Make a karaoke track from any song

A guide voice, if you want one

Singers learning a song often want the lead voice very quietly underneath, as a guide. The voice part is an ordinary sound on its own track, so click it and turn Volume down to 10 or 20% instead of switching it off. Export, and the guide goes into the file at that level.

The same works the other way round for practice: keep the voice at full level and lower the music, to hear the phrasing and the words clearly.

Making it fit your voice

A karaoke track is only useful if you can sing it. Two settings in the Audio Editor help:

• Speed. Click the music and pick 0.75× to learn a fast song, or a little faster to tighten a slow one. The pitch stays the same, so the key does not move. See change audio speed.
• Length. Drag the ends of the parts to skip a long intro or a fade-out you never sing to. Trim the voice and the music together so they stay lined up: see MP3 cutter.

Changing the key of a song is not in Octoolo, so a song that sits too high or too low for you stays in its original key.

Instrumentals for videos and practice

The same track serves more than karaoke nights. Video makers use instrumentals under a voice-over, dancers rehearse to them, and choirs and bands practice their part over the original arrangement. Export as MP3 for phones and players, WAV or FLAC for another editor. To put an instrumental under your own video, add it in the Video Editor's music lane.

How clean it sounds depends on the song: backing vocals leave with the lead voice, and reverb on a voice can leave a soft trace in quiet passages. For most pop and rock recordings the result is a usable sing-along track straight away.