. You can sing under such a phonogram, but you can’t save it in any way.
Using ready-made samples and MIDI scores
In principle, if you do not chase the speed of creating a phonogram, but give preference to quality, on the Internet for many compositions you can find ready-made played parts of individual instruments. It is enough to simply load them into the multi-track editor and mix them yourself.
You can also find MIDI scores, but when using them, you will have to replace the standard instruments of each channel, for example, from the General MIDI (GM) or Extended General (XG) kits, with more realistic instruments, using at least some modern virtual synthesizers. Such actions are considered the most preferable, since none of the known programs completely removes vocals and, moreover, affects the overall sound of the track, and sometimes it is far from the best.