My wife and I sang a duet at our church. Our sound man recorded us and sent me the recording. Unfortunately, it’s not balanced. There are three sounds: my voice, her voice, and the keyboard. The keyboard is loudest, her voice is next (and has reverb), my voice is softest (with no reverb).
When I play the file (mp3) in Audacity, there are two tracks, but they sound identical.
Is there a way to fix this? Am I out of luck?
Thanks.
No. Yes.
It continues to be the case that we can’t separate a mixed performance into solos. There’s the remotest of possibilities if the show was in stereo and you were spread out left to right, but if the show is really two-track mono, that was the last chance. It’s actually worse in MP3 because MP3 compression adds its own layer of distortion. Sorry.
You join thousands of people trying to split the guy talking or clapping during a concert recording.
It’s a version of violation #4.
The Four Horsemen of Audio Recording (reliable, time-tested ways to kill your show)
– 1. Echoes and room reverberation (Don’t record the show in your mum’s kitchen.)
– 2. Overload and Clipping (Sound that’s recorded too loud is permanently trashed.)
– 3. Compression Damage (Never do production in MP3.)
– 4. Background Sound (Don’t leave the TV on in the next room.)
Koz
It may be possible to improve the overall effect by using the Equalization effect (http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/equalization.html)
If you could post a short sample we can take a look.
See here for how to post an audio sample: https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/how-to-post-an-audio-sample/29851/1
OK. I’ve attached about three seconds of the recording, a section where we are both singing and the keyboard is playing.
After reading other replies, I don’t hold out much hope, but I appreciate your willingness to check it out.
Thanks!
Michael
That WAV file is proper stereo : the tracks are not identical,
so it is possible to reduce the reverb by only taking what is common to both left and right tracks,
i.e. “isolate/extract centre” using a plugin like Kn0ck0ut …
Now the bad news Kn0ck0ut adds computery processing artifact sounds , and is inevitably mono, not stereo …