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Removing bass from recordings for play-along

Philly J

Philly J

Dec 15, 2023
18
10
#1
Just wondering what software is best to remove bass from recorded songs in order to play along? I have both Audacity and Transcribe, but so far the results sound thin and trebly. Any suggestions for using these two software products, or others?

Many thanks for your input/suggestions.
 
#2
You might wanna try the AI approach - de-mixing is what they call it I think? It's what the remaining Beatles (and Giles Martin) did to produce their last song.
Try this one - apparently completely free and online-based, as long as you sign up (for unlimited de-mixing requests, they stated): Free Online Ai Stem Splitter - Isolate instruments from a song - Voice.ai

Just used it earlier today, and hey it's pretty decent, laid down a bass track smoothly without having to hassle the mixing engineer to send me the recording stems.
There's better paid options out there though such as LALAL.AI, I've tried the free version and it's almost too good to be true. Super clean.
 
#3
When I practice with a track that has bass, I typically run it through a playback device with limited low end like a phone or small speaker.

Otherwise, if you have the setup, you could hi-pass (low cut) the audio via your device settings on your computer.

I find that the volume difference of my instrument means that even if there was some bass guitar in the mids of the recording, I'm much louder than it at that point.
 
#10
To be honest @Les Fret, I am not sure about a desk top version, do not have a mac. I use it on my Ipad Pro and Iphone. It cost $40 for a year but they do let you use it for free with limitations like only 3-4 songs per month and only the first 30 seconds for note transcribing. Been worth it for me, I then save the song to my files, minus the bass, then pull it into Garageband and record my bass to the song. Sometimes I do the opposite and just save the bass part to file so I can figure out what/how the bass is being played. Hope this helps…
 
#13
Virtual DJ will do a decent job of it live (and also let you isolate just the bass, for a change, loop bits, change tempo etc.), and it's free for non-professional use. It's potentially a very very powerful practice tool. I've used it to isolate vocals to transcribe some German-accented English lyrics just a couple of weeks ago.
 
#16
SoundID Reference can be used to cut the low end across your entire system. That's why I use it for my play-alongs – it affects everything that plays through your computer, from YouTube videos and local files to Spotify and beyond. I don't have to spend time on countless individual files.

Even though this software is primarily designed for calibrating studio monitors, this system-wide adjustment is a sweet bonus feature.
 

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