Hello all—
This is my first post.
Windows 10 , Audacity version 2.1.2 , cant remember the install-whether .exe or zip-sorry.
I play in a BigBand and on gigs I give my iphone to folks sitting in the audience and record the tunes.
How can I remove their conversation from the recorded music? Sometimes the comments can be embarrassing!
Thanks a lot—
If there is music & talking at the same time there’s nothing you can do. 
If you are doing multiple performances you can mix & match and select the best take of each song. (That’s very common for professionally-recorded live recordings and of course they are usually multi-tracked with separate audience mics/tracks that they only bring-up during applause between songs.)
…If you could “unmix” a recording there would be no need for multitrack or stereo recording. If pro studios could un-mix, they could record the whole band at once with one microphone, unmix all of the instruments & vocals into individual tracks, and then re-mix to stereo.
I suggest you rig-up a “mic stand” closer to the band. Regardless of excessive audience noise, you usually pick-up too much room reverb in the normal audience location… The natural reverb that sounds great in a music hall usually doesn’t “sound right” when coming out of a pair of speakers in your living room. You usually get a better balance of recorded & reflected sound when you are close to the band. And, if you don’t get enough room sound you can add artificial reverb later.
If you have an iPhone you can get a [u]stereo-directional microphone[/u]. (There is lots of “audio stuff” for the iPhone/iOS.)
Directional mics will help to minimize audience noise and a pair set-up for stereo will allow you to get closer to the band while still getting a wide-enough angle to pick-up the whole band.
Or you can get a [u]solid state recorder[/u].
Yes-- talking and music at the same time.
Thanks very much for the detailed explanation.
Rick