Raise Vocal only on Karoke Recording

[Ringmaster]

I have a CD that a friend asked me to increase the level of the recording. I have raised the level to 0dB, using the "Gain Normalize" feature. The background music is fine; however, the vocal needs to be increased, because the microphone level was not high enough to correspond with the background music.

I am working with a two channel "Mono" source.

This is something I have not tried before, and I am far from being an expert; so, if you can give me rather simple "step-by-step" instructions, it would be appreciated.

Maybe I have to reduce the level of the background music, to be more preportionate to the vocal level, then do a file conversion, to combine the resultant files, after which I would use the "gain normalize" feature.

I have never tried to find the "frequency" level of the vocal source, because I don't know how find/use various frequency levels.

Is there a way to extract the vocal only, so I can raise the vocal to be closer to the volume of the background music?

[Craig Maier]

Please confirm that the two channel mono source does not have the vocal on one channel and the music on the other. I am unfamiliar with Karoke recordings. Thanks.

[Craig Maier]

Walter,

On second thought, please send me a 10 second clip of the audio so that I can see what can be done. I will report back to you after checking it out.

Me email addy is dctools@aol.com

Thanks,

Craig

[Rick Barber]

On a whim one time I purchased a software program that was SUSPOSED TO remover the vocals on recordings. NOT. That software is in the big black hole in the sky now.

[Craig Maier]

Software, like Diamond Cut, can reduce lead vocals. As a matter of fact, there is a preset on the preset sharing section of the forum that does this job. However, the basic premise is that the recording must start off as a stereo mix with the lead vocalist panned to the middle.

Nonetheless, I thought that I would take a shot at your file anyway, even if it is in mono. Let me know if you want me to try.

[Craig Maier]

Ringmaster,


I created a preset that seems to help bring the vocalist more "up front" on that file. You can find the preset at the following link on the presets sharing section of the forum:

http://www.diamondcut.com/vforum/showthread.php?t=2284

[Ringmaster]

Craig,

Your "Preset" helped me get on track. I did have to modify it, to get the voice adjusted properly; this would have been difficult for you to do, because of the short "clip".

The final processing sounded great!

I wondered why you used the 20-band Eq., instead of the 30-band. I rarely ever use the 10 & 20-band equalizers, since you came out with the 30-band Eq.

Thanks for getting me in the right direction; I never would have thought of using the equalizer to get the effect I wanted.

[Craig Maier]

I used the 20 Band because I did not want too much selectivity which made adjusting it easier. I use the 30 Band Eq in situations where higher selectivity is necessary such as the elimination of a room resonance or the reduction of a particular noise frequency. Also, the 10, 20 and 30 band EQ all sound differently because of their "Q" (the interaction of bands due to bandwidth).

But, at the end of the day, either one will work. Also, the paragraphic EQ would have been worth considering.