Question: Voice removal

[PunisherUSA]

This question comes out of curiousity, I don't intend to mix or anything:

How are voices and instruments seperated in music? Often in mixes and mash-ups, voices are spliced in and out flawlessly, HOW?
The format? A program? Skillz?

I've always been puzzled at how we humans can distinguish many instruments and voices out of a single stream of sound.

 

[Revisedsoul]

they have each instrument going though a different channel so each one can be controlled indepently

but once its all put into one channel its a bit of a bitch ot seperate them without extesive knowlege of equlisers(sp)

 

[No Limit]

As been said, everything is on its own channel. If you ever used a graphic program that has layers it's pretty much the same concept. Then each channel is mixed to sound right.

Once you hear the final package it is impossible to remove the vocals or vice-versa. You can play with the eq to remove certain frequencies but you will never have a perfect result.

 

[Homercidal]

On most recordings, the main vocals are in the center, split equally between the two sides. The other intruments, for the most part, are more or less on either side.

They can remove vocals by combining the stereo channels and making the song a mono recording. This eliminates the main vocals by having each side of it cancel the other out. You are left with a mono recording of the instruments. It's not a fantastic process most of the time, but usually gets the job done to a degree.

Or, if the vocal is being removed in the recording studio, they can just eliminate the vocal track before recording it to a final mix. This leave NO vocal. But you'd have to convince someone to re-record their song without the vocal track, if they even have the masters to begin with.