Audio Editor Question

[7bill4]

I am a new forum member and I woould like to know if there might be a preferably free program that permits isolating and saving the background vocal and music from a song and eliminates the foreground words of dialogue. I am not sure it is even possible but I thought I would ask. Have a WAV file I ripped from DVD, there is talking (louder) in the foreground, and the song words and music plays in the background. I want to either increase volume of song and decrease or eliminater the dialogue and save the isolated song, or at least be able to hear it without turning the dialogue uncomfortably loud. I have searched but have been unsuccessful. Can anyone say if possible to do this and name a free program, or at least a cheap one that will suffice. Want cheap or free for dont do this often, and even a trial download would be good.

[kozikowski]

You can try Effect > Vocal Removal in Audacity 1.3. Audacity 1.2 is no longer directly supported.

http://audacityteam.org/download/

Vocal Removal is the shortcut name. It's real, birth certificate name is "Center Pan Removal," because that's what it does. If the lead singer is in the left-right dead center of the stereo show and has no stereo effects added to the voice, then vocal removal may do a pretty good job of removing it from the show. It leaves the show mono, not stereo. Everything in the middle goes too, like frequently bass and drums.

Most productions fail. It doesn't work on a mono show -- at all. It fails in highly compressed MP3 downloads, etc. etc. etc.

All the Audacity versions are free.

Koz

[kozikowski]

You can't separate mixed voices from a production. There's no such thing as "picking out this voice" and managing it independently from the others -- save the direction thing that Vocal Removal uses. A very typical problem is somebody records an important vocal presentation with the TV on in the background. The TV is now a permanent performer in the show. Crowd recordings have the same problem.

Koz