Anyone Know What The Best Software Would Be For Isolating Instruments?

jesussaddle

Power User
Windows user. I'm looking for a product type that may not exist in as much abundance on the Windows platform. The goal is to roughly (or better) isolate certain melodic material from other audio. I notice that Izotope RX 7 says it can be used to isolate a vocal. What I need is to be able to isolate vocal, or lead guitar, or synth lead. (I don't want to remove them, as in a Karaoke app, but to remove other matieral and leave the solo part). In the past I thought such apps simply enabled the user to isolate a part of the stereo field, along with some basic EQ, but I guess now there are more precise ways to hunt out certain harmonic differences.

I see these kinds of things out there (see video) but I'm not sure how they work or whether there are some in a much higher realm than others:



Any advice would be appreciated.
 
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Rx7 is really good. They have a demo version you can try. The quality of isolation depends on the quality of the recording. There are a number of other functions that can also be helpful. Be ready for some trial and error and a little bit of a learning curve but all in all, not too difficult to use. I have some live recordings that include band bleed into the vocal mic and have had some success at removing most of the back ground noise. I haven't tried "Anytunes Reframe" but I will check it out.
 
I'm a regular user of Anytune Pro+ for the iPad. It's the best tool I've come across for learning material. You can really hone in on certain aspects of a song, however it can only do so much. Once the "soup" is made, it's near impossible to extract individual "spices" from the mix.

To get isolated parts of a song, try YouTube. Enter the song you're looking up and add "isolated vocal" or "isolated guitar" to the search. If you're lucky enough you'll come across the original isolated track you're looking for.

If YouTube doesn't have it, I'll try Karaoke Versions website. These aren't the original tracks, but they are really well done covers. You can isolate instruments just like using a mixing console. Each song has small sample. Sometimes that's enough to steer you in the right direction. If you need the whole song then you have to buy it.
 
Agree with Rich " once the soup is made"
I use a multiband comp. in my DAW to suppress unwanted frequencies, and a utility the is like the old " left minus right". Using phase deferential between the 2 channels of audio. It helps on most material. Reframe probably needs the "soup" elements to be somewhat whole when they go into the pot to differentiate the frequencies in the re sample. The track above is already somewhat isolated to begin with to sell the product. I would try it first on some older, complex wave files.
 
I'd say an EQ with as many bands as you can get ahold of. Useless answer maybe , but without a gimmick software that might work really well , that'd be my route.
 
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