I’m new to audacity (to audio editing software, actually) and I need help with something. I Googled and Youtube’d for this topic but every time I typed in words like “isolate”, or “extract” or whatever, the google/youtube replaced them with remove, which is exactly the opposite of what I’m trying to achieve with audacity.
More specifically… I have a mp3 file that has double voice recording somewhere in the middle and until the end of the file. I’m not sure that the second voice (of the same person that speaks in the main file) can be considered background noise, or if it’s indeed a second layer of sound that has been added over the first one, but what I know for sure is that I need that second layer extracted, and saved. That’s the layer I’m interested in saving and putting in a mp3 file of its own, so as you can see I don’t want it removed, like I find 1000s of tutorials about on google and youtube.
Now, please don’t ask me to see the file because I can’t give it to you. It’s a confidential file from my job, and only a few people have access to it. Really sorry I can’t send it to you, but I’m sure you understood what I’m trying to achieve.
This is somehow urgent, and if you can help with this I’d appreciate it a lot.
Obviously it is even harder to help if you can’t offer the file. Are you sure the second voice is not just an exact reverberation of the first, same words?
You can try the Isolation options in Vocal Reduction and Isolation. This will only help if the voice you want is panned differently to the voice you don’t want. Isolation won’t help if the second voice is reverbed and spread into the whole stereo field. You’ll just have to experiment.
If it’s a mono file that is more or less the end of the story. You can’t unbake a cake.
First, I didn’t swear??
Secondly, yeah, they’re not the same words. The voice on the foreground is predominant, but the voice on the background is of the same person, but totally different words.
Thirdly, what do you mean by “mono”?
Fourthly, thanks for the link. I’ll take a look at it right away.
Using words that describe the opposite of heaven and the red liquid in the human body is swearing. If you use such words they will be removed and the edit noted.
Mono is one channel, as opposed to stereo which is left and right channel. When you import your file into Audacity, it will say stereo or mono to left of the blue waves.
Generally, stereo has two blue waves, one intended for your left ear and one for your right. As should be obvious by now, you are after “isolate.” That tool works by detecting if one voice is slightly more left or right than the other. It’s an arithmetic trick. It’s not going to give you a studio recording and it’s going to fail completely if the two voices are exactly one on top of the other.
Even if you do have two blue waves and it says “Stereo,” you may still get nailed if the recording has exactly the same thing on the two blue waves. Natural stereo almost always has some difference between the two waves. I have a mono microphone system (one microphone) that produces two blue waves that are exactly the same. Technically, that’s the same as mono and the isolation tool will fail.
See? Two blue waves and it says stereo, but the waves are the same and the Isolation tool will just not work.
