Some of my MPEG-2 videos contain background music that makes the audio hard to hear. Will the Magix Video Sound Cleaning Lab 2014 be able to reduce the music volume and allow audio to be heard better?

mark-r19 wrote on 11/19/2014, 1:07 PM

I am a novice video editor that uses Videostudio ProX6 to convert my home movies to mpeg-2 files. Some of my earlier videos contain background music that makes the audio hard to hear. Will the Magix Video Sound Cleaning Lab 2014 be able to reduce the volume of the background music so that I can better hear the audio on the mpeg-2 file? (I edit on a Windows 8 desktop computer; not sure of the hardware configuration but it was built to handle video and photo editing functions. No issues with any slowdowns due to processing/rendering of large video files).Thank you.

Comments

browj2 wrote on 11/19/2014, 2:40 PM

Hi Mark and welcome to the community,

Neither Video Sound Cleaning Lab (VSCL)nor any other cleaner will be able to do what you want. The sound is all mixed together and there is no way to separate the 2. You can get rid of hum or a constant frequency noise, clicks, coughs, and other very short and different noise, but not a constant multi-frequency noise. Too bad about having background music; I know this all too well.

If the video had been recorded with 2 microphones in stereo, say one on the camera and one close to people speaking, then you could at least reduce the volume of the offending channel. You can check the sound from the left and right channels in VPX6 just to see if there is a difference.

If you look through the Q&A part and under the Forum tab, All about MAGIX's programs, Audio Cleaning Lab, for VSCL, Audio Cleaning Lab, and Audio and Music Lab 2014 Premium, you will see that I and others have complained about VSCL2014 and ACL2014 as being downgrades from previous versions. In my opinion, VSLC2014 should never have been released; it is an embarrasment to Magix. The previous version of VSCL, version 1.0, was quite good, but 2014 was a disaster.

As well, ACL2013 was good, 2014 bad, with many complaints about the detailed parameter tools being removed along with the possibility to add VST plugins. Another disaster for previous users. It maybe okay for new users not wanting to play with parameters and happy with presets only. Magix split the program into 2 - basic (ACL2014), with less capability than before, advanced (AML 2014 Premium) with more capability.

AML2014 Premium is a good step up and, even if Magix has not acknowledged this, it replaces VSCL. It has detailed parameters tools available and includes 5 eFX Essential plugins that are very good. It has the same ability as VSCL to import and view video files, it's just that the work flow is a bit different as you have to export the cleaned file and import it into VPX6 separately. This is actually slightly better as you can export to a wave file rather than mp3, thus keeping a higher quality. Also, you can use other plugins. I have Magix Variverb II plugin which is a step up from the normal reverb tool, and a third party plugin called Vinylizer.

See this latest message for more comments about VSLC2014.

gandjcarr wrote on 11/19/2014, 6:40 PM

Hi,

For the most part I agree with what John C.B. says, and you can never totally eliminate something like background music from a audio track that was already mixed in the camera. You can use a parametric equalizer to remove some of the music if what you really want to keep is someone's voice, but if you are hoping to keep ambient sound that moves into the "music" frequencies, even the equalizer will not do it.

If you were originally narrating the video, then you could re-record the narration on a different audio track, and some background ambience such as crowd noise or any other form of ambient sounds, then insert your own audio track if desired, and just mute the original audio before export.

George