Drum removal

Hello, I have received a stereo mp3 from a friend who wants me to put down some bass and drum ideas. The problem I have is that the tracks have simple drum parts mixed with the rhythm guitar and vocals. he lives in a remote part of Australia and doesnt have hi speed internet. I have installed the files on a new reaper project and removed most of the bass drum using ReaEQ but the drummer played a very simple rim over snare part that I need to get rid of. Its timing conflicts with what I am trying to do. Thank you, Hemog

"You can't un-bake a cake or un-fry an egg, and you can't un-mix a recording." Real world sounds contain harmonics & overtones so you can't filter-out a single instrument or vocal without affecting other sounds. (There are some "center channel" vocal removal & isolation tricks, and o course you can remove the left or right channel.)

If you can edit the recording to be mostly cleaned up with just a handful of trouble spots, you might be able to remove the last artifacts with the iZotope spectral editing tool. This CAN be almost like a magic trick. :) You just have to pick your battles. If the recording is important and there's no way to recreate it, you might be able to restore it with just a little too much work. :D

How about having your friend create another MP3 of the song without the drums? Or maybe even burn the entire project to a CD and send it via snail-mail?

Thanks 

He recorded and lost the original and the mp3 is all he has left. He sent it to me just to try to get a new version in his head before he re records it. If i can't find a way to get rid of the snare, I will use your suggestion for him to re record the guitar and vocal to a click and send it snail mail. Thanks, Hemog

This is from another thread on this exact issue just a couple weeks ago. Check out the link. It's pretty mind-blowing

The full version of Melodyne!

If he's recorded the snare in the middle of the stereo field you should be able to remove it with the free Voxengo mid/side plug in

2 options. if hes using samples etc, simply zip up the reaper project and send it to you. you do your parts and remove the drums. other option is to render the project without drums and you can import it into reaper with the right temp.