Production & Technical Aid

[dougal]

i have a few questions regarding knockout, ive had it years but never really bothered with it regarding diy acapellas, as basically, they really never give what ya want despite being proffesional about it do they,, i mean really,, lol, but i decided id have a play,, now,, im either doing it wrong, or knock out is hugely full of crap, ive done several methods of vocal extraction in the past,, flipping, inverting, extraboy etc etc, but it appeared to me, knockout, despite every1 saying its great,, was infact actually the worst,, is it me?? if u look at the demo, u will see it shows u a half converted acapella of massive attacks unfinished symphony,, and acapella ive very much been after for a long long time, but yet,, im a member of quite a few acapella site, ive searched for this, with zero results, googled??? zero results again, but, i cant help thinking, if it was soooooo easy to make, how come this is such a hard acapella to find??? surely somebody somewhere wouldve either uploaded it, or used knockout and done it, and uploaded it somewhere, so it begs the question,, is it full of shit really?? or am i just being dumb,, ive even tried to do massive attack using knockout, and got a really bad result,, anybody wanna have a try???

[Logan]

Are you using Kn0ck0ut on Audacity? From what I've got out of using it for a while that (I guess only on Audacity, since other people told me it doesn't do this on other programs) it only leaves the lead vocals of whatever you're filtering. If the lead vocals are layered over other vocals, then it really doesn't come out that clean, especially if the phase inversion doesn't clean out a good majority of the instrumental. If you're using any other program besides kn0ck0ut, it's actually a pretty decent acapella maker. I know a few people who make acapellas with it, and they usually turn out clean, but not the highest of quality. You could always just go to someone who makes acapellas already (like glamouracapellas or anyone else who does it) and ask them to make one for you.

[INGSOC]

Knockout vst is ancient now compared to many new software apps. I've never heard a near studio quality acapella made with knockout, always swooshy sounding.

[kaeovo]

Snap - The Power and Fugees - Killing Me Softly DIYs were done with Knockout. Both sound OK/very good. Knockout is cool, but has its limitations. I've also wondered how Unfinished Sympathy DIY never made it to the public. And I've tried making it using original tracks from the CD single, but couldn't achieve same results. I've just written an e-mail to the author about the Unfinished Sympathy, we'll see if he replies or not...

[dougal]

that brilliant, as i say ive tried also, i do know u have to have the same bitrate when doing a diy, and as mentioned above, its not as good using mp3s. but yes, it does hugely make me wonder why massive attack pella never made it out, udve thort some1 would have it somewhere,, ive got well over 11gb of acapellas, and loads of them are very rare, but no assive attack,

[INGSOC]

You'll need to use the Paul Oakenfold mix if you want any success. I made that pella a long time ago before my hd crash. If you try and use the original album mix the synths do not cancel and the instrumental is not even the same length. Same tempo, but does not line up properly. If someone can send me wav rips of the Oakenfold vocal and instr from the cd single I'll have another go at it with some better weapons this time. :)

[kaeovo]

OK, you knew this was coming: what better weapons? :) I have the CD single so I'll try and do it (next week). If there's any problem, I'll let you know. Cheers.