Audio Separation with KaraFan

KaraFan is a powerful, free tool for separating audio sources. It can extract vocals from a song, remove instruments, and more. This makes it an excellent tool for creating clean datasets for voice model training.

For more information, you can visit the official KaraFan GitHub repository.

Installation

You can run KaraFan on your local computer or on Google Colab.

Caution

KaraFan requires an NVIDIA GPU for local installation.

Local Installation

1. Create a folder on your PC where you want to store the KaraFan project.
2. Download and install Python 3.11. If you have another version of Python installed, you must uninstall it first.
3. Download the KaraFan installer (right-click and save as Install.bat).
4. On Windows 11, you may need to unblock the .bat file. Right-click the file, go to Properties, and click the Unlock button in the General tab.
5. Run the Install.bat file with administrator rights.
6. Once the installation is complete, run Setup.py by double-clicking on it.
7. You can now launch KaraFan by double-clicking on KaraFan.pyw.

Google Colab

1. Open the KaraFan Colab Notebook.
2. In your Google Drive, create a folder named Music for your input audio files and a folder named Vocals for the output files.
3. Run the first cell in the notebook to clone the KaraFan repository.
4. Run the second cell, labeled “This is it!”, to launch the KaraFan interface.

Note

The first time you use the Colab notebook, it will download the necessary models to a KaraFan_user folder in your Google Drive. If you keep this folder, you won’t need to download the models again next time.

How to Use KaraFan

1. Place the audio file you want to process in the Music folder (either locally or in your Google Drive).
2. In the KaraFan interface, enter the path to your audio file and the path to your output folder.
3. Choose the desired settings. The recommended settings for separating vocals are shown below.
4. Click the Start button to begin the separation process.
5. When the process is complete, you’ll find the separated audio files in your output folder. The main vocal track is usually named Vocal Final.

To separate vocals	To separate other audio sources

How to Update

To update your local installation of KaraFan, simply run the Setup.py file again.