If anyone's wondering how this works, what happens when you invert a track is the same if you invert an image, it becomes the exact opposite. If you were to layer these two over each other and they were both identical (mono) you would hear nothing because they would cancel each other out. The same thing would happen with the original image and the inverted one if you layered them with 50% opacity. Now the reason this cancels the vocals and not most of the other audio is because vocals are always recorded in mono, while most other instruments are recorded in stereo, giving them minute differences that stand out when the tracks are flipped.



So for an example of complete inversion cancellation you can split the stereo track in Audacity then change it from left or right to mono, duplicate it, and invert one of them. You should here nothing at all, pretty cool right?!



Well anyways, this doesn't really work to well, because some instruments are mono recorded, and you lose A LOT of sound quality with this technique, and the biggest problem is that there is a lot of added stereo reverb and effects added to vocals today.



Well I hope you enjoyed my little audio lesson today. :)