Is there a really good program to turn songs into instrumentals without buying it?

Answer 1

That is not technically possible without the source tracks used in creating the song - free or otherwise.

The song you hear is a composite waveform - that is, all of the different sounds - voice, instruments, etc. all combined into a single sound. Your brain hears that sound and recognizes the different components and separates them internally, so it sounds like lots of different sounds - one for each instrument or vocalist. But, it is not multiple sounds - just one complex sound. Your brain creates an illusion of separate sounds playing at the same time.

There are some programs that can flip one stereo channel against the other and merge the two, which, depending on how the song was recorded, will sometimes *reduce* how much you can hear the vocals. But the vocals will still be there, and most of the time it just makes the song sound like it's playing underwater.

AnalogX Vocal Remover (http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/audio/vremover.htm ) is one of the most popular free programs that does this. It works well with Winamp and is relatively easy to install - just follow the instructions on the website. Keep in mind though that, as I explained above, it will not alter the vocals from most songs, and the ones that it does will still only be reduced, not removed.

Answer 2

NO.

Actually, there aren't too many good *Retail* applications either.

Here's the thing: how does an application (not a person, but again, an application) distinguish vocals from musical instruments. After all, vocalists sing with a goal to Blend with the music, so trying to separate by tonality, texture or sonic peaks tends to be troublesome at best. ESPECIALLY for mp3s, wave files or other post-compressed music. If you're trying to do so with an *actual cd*, your chances are better because although still compressed themselves, at least cds are burned from the studio master, on which (pop music) vocals *tend* to be separated as midtones while percussions take front (foreground) tones and melodic components are allocated to back (rear) tones.

Or vice-versa; I'm not a record producer.

Anyways, you can try here: http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/cat/KARAOKE/