how to remove the foreground portion of a voice recording

Audacity 3 Help Forum Windows
1

i am using audacity version 2.1.2. and my operating system is windows 10 version 1607. i obtained the .exe installer when i downloaded audacity.
i have some voice recordings that i am working with so i may better hear the people who are talking in the background.i have noticed on the graphic display of these recordings there appears to be two layers being represented. i am assuming that the smaller light blue portion represents the foreground portion of the recording while the larger dark blue portion represents the background. since i am only interested in what the people in the background are saying, is there any way to remove the foreground in its entirety so that only the background remains? if audacity isnt capable of this does anyone know of any other program i can use to accomplish this. any suggestions and of instructions will be gratefully appreciated as i am relatively new to the concept of deconstructing a recording. thank you…megan scott

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If you’re talking about the blue waves on the normal Audacity timeline, the lighter waves in the middle more or less represent the loudness of the show and the taller darker blue represents the sharper, louder, crisper, instantaneous parts of the show. It doesn’t split up into louder and softer voices.

Audacity can’t split up a mixed performance into into individual instruments, voices or sounds.

Trying to dig a voice out of either noise or other voices is hopeless. Noise Reduction seems to be what the doctor ordered, and the action and tools might be, but in order to get Noise Reduction to work, you have to find a segment of show where there is guaranteed only noise and no voice. If you can’t do that, that’s the end of Noise Reduction. Also, Noise reduction doesn’t work on noises or sounds constantly changing.

This is surveillance, right?

Maybe other elves will know of other software you can try.

Koz

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If this is for a legal case, we don’t take those on. You need to contact a qualified Audio Forensics expert who will have special software and whose work will be recognised by the courts.


Gale