STEP 1

Open the song of your choice — Audacity supports AIFF, FLAC, MP2, MP3, Ogg Vorbis and WAV formats — and choose “Select All” from the drop-down Edit menu to select the entire track. From the Edit menu, select “Copy.”

STEP 2

Hover over “Add New” and select “Stereo Track” from the drop-down Tracks menu to create a new track. This creates a new track with a left and right audio channel. From the Edit menu, click “Paste” to create a duplicate copy of the song in stereo.

STEP 3

Select the duplicate track and access the drop-down Effect menu. Choose the “Vocal Remover (for center-panned vocals)” option. Click “OK” on the dialog box that appears.

STEP 4

Choose “Noise Removal” from the Effect menu with the duplicate track still selected. Press the “Get Noise Profile” button on the window that appears. This causes Audacity to capture the track’s noise profile.

STEP 5

Select the original track. Choose “Noise Removal” from the Effect menu once again, but this time press the “OK” button to apply the Noise Removal effect. This reduces or eliminates the audio presence of the backing music track.