Separating Music from Speaking

[coolkidz33]

I could not find this being covered anywhere else. I have a track that has music in the background and some speaking in the foreground. Can I separate the 2 tracks so I only have the music?

Jon

[kozikowski]

Can I separate the 2 tracks so I only have the music?

There are no "two tracks." You only have one mixed track. There were originally two tracks and you're trying to get back there.

Audacity 1.3 ships with Effects > Vocal Remover. This tool will remove anything in the middle of the stereo field, so if the voice is in the "foreground" and dead center left to right and the music is in the background and stereo, then the tool will give you a mono music track without the voice.

That's it. Past that, you can't separate musical instruments from a mixed track, the voice being one instrument.

Koz

[polkat]

There is a wide variety of possible success with Vocal Remover. I have tried it on tracks where the vocal seemed to be dead center, and it didn't work well at all. Also sometimes seems to remove some bass. I question it's value.

[kozikowski]

I question it's value.

So do we.
Koz

[steve]

There is a wide variety of possible success with Vocal Remover. I have tried it on tracks where the vocal seemed to be dead center, and it didn't work well at all. Also sometimes seems to remove some bass. I question it's value.

The well know "Center Pan Cancellation" method for vocal removal will occasionally work really well, but more often the results will be mediocre at best.
It will effectively remove all sound that is dead centre in the stereo mix.
Two common problems that you have indicated:

1) Although a vocal may sound like it is dead centre, modern production techniques often use large amounts of stereo effects on the vocal so that much of the vocal sound is different in the left and right channels, causing the technique to fail.

2) Bass sounds are commonly panned dead centre, and will be removed along with the vocal. This problem can be partly overcome by specifying a frequency band for the effect to be applied to.

[billpowrie]

Hi

First time post so please forgive me if its been covered!


How can I seprarate and delete my voice from the music in background, so I can use it as backing track ?
Bill

[steve]

Hi

First time post so please forgive me if its been covered!


How can I seprarate and delete my voice from the music in background, so I can use it as backing track ?
Bill

If you made a multi-track recording, then just mute the vocal track and Export.