Is it possible to unmix a mono track?

[Prosparo]

HI I was recording a seminar over a few days and each day we "exported as mp3" my wednesday , thursday went fine but
fridays export has thrusday audio and fridays audio mixed together . my guess is we forgot to delete thrusdays track before "exporting as mp3" on friday.

Since i have a clean export of thursdays audio is it possible to "clean up" or subtract that day from fridays recording so taht i only have what was recored friday or am i stuck with my garlic mashed potatoes ????


thanks

stephen

[kozikowski]

They both play at once in the broken show, right? We normally hold a funeral for your show when that happens, but you actually have a fighting chance. Put both tracks in Audacity one above the other and invert one of them. Effect > Invert in Audacity 1.3. If you didn't do any production to either of the two tracks, the "wrong" show should vanish during playback and Export.

Koz

[Prosparo]

Thanks Koz i think its working .... after i did the invert i had to export it as an mp3 to notice the change for some reason if i do the "invert" effect and try playing back it sounds the same but when i exported and played back the new file it sounds like i was able to clear up the track ie now instead of thursday and friday being one i was able to remove thrusday from friday and now just have a track of friday ...

ill keep you posted how i make out removing thrusday friday and saturday from saturday and all 4 from sunday

[steve]

You are likely to still have some residual garlic in your potatoes due to the MP3 compression damaging the audio. If you use WAV format, the removal could be near perfect.

[Prosparo]

yeah i have thought about using wav format... however i usually post it all online for download. At the usual hour or two long wav format would just be tolarge to transfer. Mind you mp3 file that long is still 80-120mb but is much smaller then the wave.

[kozikowski]

WAV is a production format and MP3 is a delivery format. Now you know why.

Koz

[Prosparo]

Okay little trick to know ive had good success so far some of the music didnt take it so well but the speaking turned out good. ive got one session left to convert its the biggest tho its 4 sessions and i need just the one .... its stumped me for a bit but i think i know why .... when you are inverting BOTH tracks have to be the exact same length, along with lining all the timing up. so on the end of the last track there is 2 minutes of extra audio which wasnt manipulated so its okay so i had to cut it and save it as its own file .. and then cut the 2 tracks to be the same length hit invert and save as mp3 then had to jet from the office for the day so ill know tomorrow .

Thanks for the knowledge

[saveyourmix]

It is definitely possible to unmix a track:

Here's some examples:

[Adverts removed]

[kozikowski]

We have to be careful on the forum not to make it into a commercial for money-based products. All these tools are free, right? I don't see any actual product information. "Call me and we'll talk." is not product information.

Koz

[steve]

We have to be careful on the forum not to make it into a commercial for money-based products.

Absolutely - the forum would be buried in spam and totally unusable within 48 hours if the moderators did not constantly work to keep the place in good order as a Help Forum.

Nevertheless, they are interesting examples of what can be done to separate out sounds from a mix (given the right tools and enough time and effort).
These mixes illustrate well that even with a lot of time and effort, isolated tracks sound pretty rubbish on their own, though they may still be useful when integrated into a mix.

One of the best know plug-ins for isolating vocals/instruments is "Elevayta Extra Boy" which is available for the very reasonable price of $0.90
The "Pro" version of Extraboy is also available in a free (limited) demo version (current price for full versio $29.95)

There are other tools for spectral processing if you are able to throw enough money at the task including "iZotope RX", "Melodyne Studio" and "Bias Peak Pro" (serious $'s)

Hopefully saveyurmix will enter into the spirit and expand on his posts with some information/tips that other Audacity users will find useful.