Is Spotify about to launch a built-in karaoke feature that automatically reduces vocal levels in songs?

Karaoke
(Image credit: Future)

Thanks to Adele (possibly), Spotify has just removed the default shuffle option when you press play on an album page, but if rumours are to be believed, this isn’t the only change that the company is working on.

A Reddit user known as amethysts has posted a screengrab of what they claim shows the Spotify Mac app offering a feature called Sing Along. This appears to have three options - Off, More Vocal and Less Vocal - which could presumably be selected to set the amount of audible vocal in a song.

For this to be a Spotify feature, we’re guessing that it would have to use some kind of AI technology that can isolate and adjust the level of the vocals in real-time. Algoriddim has offered this in its djay app for over a year now via its Neural Mix tech, so it’s not inconceivable that something similar could be coming to Spotify.

What’s more, it’s worth noting that Spotify’s recently-added lyrics feature is provided by Musixmatch, which previously offered a vocal removal feature in its own app. This was later removed.

All that said, amethyst says that the buttons don’t actually do anything - apparently they were accessed via the Experimental Features menu on the Mac desktop version of Spotify, which isn’t available to us - so even if it is coming, the Sing Along feature could still be some way off. 

Ben Rogerson

I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it. 

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