Music creation help

memly · Post by **memly** » Wed Aug 24, 2005 2:30 pm

Ok guys and gals.
Another Memly dilemma that I thought my good chums on Loopz might be able to help me with...

Now:

I would like to know whether there are any plugins (preferably freeware or shareware) that can filter out particular sounds.

I ask this because I am currently working on a few remixes and on 1 particular track Jack whites guitar is all over the shop...

The tune is only Vocals and guitar and by the sounds of things it was one of those "one take" jobbies, which means trying to fit a tempo to it is bloody hard.
If there was a metronome around in the studio that day, it must have been broken

Anyway I am finding the guitar strumming too erratic and I have tried a number of EQs and filters to push the sound down.
That hasnt worked, there are still blatant guitar noises that sound completely out of sync to the rest of the track.
The vocals on the other hand are perfect, HE doesnt speed up or slow down enough for it to be obvious but unfortunately Mr Fender Stratocaster wanted to make an appearance.

I use Cubase/Reason/Wavelab and Recycle as my main tools.
As I mentioned before, I cannot get the guitar low enough in the mix without affecting the vocals too much.

Are there any plugins around that do precisely what I want?
... for free

God bless you all.

bliss · Post by **bliss** » Fri Aug 26, 2005 1:46 am

Cool Edit has a noise reduction feature that you can use to get rid of instruments. I used it to get rid of all the backing from a track so I could use the vocals. How it works:

You select a section of the track that only has the guitar playing. You tell Cool Edit that this is background noise (It analizes it for awhile). Then once you apply the noise reduction to the whole track you should be left with the vocals and no guitar! It takes a lot of time and fiddeling with it to get a good result though.

memly · Post by **memly** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 9:05 am

Thanks for your reply bliss. I dont have Cool Edit, but I'm sure I can get it.

bentley · Post by **bentley** » Mon Aug 29, 2005 11:44 pm

While the noise print/noise reduction method might eliminate some of it, unless the guitar is pretty static and unchanging, it'll still get through and the reduction will more than likely take the certain frequencies of the vocal right along with it. This is also why vocal removers never really work.

Since I haven't heard the tune, I'll ask a few silly questions: Is it possible to split the vocal up to make the underlying guitar more tolerable? It'll change the cadence of the vocal, but I've heard it done in musical ways before. Also, where is the guitar panned? Mono dead center under the vox or slightly left or right? If it's panned off center, you can use a sum and difference(or mid-side) matrix to help eliminate some of it.

We'll keep tossing around ideas and see if anything works. Which versions of Cubase and Wavelab are you currently using?

Best of luck.

C Bentley

Post by **Loopz** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 12:12 am

Nice to see a familiar name become a new member of the board. just wanted to say Welcome Chris

bentley · Post by **bentley** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 1:08 am

Thanks for the kind welcome Steve.

philmanns · Post by **philmanns** » Wed Aug 31, 2005 5:05 am

Yeah, we just used the filter function on cool edit on our latest bootleg to get rid of some of the backing track, I can probably sort you out with a copy if you've not been able to find it.

Dog · Post by **Dog** » Thu Sep 01, 2005 11:45 am

Cool Edit Pro has been replaced by Adobe Audition 1.5. Get that instead.

It has lots of presets for EQ killing and filtering, so might do what you want. As with all software like this, it's trial and error.