I use audacity to cut music for my figure skating programs. I’ve been doing this for a while, but still have really basic skills.
So I need your help for a song
I’m trying to reduce the volume of the vocals.
The background music has many variations that I like, but when played in the arena, we hardly hear them, and the vocals seem really loud in comparison.
Do you know any way to arrange that ? Or could anyone do it for me if it’s not too complicated ??
I’ve seen videos on youtube where you separate the two tracks of a stereo to invert one of them. It doesn’t really give the result I’m looking for…
When the music is played “in the arena”, is it being played over an “announcement public address system”? (Does it sound a bit like the announcement PA system that is typical of train stations?)
I’ve seen videos on youtube where you separate the two tracks of a stereo to invert one of them. It doesn’t really give the result I’m looking for…
What results are you getting? Too much vocal removal? Not enough vocal removal? Too much other stuff getting removed? It depends on the song… That procedure will remove everything in the “center” and if the vocals are identical in both channels, they will be completely removed.
…There is no need for that “manual invert method”. The Vocal Remover effect does the same-old subtraction trick with some optional frequency filtering (so you don’t kill the bass, etc.) or the newer Vocal Reduction and Isolation effect is more sophisticated with more options.
Or, you can try some equalization, turning-down the middle frequencies from about 300-3000Hz.
How much do you know about the set-up and connections? I assume your files are stereo and being played through a mono system? Do you know how that’s being handled? For example, if you simply “short” the left & right connections together with a Y-adapter you can sometimes get the opposite of a vocal remover where the “center” remains but the whatever is separate in the left & right channels gets killed. The result depends on the particular hardware but you should NEVER short two outputs together. (It’s OK to connect two inputs together.)
If you want to mix left & right channels, you can do it on a mixer (with separate inputs/channels for left & right) or you can mix digitally, in Audacity to make a mono file, or you can make a “dual mono” file with identical left & right channels. (Probably the “safest” thing you can do is make a dual-mono file.)
In any case, don’t use a Y-adapter to connect the left & right outputs.
Or, the system could be “tuned” for voice. For example, [u]this type of horn speaker[/u] is designed to “amplify and project” voice frequencies.
But, most “modern” arenas have PA systems designed for music.
