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How to Extract a Voice From a Song & Recycle

Digital audio workstations such as Pro Tools and Cubase enable you to record, edit, mix and master your music using your computer. Because the audio is digital, it's a lot easier to edit. This means that you can separate the individual tracks in a recording, enabling you to extract parts you like for recycling. In a musical context, recycling refers to the process of using a piece of audio from one track and placing it in another track. For example, taking the vocals from one song and laying them over a remix or other derivative work.

Things You'll Need

  • Digital audio workstation
  • Computer with 2GB ram
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Instructions

    • 1

      Double-click the desktop icon to open your preferred digital audio workstation software.

    • 2
      Extracting vocals enables you to use them in other songs.

      Open the file menu and select the session containing the vocals to be extracted. The process for doing so varies according to which program you use, but you typically click "File," "Open" and select "Recent" or open a second drop-down menu from which to select the session.

    • 3

      Identify the vocal tracks. The vocals of a song are typically comprised of a collection of various takes, including overdubs, harmonies and backing vocals. If you haven't named the tracks, hit "Play" and then click "S" on each channel. This solos the channel, muting all other other audio, enabling you to hear which channel has which audio.

    • 4

      Name the audio tracks. Double-click where it says "Audio 1" or Audio 10" and replace the text with a suitable name such as "Backing vox 1."

    • 5

      Click on each vocal track and select "Send To." From the drop-down menu, select "Bus 1." If "Bus 1" is greyed-out, select the next available bus. In audio, a bus is a stereo mix channel where you route multiple audio files to render them as a single track. For example, after mixing, you'd send all vocals to one bus, all drums to another bus and all guitars to their own bus. This enables you to then mix and edit the collective audio as one file. This resultant track is called a submix.

    • 6

      Click on the bus submix channel to highlight it. This assigns subsequent commands to this channel specifically.

    • 7

      Export the submix. This is typically done via the "File" menu. When prompted, select your preferred file type, such as MP3 or Wave Audio. The former is smaller and quicker to export, the latter is larger, higher quality and lossless but takes longer to export. If you are using the vocals in another song, select Wave Audio or "Wav, " as it is frequently called.

    • 8

      Close the session, but not the program.

    • 9

      Open a new session from the file menu. If you are using the vocals in an existing work, select the relevant session from the "Recent" section of the "File" menu.

    • 10

      Import the vocal submix into the new session.

Recording Music

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