Audacity

Download available at: http://audacity.sourceforge.net

About Audacity

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. The interface is translated into many languages. You can use Audacity to:

• Record live audio.
• Record computer playback on any Windows Vista or later machine.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit WAV, AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3 or Ogg Vorbis sound files.
• AC3, M4A/M4R (AAC), WMA and other formats supported using optional libraries.
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
• Numerous effects including change the speed or pitch of a recording.
• And more! See the complete list of features.

About Free Software

Audacity is free software, developed by a group of volunteers and distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Free software is not just free of cost (like "free beer"). It is free as in freedom (like "free speech"). Free software gives you the freedom to use a program, study how it works, improve it and share it with others. For more information, visit theFree Software Foundation.

Programs like Audacity are also called open source software, because their source code is available for anyone to study or use. There are thousands of other free and open source programs, including the Firefox web browser, theLibreOffice or Apache OpenOffice office suites and entire Linux-based operating systems such as Ubuntu.

We welcome donations to support Audacity development. Anyone can contribute to Audacity by helping us withdocumentation, translations, user support and by testing our latest code.

Open HUB (formerly known as "Ohloh") has statistics on the value of Audacity development. The Open HUB "badge" at the bottom of each page on this site shows updated summary values. The statistics are set up by us to show only the values of Audacity-specific development, excluding the third-party code libraries Audacity uses.

How To Remove Vocals From Music Tracks Using Audacity

Source: http://www.howtogeek.com/56335/how-to-remove-vocals-from-music-tracks-using-audacity

How It Works

Vocals are normally placed in the “center channel.” Stereo tracks have two channels, but not all of the instruments are balanced evenly. Sometimes the bass is pushed more towards the right channel, rhythm guitar might be found more towards the left, and so on. Usually the vocals are put dead center, so we can split the stereo track and invert one channel. This cancels out the vocals but leaves the rest in tact.  Primus often has extremely unbalanced channels. These kinds of tracks usually work well because the vocals are left evenly balanced between the two channels and that makes them easier to remove accurately. Songs with a lot of vocal effects may end up being mangled by the process, and songs with reverb may leave an echo despite vocals being gone.

On the whole, however this process works really well if you start with good quality audio. One of the most well known adages of audio editing is “garbage in equals garbage out.” If you start with CD audio and work from there, the end result will be cleaner and clearer than if you start with a compressed mp3. In HTG Explains: What Are the Differences Between All Those Audio Formats?, we went over different lossless and lossy formats, so make sure you start from a lossless audio file for best results. This isn’t to say that mp3 and the like won’t work, just that lossless audio works much better.

Removing the Center Channel

Fire up Audacity and load your song of choice.

The first thing we need to do is break the song’s two channels into two separate tracks. Click on the little black arrow next to the track title and go down to Split Stereo Track.

Next, pick a channel (it doesn’t matter which) and double click to select the entire track.

Go to Effect > Invert.

If you hit play, you’ll notice the song sounds a little funny. The Inverted channel sounds like it’s coming from around the speaker instead of directly from it. The last thing we need to do to solidify the effect is change each track to “mono.” Click on the title of each track like when you split the tracks and choose “mono” from the menu.

That’s it! You can go to File > Export to save the track. If you plan on saving into the mp3 format, be sure to read our guide on How To Add MP3 Support to Audacity.