filtering background music

[beau kang]

I'm working on updating an AMV that I've done in the past and want to add some of the main characters voices to be included in there.

What I don't want is the dramatic music that's in the background of their clips, and am having a hard time trying to filter them out.

Currently, I'm using Sound Forge in order to try and EQ some of the tracks, but my knowledge of sound is limited at best and would like to get a little help. If anyone has some insight on how to accomplish this, please let me know.

Thank you

[Iamshadowkiller]

Have you tried turning down the middle rangles on the music while your characters are speaking, specially around the 1khz-3khz area? This is where most human voices would be strongest at so it might help to make them standout a bit more without neccesarily turning down the volume on the background track. Also, is the background track just an instrumental or is there singing?

Maybe you can play around with the panning, have the track with the character speaking in the middle and pan two left and right while at the same time moving them a few milliseconds ahead to get some of that nice reverb effect and not have them being overpowered by the louder track.


I might just be talking out of my ass>: | or maybe not...but someone will undoubtedly come along and prove me wrong and to you I say, screw you pal, you're not the boss of me.

Alright good luck on this idea!

/end

[beau kang]

I did try to create a middle segment so that I could keep the character's voice in there, but I can't seem to find an option to create that channel in Sound Forge. I have Sound Forge 7.0 if you were wondering, and I have been playing with the panning with little success. Of course, it doesn't help that the scene that I'm using is part of the climactic ending to Gundam Wing. heh Any other ideas?

[Scintilla]

Have you tried turning down the middle rangles on the music while your characters are speaking, specially around the 1khz-3khz area? This is where most human voices would be strongest at so it might help to make them standout a bit more without neccesarily turning down the volume on the background track. Also, is the background track just an instrumental or is there singing?

Maybe you can play around with the panning, have the track with the character speaking in the middle and pan two left and right while at the same time moving them a few milliseconds ahead to get some of that nice reverb effect and not have them being overpowered by the louder track.

I'm thinking that the voices are not on a separate track from the BGM; at least, I have never seen any animé release where this was the case -- everything's in the same two stereo channels (or 5.1 surround).

The problem is separating the voices out after they've already been mixed with the BGM and sound FX; unfortunately, since this isn't a song recording we're talking about, the old trick of subtracting the left channel from the right to get rid of the vocals doesn't work (not that it always works on songs either), because there's no guarantee that the voices are going to be located dead center anyway (naturally, it'll vary depending on where in the scene the speaking character is standing).

[Iamshadowkiller]

Oh man now I feel like an ass, I just reread your post...the new clips you brought in had background music in them....man...i thought you had some nice clean voice overs and your music in the video itself was too overpowering....but what you're referring to is the clips with the voice clips having too loud of a background, my apologies...

Disregard my statements and just try increasing the mid frequencies and turn everything else down and see how that works, if not then yeah there's not much you can do...unless, you want to overdub the thing using your own voice, now there's an idea!

/end

[beau kang]

My voice is horrible. I want people to see it, not have a brain hemorage.

[Keeper of Hellfire]

You may have luck with looking at the channels. I have noticed it with the 5.1 sound of Noir - there's a strong difference between left and right channel. One contains nearly no BGM while the other has nearly no voices. But this depends also on the language version - in the Japanese version is the separation stronger than in the German.

[post-it]

I'm having a hard time trying to filter ...

The Process is called DBXing:
..Everything is recorded at different Sound Levels ( not loudnesses ) and the voice is no exception.

Everything is Compressed at different levels ( i.e. voices 63%, drums 0.0%, bass 18% ) all this is done for the Home Amplifiers Playback and for Recording the music over TV, Radio and Cassette/CD's. The Home Amplifier "EXPANDS" the sound-levels back to what it originally sounded-like when it was recorded LIVE.

You can Expand the Audio you want 2X, 4X, 16X normal levels and then drop the volume so you can hear only the voices you want to hear. Four years ago, I did it on "Stellvia - Prime Time" http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... hp?v=24554

If this is the affect you are talking about, let me know and I'll show you how it was done

[Scintilla]

I'm having a hard time trying to filter ...

The Process is called DBXing: ...
[truncated]

... Okay, let me see if I understand you correctly. Are you talking about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dbx_(noise ... ion)">this noise reduction process</a>?

And if so, how would you apply this to isolating vocals, and how would you accomplish it with common audio editing software?

I want to hear this one.

[post-it]

I want to hear this one.

.. ever wonder why you can not hear BOTH a Jet taking-off and a Pin Dropping from a table at the same time? Unlike Noise Reduction ( Dolby ) -or- ( an Equalizer ) DBX re-sets the hearing levels of sounds. When Compressed, both sounds can be heard. When Expanded, .... suprise ... you can hear either one Louder than the other `just by changing the Threshold Level.
.. There are 13 ways to change the Audio sounds that we hear and, yes, the DBX page you found only touches on the basic's. Within the pages you have noted are uses that people were willing to pay for -- but those of us who were experimenting with this Audio Art Form know Exactly what it can do.
.. In the Movie, "The Fugitive" a phone message was played-back and the background noises were Cancelled-out using an . . equalizer? LOL!!!! -- an equalizer can only change Tones; not Depth of the sound!!! DBX can bring almost any sound to life or hide it:

1) Roto-Blending is taking the left channel and changing the Phaze of the right channels sound locations and visa-versa. -- yes, you can change a piano in the left channel speaker and move it where-ever you want it. ( just one use for DBXing. )


2) DBX can change the Threshold of Sound Levels so we think that there is NO NOISE in the audio.

3) Combine Roto-Blending with Variable DBXing and only "Expand" the Audio and the process makes the Human Voice quite loud while leaving the background music at its normal levels. Record that Loud voice and quieter music to a file and turn the Volume-down while recording the Expanded mix; repeat the process enough times to effectively almost Cancel-out the background music.

.. but this is old news from the 1970's Quadrophonic Era. Today we call it AC_5, 6, 7 and AC_9 Technology -- yeah right!!! simple QS and SQ stereo encoding by Phase DisPlacements!

.. In most Audio Editors, like Magix and CoolEdit, they have something called "Expand Dynamics" or just "Expand" ... ^__^ gee; I wonder what THAT Does ??????????

? does this stuff actually work ? -- yeah, I grew-up Repairing this DBX and QS equipment .. plus VCR's, TV's C-band/Ku-band/uL and DSS LNA's and their Recievers. You tell me Scintilla; any chance I might have a Clue as to what I'm talking about?