Remove sound that is at a louder level?

[gutterboy]

I have a video file that has an original soundtrack and a voiceover soundtrack. I've already discovered from reading that it's pretty much impossible to remove the voice over unless they are separate tracks. So I was wondering seeing as the original audio is at a much lower sound volume/level is it possible to remove that OR remove the higher level voiceover?

If so, are there any free programs that can do it?

Thanks very much!

[redwudz]

I doubt it. It sounds good in theory, but both of your audio tracks are integrated with each other. Even if you are able to remove the high volume level data, the rest of it stays and would be just as loud as your desired data. Really no gain there.

You could try the freeware audio editor Audacity . It has quite a few filters and you can easily expirement to see if you can get any improvements.

Or someone here may have a better idea.

[gutterboy]

Thanks. Yeah... been playing around with Audacity for a little while now with no luck. I'm no expert though haha

[gutterboy]

I've seen programs that allow you to remove sound below a certain dB level. Can't you do this vice versa as well?

[redwudz]

The usual problem with mixed audio tracks is that both share the same frequencies. Filtering works on both pretty much equally most times. But if you have low frequency or high frequency interference, you can sometimes 'notch' it out with the proper filters.

But voices tend to be in about the same frequency range and very difficult to separate. And even if you could, you would also remove other parts of the audio track, such as music that contained the same frequencies.

In the past, some Russian videos put the Russian translation over the English audio track and I don't believe anyone ever came up with a method to remove the overdub.

Audacity is a good program, well worth learning how to use. I would suggest trying a short section of audio to experiment with, but I doubt you will get much improvement.

[gutterboy]

Dang... alright. Thanks for the help!

[netmask56]

A number of separate issues here. But dealing with VO's

Normally voice overs are mixed equally into the left and right channel so as to centre the voice so it may be possible to cancel it out by sum and difference ie Left minus Right. This will give you a mono rendition of everything else but without the voice - but this process is never perfect and there will be bleed or leakage. If the vo was mixed only to the left channel then you can't remove it other than turn off the left channel.

[Gavino]

This will give you a mono rendition of everything else but without the voice - but this process is never perfect and there will be bleed or leakage.

It will also of course remove any sound mixed into the centre of the original audio (ie before VO).

[netmask56]

Yes of course that is implicit in doing a L minus R action.

It would be useful if the OP posted a log of the file derived from MediaInfo. It might be an amp setting that can be modified or simply reducing the common signal, along with anything else in the centre channel but as the voice has been mixed at such a high level it would be masking any material located centre.

[gutterboy]

Yes of course that is implicit in doing a L minus R action.

It would be useful if the OP posted a log of the file derived from MediaInfo. It might be an amp setting that can be modified or simply reducing the common signal, along with anything else in the centre channel but as the voice has been mixed at such a high level it would be masking any material located centre.

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[jagabo]

If you're lucky it could be a left/right split (original audio on one side, voice-over on the other). But you probably would have noticed that already.

[gutterboy]

If you're lucky it could be a left/right split (original audio on one side, voice-over on the other). But you probably would have noticed that already.

Yeah. I already used Audacity to check the sound on left/right and it's the same.