is there a website that can remove vocals from a song?

How much you get to keep for free differs a lot between them, so here they are by need.

If you want it free in the browser

Fadr is a web stem splitter and remix tool that extracts vocals and other instruments. Fadr says Basic is free for life, with unlimited stems, remixes and DJ sets and MP3 downloads, so there are no minutes to count before you get a file. You do need to sign up, and Basic takes songs up to 10 minutes long.

The catch is the format and the extras. Lossless WAV downloads, individual drum stems, Fadr's Pro Stems and the plugins are on Fadr Plus only, at $10 per month or $100 per year, and Plus raises the upload limit to 1 hour a song; the site was showing a 50% off Fadr Plus banner when we checked. If you want an instrumental to sing over, an MP3 may be all you need. If you need lossless audio, you will pay.

If you want it free and offline

Ultimate Vocal Remover is a free, open-source desktop app for Windows, Mac and Linux, released under the MIT licence on GitHub. There is no account and there are no minutes, and your song stays on your own computer rather than being uploaded.

If you're after a different sort of audio trick, changing a voice rather than stripping one out, there's a separate guide on apps that change your voice. It covers live options for games and calls on a PC or Mac, phone apps that work on recordings, and a free Windows pick.

What you give up is the website. It is a download you install yourself, and its site asks for donations.

If you are learning to play a song

Moises is a musicians' app on the web, desktop, iPhone, iPad and Android that separates a song into up to 27 stem types. You can mute the part you play or solo the one you are learning, and it has chord, tempo and lyric tools as well. That is a different job from stripping the vocals off a track.

What you give up is a clear price. There is a free tier with a limited number of uploads each month and a select set of features, and its UK App Store listing says the free plan separates vocals, drums and bass. Moises says its full pricing and features table is shown only after you log in, but the UK App Store lists Premium at £4.99 a month, or £34.99 or £39.99 a year, and Pro at £24.99 a month.

If you process a lot of audio

LALAL.AI is a web vocal remover and stem splitter, with desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, iOS and Android apps and a VST plugin on Pro only. Its paid plans include unlimited minutes in the Relaxed Queue, which is slower, plus 90 Fast Queue minutes a month on Lite or 250 on Pro.

The trade is how it counts. Minutes are the file length times the number of stem types you select, so splitting more stems uses minutes faster. Choose only the stems you need.

When paying is worth it

The clearest case is LALAL.AI. Its free Starter plan gives 10 minutes and 200MB per file but no result downloads, so you can hear a result but not keep it. To download, you need Lite at €6.75 per month (€81 billed annually) or Pro at €13.5 per month (€162 billed annually). Billed monthly, Lite is €8.99 and Pro €17.99. Those prices were shown to us in euros and may vary by region.

With Fadr and Ultimate Vocal Remover, the free route already gives you a file, so paying only makes sense if you need WAV downloads, drum stems or Fadr's plugins. With Moises, the website shows its full price table only after you log in, so the App Store prices are the ones we could see.

LALAL.AI's terms say you are solely responsible for the usage and distribution of the files you upload and the results. Whether you can use an instrumental you make depends on the rights in the song, not on the tool.

LALAL.AI's refund policy says payments are generally non-refundable, with refunds at its discretion in cases such as technical errors, and unused Fast Queue minutes do not roll over to the next month, so a bigger plan than you use is money lost.

Moises's full price table is shown only after you log in, so compare before you sign up. And remember that LALAL.AI's free plan does not let you download anything, however good the result sounds.