Cutting out the background of a pre-recorded audio track

[nmitchell076]

Hey all,

I am preparing a recording of a Composition of mine for a Percussion ensemble and electronics based on T. S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men." I am going to record the percussion parts live and edit in the electronics parts afterward.

Now, my question is regarding the way my electronic tracks will work. These tracks are based primarily on a recording of Marlon Brando reading the poem from the Movie "Apocalypse Now." When I first wrote the composition, I simply ripped the audio from a youtube video of the section of the movie, did some minor editing with Audacity, and just hoped that the volume of the percussion would cover up most of the background noise from the composition, which it did.

But now that I am recording this for a project (the class is about Pro Tools, btw), I was wondering if there was anything I could do to take out most, if not all of the background noises, ambiance, and music from the recording. I still will have to accept that it cannot be done completely, so I will have to rely on the percussion to cover up some of it, but I wanted to remove absolutely as much of it as possible.

Here is a video of the section of the movie I am looking to edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pjIHcyd0TQ

Some examples of problem areas:
1:30 the ethnic percussion with Brando's voice
2:09 the sharp clicking at the entrance of Brando's voice.
2:40 the choir texture underneath of the poem could be an issue.

I will not be using any portion of this audio where the poem is not being read.

The computers use Pro Tools 10 on a Mac


Anyway, once again I understand that a complete, 100% solution is probably not going to happen (however, if it is, I'd love to hear it). I am just looking for how to make this the highest quality sample of his voice with the least amount of background ambiance as possible. Any help you guys can give will be much appreciated!

[Craig F]

time and money:
RX http://www.izotope.com/products/audio/rx/

Cedar
http://www.cedaraudio.com/products/products.html

[The Dougfather]

Try downloading a mid side plugin and soloing the mid channel. Hopefully a lot of the noise will be on the side channels and the reading will be on the phantom centre channel.

Worth a try!

http://www.brainworx-music.de/en/plugins/bx_solo