Removing Vocals from this MP3, Possible?

I tried to remove vocals from the below piece using Adobe Audition, however I did not have any luck. I am pretty sure that it is not possible (for this particular file) but before I jump to that conclusion, can anyone tell me if you have any luck removing the vocals on this piece here?

Overture

I'm sure they have technology that can do this, but it's not meant for public consumer use. Audio processing, as far as I know, it a very highly sepcialized skill.

This that said, your best bet is to get a recording without vocals.

There are two ways of which I know to remove vocals from a recording, and both operate with varying degrees of success, depending on the recording in question. It must however be remembered at all times that there are no ways to remove vocals from a merged recording that do not seriously reduce the quality of the recording.

If the piece is studio-recorded, in stereo, and has been mixed in such a way that the vocals are positioned centrally, then inverting and overlaying the tracks sometimes cancels out the shared frequencies. If this works (and I've had few successes with this method), it works brilliantly.

The second method is to use selective equalisation on those parts of the track that contain vocal lines. This is by far the less desirable method, since it cuts out much the the middle-frequencies of the accompaniment. That's fine if it's something like a bass synthesizer, but terrible if it's a string orchestra (which has very similar dominant frequencies to those of the voice)

Zetetic,

How can you tell if the vocals are positioned centrally? I am wondering if the mp3 recording I posted above was recorded this way. A woman contacted me desperately wanting me to sequence the broadway musical "Oliver" for her, but there is no way I have the time to do this. I'd have to sequence all the sheet music for all 18 or 19 scenes (yeah right!), then record it. Thus, I figured removing the vocals from the recordings would be the best bet.

Mike, you're bound to be able to download good midis of it. Have you thought of that tack?

Yes indeed. The midis aren't exact, but I told her they are close enough. I will go that route if the vocal removing is impossible, which, I think it is. If she really wants this all sequenced, I will either have to say tough, or I will have to outsource the jobs on YC for $$. She has to give me a budget though.

Vocal Removal - Audacity Wiki

Audacity is open source, too, so its free.

Sequencing from midis is easy though. And you'd obviously have to do a fair amount of tweaking to the midis before using them.

I just listened to the track. There's no WAY you'd be able to remove the vocals without totally wrecking the recording. The voices are of a group of children, so they fill the whole acoustic spectrum, they're far louder than the accompaniment, and they're positioned on both tracks.

I suggest you record a pleasant MIDI version, get someone to record the piano part or locate a singalong karaoke track (they must be around on the net somewhere).

It would sound all kinds of messed up, but you could set up a moving filter.. ti'd be tedious, but I'm sure you could tweak out enough to use as a backing track..

Honestly. It's not worth it. It would end up sounding like a kazoo orchestra playing underwater.