# Removing Music from Trailers



## BenG (Jan 8, 2019)

Been looking to trying to learn some basic music editing and was wondering if there was any way to remove music from a trailer? With Cubase or some other free software?

Here is the trailer...


(I've tried the 'center channel' trick, but when importing into Cubase there seems to be only L/R)


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## Ollie (Jan 8, 2019)

BenG said:


> Been looking to trying to learn some basic music editing and was wondering if there was any way to remove music from a trailer? With Cubase or some other free software?
> 
> Here is the trailer...
> 
> ...



You can try searching for the 5.1 surround mix of the trailer. 

Then you can import the audio and just delete the channels with the music. 

Here is a good site to find 5.1 mixes: https://thedigitaltheater.com/master-trailer-list/


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## BenG (Jan 8, 2019)

Thanks for the tip, @Ollie! Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available anywhere since it's not a 'Hollywood/blockbuster' film...:/


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## dannymc (Jan 8, 2019)

sign with a trailer publisher. they can supply RAW trailers for you to practice on 

Danny


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## d.healey (Jan 8, 2019)

This might be useful to you - https://musichack.wordpress.com/gw-tutorials/center-channel-extractionisolation/


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## WhiteNoiz (Jan 9, 2019)

Get the original video with 5.1 sound (something like hd-trailers.net). Some have only voice in center channel, some have music in there too. You need to download and check. (For example, I'm certain the Warcraft one had only voice in center) It's possible some youtube ones have 5.1 sound, but you need to check the audio streams... (It's a bit much but you can try  )

https://www.h3xed.com/blogmedia/youtube-info.php
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/youtube/cJncNzZ0oAw/tL2CUI8ZCQAJ

(Haven't really tried it that way, but could be possible, if you find a way to download that specific stream)

Grab Reaper, it will import the tracks as glued 5.1 tracks. Then right click and choose to explode to multi tracks. Solo center channel. Export*. Recombine with mkvtoolnix (no conversion other than resaving audio channel).

*At least if you don't wanna deal with soloing and want a clean cut video to import (plus, exploding will fill your folder with a few useless wavs)


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## BenG (Jan 9, 2019)

Thanks guys, will Check these out! It seems YouTube is the only place where I can find the trailer but I will give it a shot and hope there is a center channel. Also. didn't know that Reaper can do that!


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## BenG (Jan 9, 2019)

dannymc said:


> sign with a trailer publisher. they can supply RAW trailers for you to practice on
> 
> Danny


Ha! Seems so simple...


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 9, 2019)

Sometimes even with the 5.1 you could have some music on the Center Channel (which usually contains all the dialogues and SFX), but mixed quite low.

I used the same website as @Ollie and ended up with this 
(Unfortunately unmixed, as it was for a competition and submitted last minute before the deadline !)



Edit : Sorry, @WhiteNoiz already gave the info.


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## dannymc (Jan 9, 2019)

BenG said:


> Ha! Seems so simple...



hehe its far from simple but work very hard on your craft and it can happen for sure. dedication and hard work are the two key ingredients. 

Danny


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## gsilbers (Jan 9, 2019)

try https://savieo.com and download 5.1 apple trailers.


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## BenG (Jan 9, 2019)

whitewasteland said:


> Sometimes even with the 5.1 you could have some music on the Center Channel (which usually contains all the dialogues and SFX), but mixed quite low.
> 
> I used the same website as @Ollie and ended up with this
> (Unfortunately unmixed, as it was for a competition and submitted last minute before the deadline !)
> ...




Really great work here, man!! Loved what you did and your music is right up my alley Btw, what is the rule on posting these types of 're-scores' via YT? Do you need permission or anything else?


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## BenG (Jan 9, 2019)

For those interested, here is what I've been fooling around with so far! Was just testing out some basic music editing...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1u6uq9p2225smsq/Loving Pablo - Music Editing Test.mp4?dl=0


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## Emmanuel Rousseau (Jan 10, 2019)

BenG said:


> Really great work here, man!! Loved what you did and your music is right up my alley Btw, what is the rule on posting these types of 're-scores' via YT? Do you need permission or anything else?



Thank you @BenG ! About 2 days after uploading the video on Youtube I got a Copyright claim from Disney. They allowed me to use the video but monetized it, and made a link to the official trailer.
So no big deal


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## Fredeke (Jan 15, 2019)

If you can get a 5.1 source (or any multichannel source), the music will most probably be spread across the left and right speaker, while dialogs will mostly be located in the center speaker. Sound effects will be all over the place. Anyway, by keeping only the center channel (or at least discarding the left and right channels), you should achieved something close to the desired effect.


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## BenG (Jan 15, 2019)

Fredeke said:


> If you can get a 5.1 source (or any multichannel source), the music will most probably be spread across the left and right speaker, while dialogs will mostly be located in the center speaker. Sound effects will be all over the place. Anyway, by keeping only the center channel (or at least discarding the left and right channels), you should achieved something close to the desired effect.



Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately, it seems I couldn't find a 5.1 source since it is a smaller film.


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## Fredeke (Jan 15, 2019)

BenG said:


> Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately, it seems I couldn't find a 5.1 source since it is a smaller film.


Then downmixing it to mono will bring the dialogs up 3dB, but that's about it.
(Well, a Dolby Surround decoder may do a bit better but I don't know what is available in software form.)


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## Desire Inspires (Jan 15, 2019)

dannymc said:


> hehe its far from simple but work very hard on your craft and it can happen for sure. dedication and hard work are the two key ingredients.
> 
> Danny



I wouldn’t really say that.


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## BenG (Jan 15, 2019)

Fredeke said:


> Then downmixing it to mono will bring the dialogs up 3dB, but that's about it.
> (Well, a Dolby Surround decoder may do a bit better but I don't know what is available in software form.)



Creating a mono file is actually a good idea and I'll give that a shot
This is just for a fun exercise so it doesn't have to be perfect!


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## dannymc (Jan 16, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> I wouldn’t really say that.



then what would you say?


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## Desire Inspires (Jan 16, 2019)

dannymc said:


> then what would you say?



I would say networking and luck are key ingredients.


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## dannymc (Jan 17, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> I would say networking and luck are key ingredients.



well i dont believe in luck, you make your own luck. but definitely its important to be able to network, be social, be professional and just generally be nice with people. 

Danny


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## Fredeke (Jan 19, 2019)

I'm afraid no amount of work will achieve any better
(in trying to remove music from the trailer).


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## Hasen6 (Jan 27, 2019)

Izotope RX Audio editor has a music rebalancing feature where you can select any of the four elements and modify their volume. It can't work perfectly but would be pretty good for this. One element is vocals so just leaving that at full volume and lowering the volumes of the other elements would do well. That and removing the sides, the low and some high frequencies should help isolate the voices even more. Beyond that you need careful use of cutting up the audio with fades to fully isolate the audio.


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## Fredeke (Jan 28, 2019)

Hasen6 said:


> Izotope RX Audio editor has a music rebalancing feature where you can select any of the four elements and modify their volume. It can't work perfectly but would be pretty good for this. One element is vocals so just leaving that at full volume and lowering the volumes of the other elements would do well.



In the near future, AI should improve music removal (or vocals removal) greatly.
(In fact I predicted a couple of years ago that the first developer to do this would make tons of money. We'll see whether I was right.)

Now I wonder: Does Izotope RX use AI already ?


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## Hans-Peter (Jan 28, 2019)

Fredeke said:


> In the near future, AI should improve music removal (or vocals removal) greatly.
> (In fact I predicted a couple of years ago that the first developer to do this would make tons of money. We'll see whether I was right.)
> 
> Now I wonder: Does Izotope RX use AI already ?



Audionamix already uses AI. Not sure whether they make lots of money ...


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## Fredeke (Jan 28, 2019)

Hans-Peter said:


> Audionamix already uses AI. Not sure whether they make lots of money ...


Then I guess I was wrong earlier, when I implied removing the music was near impossible. New technology outdates our certitudes so fast...


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