I want to only hear the background vocals/noises....

[ks_racegirl727]

(This is a very odd question but curious and I'm practicing with my editing skills because I have none : )

I've been listening to a song that I did NOT record, therefore, I don't have the original tracks, nor will I have a way to get them.
I'm hearing some interesting background vocals and noises and I want to hear them more clearly without all the other sounds, but when I try to do edit it, the front vocals ether come back or the actual music behind both voices(an acoustic guitar, bass...maybe a few other things) are really loud and it drowns out the other sounds that I want to hear.

I've been playing with equalizers and a few other volume settings to see if I can find the frequency, but I can't find it.
Is there away to turn down the vocals and the music and just leave the background vocals and noises? Oh and I think that the background vocals had a reverb a little bit, they sound a little like echos too.

Thanks!

[kozikowski]

It's almost universally true that you can't take apart a finished performance. If it's a mono and not stereo performance, then it's 100% true you're out of luck.

If you have a very gently compressed or not compressed at all stereo performance, then you might be able to use one of these tools to delete the lead singer.

Almost 100% of these jobs fail as well, say a 2% or 3% success rate.

Voice Removal or Isolation
--Center Pan Remover (Voice Remover--Search the page for "Center Pan Remover")
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/nyquistplugins
--Voice Trap
http://www.cloneensemble.com/vt_main.htm
--Extra Boy
http://www.kvraudio.com/get/1651.html
--Kn0ck0ut
http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/

The reason you can't get the equalizer to find the frequency is there isn't one. All rich, lush, expensive sounding instruments have a number of frequencies (overtones) and that's what makes them sound so good.

This is one (1) grand piano note taken apart into all its frequencies...

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/piano_G1.jpg

That's either the first or second note from this performance...

http://www.kozco.com/tech/piano2.wav

Koz

[Irish]

Also see this page from the wiki:

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/index.php?title=Vocal_Removal

which goes into some detail on how it works (or, more often, doesn't).

PO'L

[ks_racegirl727]

Okay...I'll explain what I've done so far...lol (Thank you for the possible 2-3% working ways : )

I did get rid of the lead vocals but I have to keep the split tracks at the same level and when I turn up the volume to hear the background vocals, the acoustic guitar blares. Anyway to turn them both down at the same time? If both are gone or at least turned down, I should be able to hear them clearer.

Thanks for your help.

[kozikowski]

The Vocal Removal tools work be deleting Stuff In The Middle. That's why they only work on a Stereo show. In a Mono show, everything is in the middle. Many of the more common tools also give you back a mono production after filtering out the lead singer.

This kills all the rest of the tools.

One of the tools in that list claims to be able to get rid of One Direction in a stereo field. Like if the guitars were recorded half-left in your headphones, you can tune the tools for that direction. To get that to work, you need to put the lead singer back, and correct me, but that's the tool that costs money.

They know what they have.

Koz