How to Remove Vocals From a Song for Karaoke or Practice
How to remove vocals from a song for karaoke or practice: upload the full track, hear the music without the singer, keep a quiet guide and export a video.
If you want to remove vocals from a song, you are usually after one of two things: a sing-along track for a party or a karaoke night, or a practice track where the band plays and your own voice fills the gap. Both need the music without the lead vocal, and both work better with the words in front of you.
Here is what that result is, what to expect from different kinds of songs, why a little of the original vocal is often worth keeping, and how to turn the track into a video in Karaoke, the LimePulse studio for sing-along videos.
Start from the song you already have
Some releases come with an official instrumental, and when one exists it is usually the cleanest backing you can get. Many songs never get one, though, and an instrumental on its own still leaves you without the words.
In Karaoke you upload the full song as it is, vocals and all: an MP3 or WAV of 30 seconds to 10 minutes, no bigger than 200 MB. It plays without the vocals, in the preview and in the finished video, so there is no instrumental to hunt for.
A song is prepared once, the first time you open it in Karaoke, and you do not have to wait for it. The full song plays in the meantime and the whole frame stays open to edit. When it is ready, the music switches to the version without the vocals by itself, and Render waits until then.
What the result sounds like
Most songs have one lead voice over a band or a beat, and that lead voice is the part a karaoke singer replaces. What is left is the music you normally sing over without noticing: the chords, the rhythm and the arrangement, with room where the singer was.
Busy mixes are different, and it is better to know before you plan a video around one. In a song full of stacked harmonies, backing vocals, a choir or a crowd singing the chorus, some of those voices can stay audible under the music. Often that helps: a backing harmony gives the singer something to sit against, the way a backing singer would on stage. Sometimes it gets in the way, for example in a call-and-response chorus where the answering line can still be heard.
So when the song is ready, listen to all of it once in the preview before you build anything elaborate. The preview plays the same mix the finished video carries, so what you hear there is what your singers will hear.
Why keeping a little of the vocal helps
Taking the vocal out completely is right for a performance. For learning a song it is often too much: without the original singer it is easy to lose the melody in a verse you half know, come in early after a long instrumental break, or drift off pitch on a held note.
The Vocal volume slider handles this. It runs from 0, the music alone, to 100, the full original vocal, and anything in between leaves the singer under the music as a guide. The video uses the same mix you hear in the preview, so what you set by ear is what you get.
- 0 for a party, a bar or a karaoke channel, where the person holding the microphone is the only voice.
- Low for learning a song: the original singer is there when you need a reminder of the phrasing, and quiet enough that your own voice leads.
- Higher for a lesson, where a vocal coach wants a student to hear the line clearly, or for a nervous singer at a party who would like some company.
A simple way to practise: learn the song with the guide clearly audible, then bring it down over a few sessions until you can sing it at 0. Renders are unlimited on the Creator plan, so a guide version and a clean version are two renders of the same project. Practise singing with a guide vocal has more on using the guide.
Add the words
A track without the vocals is only half of a sing-along; the other half is knowing what to sing and when. Paste the lyrics, one line per sung line, and every word is timed to the song, so the highlight follows the voice you are replacing through quick runs and long notes alike. The line being sung is set large, and the next one waits underneath, smaller and faded, so whoever is singing can read ahead.
If a line lands early or late, drag it: every timed line is a bar under the waveform, and its words move with it. Pull either end to change how long the line stays on screen. If you already have the song timed as an SRT file, load it, and the words of each line light up in turn across that line's time.
Then choose how the words light up. Wipe fills each word with colour from left to right while it is sung; Pop lights each whole word the moment it starts, with a small bounce. You pick the colour of the words still to come, the sung words and the glow behind them.
Export it as a video
What you take away is a video rather than a bare audio file, because the words are half of the job. It plays on a TV at a party, a laptop in a lesson or a phone on a music stand, with the music and the lyrics together in one file.
- Open a new Karaoke project and upload the full song, vocals and all.
- Paste the lyrics, sync them, and drag any line that needs a nudge.
- Set Vocal volume: 0 for the music alone, higher to keep a guide.
- Pick Wipe or Pop and your colours, then a background: a solid colour, an ambient gradient, or a picture or video clip with a blur you set.
- Choose the shape: landscape at 3840 x 2160 for YouTube or a TV, vertical at 2160 x 3840 for Shorts, Reels and TikTok, or square at 2160 x 2160 for feed posts.
- Press Render. The video is made on our servers at 60 fps with no watermark, and the MP4 waits in your library to download or publish to your YouTube channel.
For a Short, keep it brief: YouTube only treats a vertical or square video as a Short when it runs 3 minutes or less, so start a vertical project from an edit of just the chorus. The full walk-through covers every step in more detail, including how to design the frame around the words.
Can you post it?
You can make a karaoke version of any song you upload. Publishing it is a question of rights: the video still carries the song's music and its words, which belong to the people who wrote and recorded them. Post karaoke versions of your own songs, of songs you have licensed, or of songs whose owners allow it, and expect YouTube to check the upload against Content ID as it does any music.
Still deciding what kind of track you need? Backing track, instrumental or karaoke explains the difference. Otherwise, pick a song you know well and hear it in Karaoke without the vocals.