soundtrack question- separate voices from music

Hi, if my sequence has audio that was received directly from the amplifier to the camera. It was a school play. The audio is mixed with kids voices on mircophones and the music playing, and the kids are hard to hear. If the music and voice are mixed together is it possible to raise the kids voices at all separate from the music, using soundtrack or other programs? Thank you! Jen

The short answer is no.

The long answer is that I've seen highly skilled audio engineers perform feats that I'm reluctant to call anything other than magic. But I, not being a highly skilled audio engineer, cannot do these things myself.

With audio, it really all comes down to frequencies. Say you had a pure 1 KHz tone and a pure 10 KHz tone on the same track. You could EQ-out one of those tones leaving just the other.

But voices and music aren't pure tones. Voices in particular, especially kids' voices, are all over the frequency spectrum. You could try EQing-out the music, but you shouldn't expect the music just to magically disappear leaving only the pure and unmolested voices.

If it were me, I'd call up my friend Jake, the highly skilled audio engineer, and offer to buy him drinks in exchange for a favor. I wouldn't even bother trying it myself, because I know from experience that I'd just waste a day creating an ugly mess. Maybe you're less of a klutz than I am, though, or maybe you'll just have a more immediate, innate grasp of the EQ tools.

HI Thanks! I figured it would be pretty hard. They should have set it so the mic input would be separate from the music input, oh well. Also, I was using Soundtrack but I forgot how to get the changes in Soundtrack made to show up in FCP? How dod you roundtrip? Thank you! Jen