Can music be seperated from other audio?

[vivsavage]

Allright, I'm 99% sure there is no way to do this, but... is there some way to remove music from audio that has already been mixed? That is, if you have a scene with music and dialog that has already been mixed into the same track, can you somehow seperate one from the other? Some magical software solution?

[edsmith77]

Yup. With the Some Magical Solution software you mentioned.
In reality, if the tracks are already mixed into a single track, I do believe that most hobbyists do not have the wherewithal (i.e., equipment) to do quality filtering of the audio in order to separate out the desired tracks. In other words, it probably aint worth the cost or time. Plus, the results may not be of the quality you would like.
In laymans I think you need equipment with settable (tunable) bandpass filters.

Others with or who actually do this sort of thing can provide you with a much more accurate answer.

[simonsonjh]

Buying the soundtrack CD would be much easier.

[vivsavage]

Buying the soundtrack CD would be much easier.

My goal is to have a scene without music; in other words, just dialog. So it's not the music I want to keep.

[trossin]

If you have the original music you could try doing a simple subtract of the music from the audio. I'm not sure of any software that allows you to do this but maybe Audacity can do it for you. Mathmatically it will work but either you have to write your own code or try all kinds of fun games.

[vivsavage]

If you have the original music you could try doing a simple subtract of the music from the audio. I'm not sure of any software that allows you to do this but maybe Audacity can do it for you. Mathmatically it will work but either you have to write your own code or try all kinds of fun games.

I was thinking along those lines but I honestly have no idea how to do that, alas.

[Cornucopia]

If you have the original music you could try doing a simple subtract of the music from the audio. I'm not sure of any software that allows you to do this but maybe Audacity can do it for you. Mathmatically it will work but either you have to write your own code or try all kinds of fun games.

IF you had the original music--in 48kHz and LPCM
and
IF you had the DVD soundtrack in LPCM--not compressed
and
IF the soundtrack didn't have much SFX (or the SFX was part of the dialog stuff you wanted to keep)
and
IF the sound mixer(s) didn't vary the relative balance between Music, Dialog, and SFX (much or at all)
and
IF the sound mixer(s) didn't apply any post-mix processing
and
IF you could easily line up start times for both full soundtrack and Music-only soundtrack
and
IF both soundtracks had complete linear passages (no alt versions, no manic loops)

THEN you could do a simple (phase-inverting) subtraction
Otherwise, it won't work. I know, I've tried and I have the tools (and might be proud enough to say I have the skill).

re: Filtering
Even Hollywood studio engineers can't work those kinds of miracles (except in very special particular cases).
It's not worth it to even get your hopes up.

Scott

[edsmith77]

Cornucopia,
Pretty much what I said. It aint worth the effort, even if you had the tools.