Music editing software

[Rob_Merritt]

I would like to do some mixing of songs. Specifically I want to lift vocal tracks off original songs and put them over the music tracks of remakes and vice versia. Also maybe do some dance mixes of songs. While this is entirely for my personal use, I would like to use some decent software. I tried with cooledit but it didn't work to well. There are a few packages on the macs that friends of mine use to great resualts but alas I don't have a mac. I'm looking for something a virtual newbie could use.

[gameoverman]

It is not possible to 'lift' vocals out of recordings with today's tech, that ability is actually the Holy Grail of mixing music. There are half assed ways of trying to do that, not too good in my opinion. They involve canceling out parts of the track that are in stereo, since vocals are usually mono. Not worth the trouble in my experience.

What I do is to find acappella(spelling?) versions of the vocal you need, then mix that with the software of your choice. I use Acid, you can download a free 8 track version which is cool.

Alternatively, you can try to edit out snippets of vocals during parts that have little to no background music or noise, but that obviously is a very limited solution.

[Balshazaar]

Take a look at Sound Forge:
http://mediasoftware.sonypictures.com/products/soundforgefamily.asp

It's sister product, Vegas, is the best (non-Mac-specific) digital video editing package for under $2000.

[gameoverman]

To clarify:

You would use an editor like Audacity(free) to edit your samples.  You could continue to use the same editor to mix tracks, but I prefer to use a program like Acid, which is tailored for just that purpose. You get better control over your mix. It's easy to use too.