Guitar Gear Forum

Hey guys, I had a thought, and had to register in hopes of finding an answer!
I have recently felt an urge to pickup my axe again, and there's something I have searched for in the past, but could not find the answer to.

Here it is!
I'm looking for a piece of software that can take a music file, and strip the guitar track from it, so I would be able to play the song, and then play my guitar over top.

Does anything like this exist?

Not that I know of. I would suggest you check jam tracks on YT and on other sites, like https://www.guitarbackingtrack.com/ this one has like 30k tracks covering most popular artists and free flow jams...

If you have a DAW and know your way around it...

-Import the stereo track into the DAW.
-Split the track into 2 mono tracks
-Phase Invert one of them. This will cancel out the center channel.

If it's a lead you're looking to remove, this should get you close, since leads are usually centered.

If it's rhythm parts/riffs... it's a little trickier.

-Repeat above steps... What you should have left is only the hard right/hard left panned sources.
-Lay that track on another track in your DAW, with the original, unprocessed stereo track above it on a separate track
-Invert the phase on one of the two tracks.


This will leave you with a track that has the hard panned sources de-emphasized, or if you're lucky, totally cancelled out. It tends to work best on mixes where the guits are 100% L/R panned, and in a lot of conventional mixes, that's the case. Other sources SHOULD be less affected by the cancellation since more often than not, there aren't other sources that are 100% hardpanned.


I've had total success doing this, and total failure. Just depends on the pan locations in the mix you're working with.

Loop wrote:If you have a DAW and know your way around it...

-Import the stereo track into the DAW.
-Split the track into 2 mono tracks
-Phase Invert one of them. This will cancel out the center channel.

If it's a lead you're looking to remove, this should get you close, since leads are usually centered.

If it's rhythm parts/riffs... it's a little trickier.

-Repeat above steps... What you should have left is only the hard right/hard left panned sources.
-Lay that track on another track in your DAW, with the original, unprocessed stereo track above it on a separate track
-Invert the phase on one of the two tracks.


This will leave you with a track that has the hard panned sources de-emphasized, or if you're lucky, totally cancelled out. It tends to work best on mixes where the guits are 100% L/R panned, and in a lot of conventional mixes, that's the case. Other sources SHOULD be less affected by the cancellation since more often than not, there aren't other sources that are 100% hardpanned.


I've had total success doing this, and total failure. Just depends on the pan locations in the mix you're working with.

damn I had no idea. But I just tried it and it works. Good stuff dude

Cool. Glad to help!

Yep... center cancel/phase nulling has been a pretty handy magic trick for a long time. If you've been around studios far back enough, you probably remember these things...they worked on the same principle:

I was today years old when I learned that Arend is even cooler than I already thought he was...

Vox JamVox is supposed to be able to do what you're asking - never used it myself but they advertise as specifically being able to "remove" guitar tracks. No idea how well it works but it might be worth a look


https://voxamps.com/product/jamvox-iii/

itchyfingers wrote:I was today years old when I learned that Arend is even cooler than I already thought he was...

I like that somehow a super dorky thing like this makes someone cool here.

Loop wrote:

itchyfingers wrote:I was today years old when I learned that Arend is even cooler than I already thought he was...

I like that somehow a super dorky thing like this makes someone cool here.

CoolER, sir!

Thank you all for the suggestions!
That JamVox software seems perfect for what I'm looking to do. Select the GXT button, and the guitar track is isolated. Couldn't get any easier than that.

Thanks again.

CanuckRock wrote:Thank you all for the suggestions!
That JamVox software seems perfect for what I'm looking to do. Select the GXT button, and the guitar track is isolated. Couldn't get any easier than that.

Thanks again.

If you get it, hit us with a review! I've been curious about it for a long time now

Arend (or anyone else) - is it possible to do something similar with other instruments? I've got some old 4-track band recordings that I'm trying to remix/remaster. During production, I bounced the drums and bass to one track, in order to make room for guitars and vocals, but I did a really shitty job on the mixing, resulting in a too-prominent bass and anemic drums. My thought was to duplicate that one track into two (one to highlight bass and the other to highlight drums), so that I can hopefully re-eq the drums to make them sound better.

G-SPACE wrote:Arend (or anyone else) - is it possible to do something similar with other instruments? I've got some old 4-track band recordings that I'm trying to remix/remaster. During production, I bounced the drums and bass to one track, in order to make room for guitars and vocals, but I did a really shitty job on the mixing, resulting in a too-prominent bass and anemic drums. My thought was to duplicate that one track into two (one to highlight bass and the other to highlight drums), so that I can hopefully re-eq the drums to make them sound better.

The method I described has nothing to do really with the instruments themselves, but rather removing "locations"...so, getting rid of what's in the center, or on the outside edges using phase cancellation/null tricks.

So, it just depends on how you panned everything.


That said, There's also a really badass program from Roland called RMix... that uses a combination of phase tricks and AI based on the EQ ranges of each source. It does a really good job. It used to be available for individual purchase, but now it's part of the Roland Cloud subscription....



BTW... JamVox seems cool... but it's only isolating the center channel....so it lets you mess around with guitar solos, but not the rhythm stuff that's panned. Looks like it's just using the same phaseflip method.

Izotope RX-7 can partially separate the drums, vocals and remaining music, allowing you to readjust their volume levels independently. .
I only used it to reduce the drum volume and boost the vocals, on a cassette tape that I recently digitized and restored.
Not sure if it can be used to remove drums and/or vocals completely but, I'll give it a try this weekend and let you know.

Loop wrote:

G-SPACE wrote:Arend (or anyone else) - is it possible to do something similar with other instruments? I've got some old 4-track band recordings that I'm trying to remix/remaster. During production, I bounced the drums and bass to one track, in order to make room for guitars and vocals, but I did a really shitty job on the mixing, resulting in a too-prominent bass and anemic drums. My thought was to duplicate that one track into two (one to highlight bass and the other to highlight drums), so that I can hopefully re-eq the drums to make them sound better.

The method I described has nothing to do really with the instruments themselves, but rather removing "locations"...so, getting rid of what's in the center, or on the outside edges using phase cancellation/null tricks.

So, it just depends on how you panned everything.


That said, There's also a really badass program from Roland called RMix... that uses a combination of phase tricks and AI based on the EQ ranges of each source. It does a really good job. It used to be available for individual purchase, but now it's part of the Roland Cloud subscription....



BTW... JamVox seems cool... but it's only isolating the center channel....so it lets you mess around with guitar solos, but not the rhythm stuff that's panned. Looks like it's just using the same phaseflip method.

Thanks for the info, anyway - I'll definitely need to give some of these tips (and the ones above) a try

ajaxlepinski wrote:Izotope RX-7 can partially separate the drums, vocals and remaining music, allowing you to readjust their volume levels independently. .
I only used it to reduce the drum volume and boost the vocals, on a cassette tape that I recently digitized and restored.
Not sure if it can be used to remove drums and/or vocals completely but, I'll give it a try this weekend and let you know.

I saw that software, but can't get past the sticker shock... Since you have it, could I send you the stem track (just bass and drums on one .wav file) to see how it does? I've got 3 of these songs I need to do this with, and it'd be a godsend if I could fix up the drums at least a bit - it's all a lot of shrill high-end from the cymbals and a driving bass that keeps you from really being able to make out the drums.

G-SPACE wrote:

ajaxlepinski wrote:Izotope RX-7 can partially separate the drums, vocals and remaining music, allowing you to readjust their volume levels independently. .
I only used it to reduce the drum volume and boost the vocals, on a cassette tape that I recently digitized and restored.
Not sure if it can be used to remove drums and/or vocals completely but, I'll give it a try this weekend and let you know.

I saw that software, but can't get past the sticker shock... Since you have it, could I send you the stem track (just bass and drums on one .wav file) to see how it does? I've got 3 of these songs I need to do this with, and it'd be a godsend if I could fix up the drums at least a bit - it's all a lot of shrill high-end from the cymbals and a driving bass that keeps you from really being able to make out the drums.

Anything for you G!!!!
PM sent.

YDM