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anonymous 29 December 2009

Hi Everyone

This is my first post in these forums, in fact I've registered in order to solve this problem so I hope you know how to help!

My girlfriend's niece recently sang at a birthday party and I'm putting the audio together as part of a home movie. Unfortunately, the microphone cut out towards the end of the song, it's fairly obvious and we don't want her to get embarrassed watching it back.

I've got my girlfriend to sing the same parts in the hope of overlaying it, and I've had limited success so far. The link below has four file samples:

G-Track

HB 1 - This is the original recording from the video
HB 2a - The new vocal my girlfriend recorded
HB 2b - My attempts so far to vary the above using the Change Pitch effect
HB 3 - The original karaoke track our niece sang in front of

HB 2b has varying success, it's certainly in the right direction but there's clearly a long way to go before it sounds completely convincing. I have other parts of the song to fix too but in principle they're all the same as this. I know that both vocals go a little flat in places, that would be nice to fix but it's where the audio's missing entirely that I really want to eliminate. So, the question from the bottom of my heart is..

..would anyone be able to tell me what effects and settings I can apply to HB2a so it will overlay on top of the original

OR

..to HB2a and HB3 so that I can block those parts out of HB1 and have them take its place completely?

I'm currently using Audacity, which I hope isn't too amateur for these here parts but you guys are the experts, so tell me what I need to do and need to do it with.

I would be endlessly grateful for your help.

Thank you for your time,

schnide

Comments

Kapt.Krunch Thu, 12/31/2009 - 04:43

I'm not sure how convincing two different voices and pitch changes in (possibly) different settings are going to be. Besides, won't your niece know that's not her voice?

Maybe explain what happened, and have her back for another go at it? Maybe if she's watching the video, she can get close enough to nudge the phrasing here and there, and it'll be a more controlled environment? At least, it'll be all her.

Seems like a tall order to try to match voices and sound qualities from two different settings in, possibly, two different environments.

Your niece shouldn't be embarassed by a technical mistake. I would be embarassed by someone passing off someone else as me.

Kapt.Krunch

anonymous Thu, 12/31/2009 - 10:36

Thanks, and I totally see where you're coming from. I've already asked our niece if she can record over it but she doesn't live near us and doesn't have the technical knowledge to do it remotely (she's 10).

All I'm planning to do is fill in some very small gaps where her audio cut out completely. If you listen to the clips I've posted you can see both my girlfriend and niece sound alike.

The vocal clip actually just needs a very small amount more tweaking to get it sounding the same - I think possibly just a small amount of compression and distortion, but I don't know the way these things work well enough to say.

If anyone could help and have a listen so I can find out what needs to be done, I'd be very, very grateful.

With thanks (and Happy New Year)

schnide

djmukilteo Thu, 12/31/2009 - 13:14

I'm thinking Melodyne would work?
You could clip and copy certain portions and punch them in to fill the gaps using your nieces own voice....
You could also alter the pitch of your girlfriends voice to match your nieces
Of course you would need Melodyne and a DAW to get everything synced up propely with your video...

Kapt.Krunch Fri, 01/01/2010 - 05:26

OK, was just wondering. If the niece knows, doesn't want to do it, and isn't close by anyway...I see your dilemma. Gotta do what you gotta do.

Are the dropouts in a repeated part, like in a chorus, that she sang earlier that could be copied, pasted, nudged and fudged into there? If not, guess you'll have to figure out how to get your main squeeze squeezed in.

Be careful about getting her TOO involved, though. Don't wanna mess up and create your very own Yoko! :wink:

Good luck,

Kapt.Krunch

anonymous Fri, 01/01/2010 - 06:07

Unfortunately not, that's the main problem - there's one part of the chorus I've copied and pasted and having already altered the pitch it's ALMOST seamless.

However there's one unique part which is the climax of the song (and that part is the files I've linked to here as a sample) which drops out and I don't know any other way I can do it, other than this.

Audacity should have the capability to do it, but I don't even begin to know the settings to use on the effects, or even what effects to use to finish it off.

I just need the pitch tweaked very slightly, and some distortion added to make it sound like it was recorded in the same room and on a handheld video recorder.

:(

Thanks for your help nonetheless.

schnide

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