Conference napalm::guitar

    There have been a few boxes to do this.  All work on the principle that
    in a stereo recording, the lead vocal is normally in the center.  By
    running the two channels out of phase with each other, any sound in
    both channels gets cancelled out.
    
    PAIA sells a kit called the "Vocal Zapper" that does this, I think the
    kit is about $30.  Check the manufacturer's list note for an
    address/phone for PAIA.
    
    							Brian 

    Ben,
    Also check the old commusic notesfile. There used to be a guy here at
    dec that made a box that does that. I have one of his boxes and it
    works pretty good (for 10 bucks!) with CD's. I am sorry I can't
    remember his name, but if you do a dir/title=vocal you may find it.
    How it worked of course depended on the vocals being recorded in the
    center of the stereo spectrum -- so it won't work on 'Your Mother
    Should Know' off of Magical Mystery Tour! :-)
    
    jay
    

    The Thompson Vocal Eliminator has been a standard ad in the music
    comix since guitar strings were made from mastedon gut.
    
    Edd

    
    	Unfortunately, snare drums and bass guitar are also commonly
    	placed in the middle.  I have one of the units from -.1 and
    	it works fine for some things, esp. acoustic tunes.  But on
    	others, the snare disappears and all you get is the reverb
    	after it - the end result is an annoying late hit.
    
    	Likewise, the delay found on most vocals is most often mixed
    	to the sides.  So when Kenny Loggins sings "I'm turnin' it
    	Loose" on Footloose - you get ".....oose, oose, oose"...
    
    	Tom
    

    
    	Edd jumped in there - I have the one from the Deccie.
    

    If he doesn't already have the CD, he can get "professionally stripped"
    versions designed for Karaoke systems etc. I think there's even CD's of
    songs with one or more instruments missing available for things like
    the Kawai MT-2 (not sure of the model #) session trainer. Filtering &
    EQ may be able to recover some of the lost snare if you've got the
    equipment & the time. I bet Billy West (formerly at WBCN, now in New
    York) has all sorts of gadgets to do this type of thing.
    
    Paul

    I wonder if you could (easily) replace the snare with a drum machine,
    by feeding the snareless tape into a mixer, a drum machine, and then 
    outputting to a second tape.
    
    ...whacking the drum machine all the while.
    
    Edd

    RE -1:
    The way to do that would be to sync the E-Drum from the delayed snare,
    store the pattern & then play it back with the sync at a different
    point. You'd need only one "real time guess" if the music on the CD has
    only one tempo. Watch out though, some songs speed up or slow down on
    purpose. In that case, you'd have to "bang" it in.
    
    Presumably if adding the two channels together cancels the voice &
    snare, then subtracting the two channels would give you only voice &
    snare. You then separate them by filtering & remix the snare only. This
    is easier said than done even with the right equipment.
    
    Paul  

    hey all,
    
    thanks for the quick replies.  the questions i now have are
    
    	- where is the MANUFACTURER's note.  we have a keyword but
    	  it points to no note.  ie: does anyone know???
    
    	- is the Thompson Vocal Eliminator something that's easily
          available say from Sam Ash?  
    
    thanks again,
    
    
    ben.

    Note #1421 has manufacturers' addresses and phone numbers.  I added the
    keyword to the note for future ease of reference.
    
    						Brian

    
    	Look in the back of any Guitar Player magazine.  There's always
    	a picture of guy with a mic and some sort of "you be the star"
    	or "sing the hits" line.  I believe there's also a number to call
    	to hear it.
    
    	Tom
    

    Another way would be to use one of the "humanizer" boxes that you
    can tap on and they'll lock onto transients in the recording, speeding
    up or slowing as the tempo varies. You can then use them to generate
    MIDI sync...
    
    Edd

    Sony has a CD player with this option on it. The singer in my band has
    one that she got from Lechmere. Although when Dave Blickstein tried to
    locate one, Lechmere didn't carry it anymore.
    
    Who knew?
    
    	Fred

    re replacing the snare
    
    	Get your four track recorder and record the song onto tracks 1 & 2
    and then lay down some sympte code or fsk pointer info on track 4, 
    connect up your sequencer and drum machine and viola, replaced snare.
    
    
    P.K.
    Sometime commusicer
    

    Not sure how many of you looked into the Tompson vocal
    eliminator but your looking at 800.00 bucks for the basic
    unit.
                                                      Jim

    I was the guy that found that CD player for Fred Abatelli's singer
    (Fred and I are both in that band).
    
    When my CD player broke, I went looking for that one and couldn't find
    it anywhere.  However, I do have a model #, it's made by Sony and
    it's called the K-1.
    
    Basically it's an everyday/average CD player except that it has a
    button you push to eliminate vocals.  It works fairly well - better
    on some tunes than on others.
    
    If anyone manages to find a place that can get one of these, please
    let me know.  I decided to have my old player fixed, but would still
    be interested in one of these.
    
    	db

    Oh by the way, I did find that lots of those $400 complete stereo
    system things have this feature.  But be careful, because many of
    those did NOT work as well as the K-1.
    
    You should test them out before buying, but I found such systems in
    nearly every store I went to.  Only problem is, you have to buy
    the whole system, not just the CD player.
    
    	db

    Thompson Vocal Eliminator, like new, used twice, $800 new,
    sell for $350.  508-544-6636

    the new Boss SE-70 does this.