Free karaoke maker

How to make a karaoke track

Making a karaoke version takes three moves. Drop the song, wait while the split runs, then download the track. Whatever file your browser can play works: an MP3 from your library, a WAV from a session, even the sound of a video file. A karaoke track is the song with the voice taken out and everything else left where it was: the drums, the bass, the guitars, the keys, the strings and the effects.

Under the hood, this karaoke version maker splits the song into its parts with a neural network, then adds every part back together except the vocals. That is the whole trick, and you can hear it before you save: switch between Karaoke and Original to check that the track is the one you want to sing over.

A karaoke track is audio only. For the words, keep the lyrics on your phone, on a printed sheet or in any lyrics display you like, and press play on the track.

Singing with a guide vocal

A clean karaoke track is what you want when you know the song. When you do not, a bare backing track can leave you guessing where the melody goes. The guide vocal slider keeps a little of the original singer under the music, like a pencil sketch of the tune. It starts at Off, and it moves in steps of 2 dB, from very quiet up to -6 dB, which is about half the original level.

A good way to use it: learn the song with the guide a little higher, then lower it a step each run until you can sing without it. For a performance, set it to Off. The slider changes what you hear right away, and the file you download has exactly that level in it. A guide vocal in the file shows in its name, for example Karaoke, guide -12 dB, so you never mix up the versions.

Keep in mind that the guide is the original voice, with its words and its phrasing. It is there to point at the notes, not to hide a missed one, so keep it low if you want the track to sound like karaoke.

What is in the track, and what is not

The model hears every voice as a vocal. Lead and backing voices, harmonies and ad-libs all leave together, so a song with a big choir becomes a very empty track. If you want some of that back, the guide vocal brings back the whole vocal part, backing voices included, at the level you pick.

We do not add lyrics or timing, and we do not change the key or the tempo. If the song sits too high or too low for you, change its key in your DAW or a pitch tool once you have the karaoke track. The track comes out at 44.1 kHz stereo, whatever the sample rate of your file was.

Tips for a cleaner karaoke track

Start from the best file you have. A WAV or a high-bitrate file separates more cleanly than a small MP3, because compression blurs the detail the model relies on. If a trace of the voice stays in the track, run the song again in HQ: it is a newer model that separates more cleanly on public benchmarks.

Listen to the whole track once before the night. Dense mixes, heavy reverb on the voice and instruments that sound like a voice, such as a synth lead or a vocal chop, can leave a faint ghost of the singer. Near the end of a song, a long reverb tail can carry on for a second or two after the voice has stopped.

Keep the volume sensible. If any part of the sum would pass full scale, we lower every file by the same small amount and say so under the player, so the track never clips. Turn the track up on the speaker afterwards.

Parties, rehearsals and covers

A karaoke version helps well beyond the party. Singers rehearse with the real arrangement instead of a copy, choirs practise a part against the recording, and cover artists record their own take over the original backing. Teachers hand students a track for the song they picked.

Once you have sung over the track, the next step is the Vocal + beat mixer: it takes your karaoke track as the beat, you add your recording, and you hear the two mixed and mastered.

Nothing to upload, nothing to pay

The work happens on your device, so your song is never uploaded and no server bill forces a limit on you. There is no sign-up, no credit counter and no daily cap, only a length limit of 10 minutes per song, or 6 in HQ. The tool is in beta: it works, it is new and it is getting better. Tell us what you think at info@obra.art.

Learn more, or get a person on it

Read the mastering guides, comparisons and data, or send your tracks to an engineer with OBRA ULTRA.