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alhakeem2001
alhakeem2001
Participant
June 1, 2017
Question

Removing a voice from a discussion

  • June 1, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 1432 views

We had a meeting at our company with a delegation, the discussion was live interpreted to 4 different languages now,  the meeting was recorded for archival purposes,  but after the meeting was finished and while I was checking the quality of the recording I realized that sometimes the interrupters were talking while they kept their mics on and because of that their voices were picked up on other language channels which it shouldn't be the case, Now how to fully remove those individual voices from those channels without effecting the audio quality of the rest of the channel as there are still people taking while the interpreter voice can be heard in the background.

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2 replies

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
Community Expert
June 1, 2017

The only way that it would be possible to do this would be by level detection. I'm assuming that the break-through is at a much lower level; if it isn't, then you stand no chance at all. There are no guarantees about what follows, but I can't think of any other way to do this:

In the Diagnostics panel, there's a preset called Mark Audio. You have to work out (invariably by trial and error) what is wanted and what isn't (that's called 'silence'). The chances are that you can't use the 'find levels' tool, as it's not actually silence you're looking for, but lower-level speech.

Scan the selection. If you hit 'Mark All' then all of the wanted audio will be marked as ranges. This is fine, but here is where it gets a bit awkward, as it's not those ranges you want, but everything else. Unfortunately there's no way within Audition of deselecting a range back to its individual cues, so you will have to edit them all by adding an extra marker at each point, plus one at the start and end of the file, and merging the unwanted parts. This isn't quite as bad as it seems; you can use the 'Move Playhead to Next' button on the transport, and F8 to re-mark the points. If you assign a key to 'Silence' in Effects, then moving through the revised cue list, you should be able to silence the unwanted parts quite easily.

But as I said, I have no idea how well, if at all, this will work. There is, though, no alternative that I'm aware of, as language-discriminatory tools simply don't exist!

stefan_gru
stefan_gru
Inspiring
June 1, 2017

alhakeem: Let us know if you are successful or if these tips were even partially useful. I wonder if the Center Channel Extractor effect might help too: Remove instrumentals or vocals​. This tutorial is about removing music but it may apply to your situation also.

SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
Community Expert
June 1, 2017

https://forums.adobe.com/people/Stefan+Gruenwedel  wrote

I wonder if the Center Channel Extractor effect might help too: Remove instrumentals or vocals. This tutorial is about removing music but it may apply to your situation also. 

The center channel extractor only works with a single channel mono source in a stereo field. The chances of a conference being recorded like that are pretty much zero!

ryclark
ryclark
Participating Frequently
June 1, 2017

Did you mean 'interpreters' not 'interrupters'? There goes the 'spoil chucker' once again I suspect.

Once it's all mixed together into one audio file there is nothing that you can do to remove other voices if they are talking over the wanted ones unfortunately. This is because the audio content is very similar and computer software isn't clever enough to distinguish between different voices unlike the human ear. The only hope would have been if it was a Multitrack recording where you could just mute the unwanted tracks.

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