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website/software that can prep older songs in your catalogue for sync use? Like removing vocals etc.. when you don't have the original files anymore?

Asked and answered on another site:

It’s awesome. Have used it on a number of older songs. Talked to ? about it before trying and he’d said the quality of the instrumental that they provide good for sync purposes. Different price points for different options https://www.audioshake.ai/

Resurrect those oldie but goodies you'd written off forever?

I was thinking about going through tons of old songs recorded by friends who have since passed away and using modern technology to pull vocals out, then do modern music versions and e-insert their vocals back in. Most of these frolks were gone before any of this technology existed and it sure would be nice to bring them musically back to life. Thoughts on best way to do it?

Brian,

There are several online "pay as you go" services and the one that I use (and of course think is the best) is "LALAL.AI":

https://www.lalal.ai/

They have several algorithms for isolating various instruments in various ways (limited stem separation aka "isolated track/everything else"), the default being "vocal from instrumental" which I use every day for a specific project I'm working on, but I also use "vocal from noise" sometimes to clean up an a capella, and there are excellent algorithms to isolate bass, drums, synths, piano, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, strings, and winds, as well.

Like most similar websites offering this kind of service, I believe they will still give you free usage up to a certain threshold of "minutes used" then it's something like $15 for 90 minutes, and understand that those 90 minutes mean the actual length of the recording(s) that you are processing, so you could literally process, say, 45 two minute files for that price.

So if you drag and drop a file with vocals embedded in a track with instruments, it will process that and you can then download one or two tracks: the isolated vocal and the instrumental track, too, if that would be any use for you. You can "preview" what the isolated track will sound like as well. Downloading the processed file(s) is straightforward, and it's all pretty easy to use in a well put together website.

I have NOT had great results on everything I've thrown at it, especially with older, noisy, 2 and 4 track cassette recordings. But quite often its results are close to miraculous.

There is also the software route: If you use a DAW, "iZotope – RX" can run as a VST (or stand-alone if you don't use a DAW) and is a Swiss-army knife for audio processing and can now do true "stem separation" but is a hefty $300-400 retail. On the cheaper end, "Acon Digital – Acoustica" is less than half the iZotope price and can isolate tracks, too. Beware that one will need to constantly upgrade these products to get improved algorithms. That could mean more money spent. I don't know.

And there's software aimed at DJ's that can do the job as well, most higher end DJ software has "stem separation" now, but "VirtualDJ" is apparently the best, and for "home users" it's free. That's about all I know:

https://www.virtualdj.com/

I can't vouch for the results of anything but my online service, though. I get great results in LALALAI, but having said that, I should also say I haven't done a comparison test in over a year, but do notice that critical response puts it in a select group of company.

Hope that helps!

Mike

Interesting write up Mike. I've had some music libraries I've submitted to say in the notes that if my submission was excepted, I may have to remove the vocals, make some stems from parts of the song and even have separate files for all the instruments so someone can mix as they please. I was wondering how the hell I was going to do that. Well now I have something to consider if by chance a library thinks they can use something I wrote,

Thanks.

If you want stem isolation software that's intuitive and easy to use and you won't be using it a lot, using an online service might be the best route. Literally dozens abound at this point, with varying qualities, but most have free tiers.