Suggest an Audio Editing App

[Nobody Famous]

I am looking for a software solution to edit audio on the Mac and hoping someone will recommend a title.

I want to take MP3s that I've ripped into iTunes, and use an app to edit out vocals so only the instruments are heard.
I'd also like to be able to start recording, maybe, two minutes into the song and stop at the three-minute mark ... and then loop the selection. Easy enough in a number of apps, I'm sure.

I've glanced at Audio Hijack and Fusion, but I can't tell from the website if I'd be able to pull vocals off the tracks or not ...

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

C2D iMac 2.33GHz, 2 GB RAM, OS X.4.10
G4 MDD 1.25GHz dualie, 2 GB RAM, OS X.4.10

 

[BBC B 32k]

personally i think that sounds like a lot to ask. you are starting from a mp3 file so the computer does not have separate tracks to mix in and out. to remove vocals the software will have to make educated guesses and lower the volume around the mid range.

garage band would be the first place i would send you. once you have a good understanding of the techniques you can move on from there.

this does sound like the work of a professional audio engineer though.

LMK how it goes.

 

[dstearns96]

I use garageband and sometimes (rarely) imovie. I've actually switched back to the old imovie because the new one doesn't have effects to add on audio or video. does any one know why?

 

[pkoch1]

I am looking for a software solution to edit audio on the Mac and hoping someone will recommend a title.

I want to take MP3s that I've ripped into iTunes, and use an app to edit out vocals so only the instruments are heard.
I'd also like to be able to start recording, maybe, two minutes into the song and stop at the three-minute mark ... and then loop the selection. Easy enough in a number of apps, I'm sure.

I've glanced at Audio Hijack and Fusion, but I can't tell from the website if I'd be able to pull vocals off the tracks or not ...

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

C2D iMac 2.33GHz, 2 GB RAM, OS X.4.10
G4 MDD 1.25GHz dualie, 2 GB RAM, OS X.4.10

That's fairly impossible. You can get close by cutting the right frequencies (for which you would need a lot of knowledge about acoustics and sound), but even if you manage to get most of the vocals out of the mix, everything else will sound terrible. Unless you happen to have the master tracks, you are pretty out of luck.

Its easy to cut out the first two minutes in GarageBand. Just drag the song into GB and put your mouse on the very left hand side of the audio region and drag to the right however much you want to cut off. Then drag the entire region back until it hits the left side. You can do that with the right hand side to cut off the end too. Then either copy and paste it, or drag the top part of the right side of the region when the mouse looks like a curvy arrow (loop) and drag to the right for however many loops you want

good luck

 

[jelloyacket]

If you're at least marginally familiar with the recording end of things, get Audacity, and it will let you do basic tweaks like EQ and gates/compressors that may help you in your quest to delete vocals. It's available for free here:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

 

[CanadaRAM]

I want to take MP3s that I've ripped into iTunes, and use an app to edit out vocals so only the instruments are heard.

That's like saying -- I have a sausage and I would like to get the porkchop back out of it.

Short answer - you can't.

Longer answer - there are some things that can be tried with center canceling (assuming the vocals are panned dead center, you reverse the phase of one channel, and sum the left and right channels. Whatever is in the centre - that is, equal volume in each channel - theoretically cancels itself out by adding the + and - waveforms together.) and with EQ. Both of these techniques will have moderate to severe effects on the quality of the backing instrument sounds.

If you are looking for backing tracks, you may want to look at MIDI tracks to 'play' the music parts, or purchase professional karaoke files, or choose an instrumental section, and loop that.

You can look at Amadeus and Audacity and GarageBand
Bias Peak is a professional tool.