Deleting background music while preserving dialog

Bluespoet1 wrote on 1/7/2023, 4:39 PM

I plan on mono recording video with audio, the audio has a recording playing in the background and video in the foreground, what I want to do with editing is to delete the background while preserving the dialog, How do I do this? one idea would be to eq the track to maximize the dialog and copy that to a separate audio track. Then delete the primary audio track with both background music and dialog and then use the recording that was in the background combined with the eq dialog track to make my composite track. I am looking for ideas to record this so that I end up with a full fidelity recording of music and clean dialog. I work with amateur actors on no budget, one man band productions and so having the background music is a requirement from my actor.

Comments

rraud wrote on 1/7/2023, 5:07 PM

You could try iZptope's RX Advanced or Steinberg's SpetraLayers Pro, but neither are a low budget item and likely cannot attenuate full range ambient audio enough anyway. If the talent can live with the playback audio on a sub woofer only, that can usually be attenuated sufficiently with a high pass filter (EQ) on the set mics and in post, leaving the dialog still usable. The preferred way is to use a wireless hidden ear piece so the talent can hear the playback but the microphones cannot.

Musicvid wrote on 1/7/2023, 5:53 PM

You would need a recording booth and discrete master tracks to do this the way you want. Plugins work up to a point; they are a contrivance.

pierre-k wrote on 1/7/2023, 10:38 PM

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/waves-clarity-vx-internal-alternative-for-vegas--136574/

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 1/9/2023, 12:08 PM

@Bluespoet1 The way it's normally done in theater is to use a wireless mic as close to the actor's mouth as possible, typically with a headband or lapel mic. And let the law of inverse squares do its magic. The actor's voice will come in much louder than sound sources farther away and ducking or a Vegas noise gate can be used to minimize or remove the background. Inexpensive omni headsets work fine as long as they can tolerate possible perspiration. My favorite is the Sennheiser AVX which has a tiny receiver that plugs right into a camera's xlr mic input. I've had good success using as many as 6 at a time into a stage mixer.

Another approach is to use 2 lapel mics in binaural configuration and subtract their signals... that pretty much cancels out sources farther away because they are more in-phase than the closer signal from the speaker's mouth. This technique was popularized on-stage by the Grateful Dead rock band and I still see it allot today on cable news sets.

Former user wrote on 1/10/2023, 8:57 PM

@Bluespoet1 I didn't think this would work and it didn't. Was looking for a free alternative, so tried Nvidia broadcast as a VST, the VST is bugged and had crackling sounds, so this is a hack using Nvidia Broadcast

Not usable at all. I also tried an interview that had a low music bed, that one worked really well, but like here, segments of music may still get through even if very briefly heard and lower volume