How To Isolate Vocals From a Song In Logic Pro X?

This guide will look at how you can isolate vocals from a song in Logic pro.

This guide can extract vocals for remixes, acapella libraries, and much more. Towards the end of the guide, we will look at some issues that may occur and how to avoid/fix them.

Before we start, you want to make sure you have Logic Pro advanced mode selected. The advanced mode allows you to use Logic Pro to its full potential, giving you hundreds of extra tools and features.

• To activate advanced mode:
• Open Logic Pro X.
• Select Logic Pro from the menu bar.
• Then scroll down to the Preferences tab and select Advanced.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Then click the box labeled ‘enable complete features’.

 

 

 

 

 

Now that logic is in advanced mode, and we can get started.

How to Extract Vocals from a song in Logic Pro X?

• To extract the vocals, you will need two audio files, one file of the full song and the second file with just the instrumental of the song. You want to ensure you have the exact version of the instrumental used in the song to get the best results.
• Now that you have your two files, you will want to load them into logic. To do this, you can drag and drop the files (You’ll want to drop them into separate tracks), or you can use Logics file browser by pressing the File Browser icon in the top right of the Control Bar or by pressing the F key on your keyboard and navigating to the location of the files. To find files on your device, select All Files, and you’ll then have the option to search with the search bar or manually navigate to the file’s location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Now that the files are loaded into two tracks in logic, you’ll want to ensure the tracks are lined up perfectly.
• Head to the track with the full song (The one WITH the vocals) and load up the Gain plugin. To load up the Gain plugin, head to the Audio Effects slot, open the drop-down menu, navigate to utility, hover over utility, and select Gain, then stereo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• Open the gain plugin and make sure both the left (L) and right (R) phase invert options are selected.

• Now, when you press play in logic, you should only hear the vocals playing.
• If you only hear the vocals, you can bounce down the project to extract the isolated vocals as a new file. To do this, head to the menu bar while Logic is open, select File, navigate down to Bounce, select ‘Project or Section’ or press the ‘command key and B’. Now you can select the ideal file format, resolution, and so on; when you are happy, press ‘Ok.’ You can now choose what to call the file and where to save it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• If you’ve followed every step, you should now have a fully isolated vocal extracted as its file.

Issues that may occur and how to avoid or fix them.

When using any method to extract vocals from a song/beat without getting the raw files, there is always a chance that it may not work. We will look at some common issues that may be causing trouble.

• Identical Beat/Instrumental

Without the indenticial beat/instrumental, the process may not work. There are instances where you could recreate the beat by copying the exact samples, pre-sets, and so on, but the chances of successfully extracting the vocals are slim. EQ, Compression, Filters, Panning, and many other processes and effects can greatly impact how successful this process is. The best way to avoid having any issues is to try and download the exact instrumental from the song’s original producer. If you can find that, the next best option is to find the most accurate recreation that you can find; however, this isn’t guaranteed to work.

• Mastering

If you’re using any mainstream songs for this process, then you can be guaranteed that the track has been mastered. Many mastering processes affect how the instrumental sounds, so it may mean that even with an identical instrumental, you could still encounter issues. There is no real way to avoid or fix this, but these processes should be fine without causing too much trouble.

• Mixing

Like issues caused by mastering, if the song you’ve chosen has been mixed, then you can be sure the mix engineer has added at least some subtle EQ and compression. There is no real way to avoid or fix this, but these processes will have caused only a few issues, but it’s still important to keep them in mind.

• Audio quality files

The quality of the audio files shouldn’t cause too many issues. Still, if you have downloaded your files from a YouTube converter or in a similar way, you could find some decreases in the quality of your files, which can, in turn, cause issues when trying to isolate the vocals. I recommend downloading from more reliable websites and choosing the highest quality files to fix this.

• Mic bleed

If you manage to isolate the vocals perfectly, you may begin to hear imperfections from the vocal takes hidden by the instrumental in the final mix. You might hear loud breaths, pops, clicks, and background noise. These sounds appearing don’t mean that you’ve done the process wrong , in fact, it means that you have successfully extracted the full vocal. There’s no way to avoid these issues, but the best way to fix these imperfections with stock Logic plugins is by using EQ, Filters, the Scissor Tool, and the Fade Tool.

Alternative options

There are some alternative ways to isolate the vocals from a song, and these alternative ways are.

• Music Rebalance in the iZotope RX Plugin.
• Online websites like LALAL.AI, VocalRemover.org, and AudioStrip.co.uk

Conclusion

Despite how difficult isolating vocals in Logic Pro can be, I’d always recommend you use the process shown in the article instead of the alternatives.

Sure, the alternatives are great, but once you master this process, you can do it easily. As a music creator, it’s invaluable to know your DAW in and out, and with the techniques shown, you’ll be able to isolate more than vocals if you get creative.