Need help stripping vocals from audio track

Working on a project for church, and I need to strip several sections of vocals from a pop song. Is there a way to do this with Garage Band or Final Cut X?

Bad words???

It's possible, but because you don't have access to the original audio tracks (a fair assumption), you will just have to clip those words or phrases out of the combined track. But also realise that you will also take out the background music as well. With a little work you can see if you can find a section of music without words, but has the same music that fits perfectly into that spot you clipped out and fit it into that area so that there is no gap in the track. It won't be easy, but that is one way to do what you want.

Im not sure if there is a program out there that can do this automatically. Maybe try a Google search asking this question.

Have fun!

The other thing you can try is the time honoured method for removing vocals from songs completely. To do it, open up the song in your editor. Flip the phase of either one of the two stereo tracks (left or right, doesn't matter which one) 180 degrees. Now when it is played, anything in the centre will have the left and right tracks coming together out of phase, in theory cancelling out that sound.

How well does it work? Typically, not very, but you can get suprised sometimes. The two challenges are

1. vocals are often not entirely in the centre, so they don't fully cancel. That means you can hear them faintly or moderately depending on how they were mastered

2. Other instruments may have strong centre components. This technique will also knock out a bunch of their sound as well.

If you're just looking to take out a few small snippets, I'd say Chas has the better idea. Try to find a matching section without the words and splice it in.

I've done a lot of studio recording, editing and mixing. Chas is right, just clip from another part of the song and match it up. Not hard to do since you are looking at the waveform.

Bob