It is possible - however you'll need an instrumental of the same track you want the vocal from. And you'll need them of the same bit rate (preferable WAV). Invert the wave of one on the tracks, and when you play both exactly at the same time, you'll only be left with the vocal (as the waves cancel each other out). However, I've only ever successfully done this once.
couldn't say it better..
and Id defo say yeah of course you can get some very nice result by this way usually called "substraction" or "phase inverting"... I do most of my trance acapellas by this way. the result can be very very nice....depending on your sources. (I have some good example) sometimes you'll have a perfect clear acapella (without any other instruments) sometimes some noises but it can be imporved most of the time . ..sometimes a synthacapella depending on the stereo field of the whole track...where are the sounds around the voice I would say between " " are they on L+R+C or just L+R or C)
There
some other cool tools which can be useful when no instrumental available for a subtraction if it's correctly used it's possible to decrease some elements. try
ExtraboyPro or the well known "Center Channel Extractor" from
Adobe Audition. (v2 or higher)
There's a third way, everybody can do it in a few clics, the result is direct.
I mean no phase inverting, no EQs...
I did some and the result is awseome..it's a DVD 5.1 extraction.
the tool you need :
-the song in DVD 5.1 (héhé.. not easy I know..but..)
-a DVD audio extractor software..
-enough space on your HD. (wav)
open it, choose the song you want to extract the audio from, start the extraction and it will
split the song in 5 separate channels..(5 tracks in .wav format)
Each channel have is own instruments.. the main voice as allways for contemporary music will be on the center channel, (channel 03/track 03.wav)
in summary :
-put your dvd..
-choose track(s)
-start the extraction
-when done, go to the source folder and listen to the channel03..
voilà.
sometimes you'll have some percussions under the voice.. or everthing which is in mono. but it's easy to be masked under a louder kick. but can be imporved...
so yeah it's possible, depending on the source you have.
and finally..personnaly I don't suggest the classic Vocal Remover (good for karaoké fans) or a Reduction Noise plugins... it kills the voice..
hoping it's not boring and it'll helps ..and sorry for my approximative english