One thing I was never able to do growing up was finding instrumentals for songs I really wanted to record myself singing to (please don't look me up on YouTube). I was definitely not talented enough to know how to separate vocals and audio myself.

Today, you have apps that do this for you. So if you've wanted to host a karaoke night, or just listen to what artists sound like without any music, this tech-letter's for you.

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Lalal 🎙

This email is going to contain a lot of images, so I hope you're ready to be entertained.

Lalal is a website I came across recently that allows you to upload audio files, and have it extract instrumental and vocal tracks for you. It's honestly as straight forward as that. 

If you have an audio track saved on your computer, after uploading it, this online tool lets you customize how strongly you want this audio track to be processed (mild, normal, aggressive - but we'll get into this later), and then lets you download your two new audio tracks: instrumental and vocal. 

I'm going to go through how it works.

If you already have audio tracks saved, then you can ignore this step. But if you don't, I'm about to make you realize why this newsletter is (or should be) your new favourite.

Remember Tech-Letter #27? The one where I covered how to download videos from YouTube? That's about to come in real handy.

If you don't have an audio track saved, look for your song on YouTube. You don't have to specifically look for a non-music video, or even the "official" video for that matter. But note, if you choose one of those "live" (recorded) concerts, your end-result tracks might not be as crisp because there's way too much going on in concert videos (people shouting, special effect noises, etc). 

After you've found your song, type in pp right before ".com" (step 2).

This will redirect you to y2mate, the platform I covered in Tech-Letter #27 that lets you download videos. Lucky for you, it lets you download audio files too (step 3 & 4). This is all free by the way. The only money you should be spending is on self-improvement and buying me coffee.

After that, simply visit Lalal and upload this new audio track you just downloaded (or already have). 

P.S. This obviously isn't for music only. Try it with any audio file you have. 

As far as the "processing level" goes:

Mild is the least level of separation. You will probably still hear a bit of audio on the vocal track, and a bit of vocals on the audio track.

Normal is the default amount. They claim that most of the errors are corrected, but there might be artificial elements added (don't worry about this too much). 

Aggressive is, obviously, as maximum as maximum goes. Instead of me explaining, just upload your audio track and try all 3 - keep the one you like!

And this is what your end-screen will look like. One audio track, and one vocal track. Both are playable from the browser itself (though you can't forward/rewind), and both are downloadable (and you can forward/rewind).

This might not be a tool you use every day but if younger me is proof of anything, it's that I've waited for this for over a decade.

P.S. They offer samples on their website, but if you want to hear the track I used for the screenshots above, here is the audio-only version, and here is the vocals-only version.

Price? Free ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Format? Website ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐