Isolate spoken vocal track from instruments on LOGIC Pro X?

Marais

New member
Hi,
I recorded two instruments (arabic qanoun and a viola da gamba!) plus a narrator.
I opted to record as it was in the concerts that were done of this program.

So two AKG 414S stereo pair on the instruments
and two Neumann KM 184 stereo pair for the narrator.

The set up was like this36563784_10155874688274436_9047943032497766400_n.jpg
Now we listened of course over and over during the recording.
And now the narrator wants his voice more centered and isolated than the recording was made.
I recorded on four separate tracks, but the two tracks with the KM 184s still, of course, have lots of instruments within.
I tried the inverting the stereo track trick and using the exciter and EQ levels. None seem to really completely isolate the vocal track.
Here is what I did =
Capture d’écran 2018-07-10 à 16.28.16.jpg
and this =
Capture d’écran 2018-07-10 à 16.28.49.jpg

Any other ideas?
I think a lot of sound engineering is psychology - how to deal with the musicians. If the narrator didn't like this set up he had three days to change it and we could have recorded the vocal and music seperately and not live.

Would warmly welcome any suggestions!
 
I think you're largely stuck with it because if you recorded as shown in the pic, anything you do with "tricks" to affect the instruments in the vocal track is almost surely going to introduce phase issues when mixed together. So, don't listen to the narrator in the future, or at least close mic him with a single mic!

Now, if he just wants his voice to be heard more over the instruments, and assuming that's how it is in his two tracks (which I'd just mix to mono and work with that), consider automating levels very slightly and ducking the instrumental tracks against the narrator track, and use more compression on his track, but I'd avoid editing it heavily unless it can be done without making the non-narrated parts sound different from narrated ones, i.e., in the final mix.
 
Thanks a zillion. I'm not very good with the psychology end of recording. I should have insisted after listening over and over and over again during the recording is that is what it will sound like (of course adding reverb and whatever tweaks via compressors) but can't overhaul the whole thing. Funny how many musicians think they know the art of sound engineering better that the person who is doing it!
 
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