Can't explain in a few words, please read

[bvcproductions]

I've recorded a little video clip of 2 people talking, but there is music in the background which is very loud. You can hear one of the people very nicely, but the other person is very hard to hear. The only way you can understand what he's saying is if you loop the clip a couple of times and listen very carefully.

This has to be the conversation of the century, the millenium even, and I'd really like to make the speech hear-able for others to hear clearly without having to loop the whole clip a number of times.

If I import the clip into SoundForge, you can see the volume raise when the un-hear-able person speaks, so I was wondering if it's possible to somehow lower the volume of the music and raise the volume of the person talking.

Thank you for the help

[housepig]

can you get a copy of just the music from somewhere?

if so, you could try to find the section of the music that matches what's playing in the background, add it to another track, and invert the phase of the music-only track.

depending on how well it matches up, in theory the original music and the inverted-phase copy, playing at the same time, will cancel each other out, and what will be left is your conversation and anything else that is not music.

in practice, results vary widely, and it's rarely easy.

[Heywould3]

thats a great idea in theory only proble mis that the freq would have to match.. and since its a recording of a recording.. IE the music is coming from a radio (guessing) then it would be almost impossible to do that. you would have to match the mic and speakers etc.. it can be done.. but damn,, that would be some work to match.. there are filters in soundforge or audition that can or will filter out levels or even freqs you can even print tie wave form and reduce the levels of the high points to lower.. another idea is that.. voice is mainly in the 300-3000hz range. so you could try to remove most of the others to improve it..

[lordsmurf]

Check www.digitalFAQ.com and look into the custom SOUNDFORGE filters.

[Alan69]

This has to be the conversation of the century, the millenium even, and I'd really like to make the speech hear-able for others to hear clearly without having to loop the whole clip a number of times.

If I import the clip into SoundForge, you can see the volume raise when the un-hear-able person speaks, so I was wondering if it's possible to somehow lower the volume of the music and raise the volume of the person talking.

Thank you for the help

Ok first off what's so hard about 'Remove background sound'? Three words. You're not supposed to explain every detail in the subject, but you are supposed to give some idea. It really isn't that difficult to come up with something descriptive, it doesn't matter if there are other details to be read later. Not too big a deal but better to stick something there instead of useless words saying see inside..

Your brain can do an assload of filtering that's nearly impossible to do manually. If someone wants to hear it, they may simply have to listen to it several times. Put in subtitles so they know what they're trying to hear.

Filtering against the music or blanking all but the words and then filtering just for the speaker's pitch may make it audible, but if there's background noise in the same pitch range it may be nearly impossible to make it much better. The brain is very well adapted to hear speech through other noise, you may simply have to let it work since it is often the only viable option. The cue of subtitles will make it far easier to pick up on what's said.

Could easily not be saying what you think you're hearing anyway if it's that hard to discern. Editing tightly to make it sound like the words you think it is will actually detract from the validity not add to it. If it's not clear after simple background removal then it's far better to just leave it alone and let the listener hear it for themselves and determine if your take on it is correct or not..

Alan

[lechtin]

Since you have Soundforge, try the paragraphic equalizer. It is very flexible and may help if you play enough with it.

[bvcproductions]

can you get a copy of just the music from somewhere?

if so, you could try to find the section of the music that matches what's playing in the background, add it to another track, and invert the phase of the music-only track.

depending on how well it matches up, in theory the original music and the inverted-phase copy, playing at the same time, will cancel each other out, and what will be left is your conversation and anything else that is not music.

in practice, results vary widely, and it's rarely easy.

The thing is, this was recorded at a celebration and all the music was done by a DJ, and at some point the music overlaps, so this method will not work, but thanks for the idea, i'm sure it will come useful in the future.

I'll try and see which other method works, and post my findings after I'm done.

Thanks for the help.

[bvcproductions]

OK, I managed to lower the volume of the music, but now there's another problem. There's a crowd of people talking in the background, is there any way to remove that now without removing of the dialogue I need?

I lowered the volume of all frquencies besides 300-3000, and suprisingly it worked well.

[Captain Satellite]

It appears that Alan had a bad day.

[NamPla]

There's TWO neutrons in a hydrogen atom.