@Tim,  yeah that's why the better phasing software is more expensive,  they are able to niche out frequencies with heavier processing,  where as the audacity approach changes the phase of the whole audio spectrum, rendering the whole process moot.    To do a decent job it's a process of first removing all you can,  then rebuilding what got damaged in the process....so it never really sounds like an original acapella no matter how well you do it.  It's just the nature of the beast.

• My Spotify  My Twitter  My Twitch
  
• My NFT    My Marketplace My Blog
  
• Music Sync Licensing

☯🐉

"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

@planetstardragon

Thanks for the input on unmixing milk and coffee.  I like that analogy, and that is how I felt after all my searches.  I found some tutorials using Audacity with a serious presentation of copying the track and flipping it into a mirror image of itself to remove the music.  Two things struck me right away.  I would expect that the inability to mask out any frequencies beforehand would mean that the final result should cancel the original and produce silence.  That at least is what my limited exposure to physics would suggest.  The second thing that struck me was that in their serious proposal, they had completely missed the irony of what they were suggesting based on what the software is called.  

Thanks

Tim

There are surely times when it is good to be stubborn.  Knowing when is the gift of experience.

For the audio part just listen to your audio in headphones while you record on the mic.

extracting vocals from mixed audio can be like unmixing coffee and milk,   the general process is to filter out all frequencies around the voice and using phase cancellation-  the problem is the voice shares many of the same frequencies as the music itself so it will never be a perfect extraction -   you can do the filtering with specialized eq's but finding a phase shifter that allows variable settings is more difficult,  some of the units capable of doing this efficiently are expensive and usually come in the form of hardware.   ie -  the Edison The Edison    -    you can come close but not without glitches - which usually require another step of rebuilding to fix.     It's a technique producers and DJ's use when they want an acappella to remix , the glitches aren't a big deal because they are often covered in the mix with new music and effects....but as acapella ..it's less forgiving. it's more work than what it's worth and you will never have a perfectly clean vocal, 

• My Spotify  My Twitter  My Twitch
  
• My NFT    My Marketplace My Blog
  
• Music Sync Licensing

☯🐉

"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

Thanks

I need to work on the brevity part and let people ask if they didn't get the meaning of something I said.  That's not a response to anything you said.  It is merely an observation on my part.  

I picked up a mic today.  In fact it's a head set.  That way I can get my voice track in while listening to the song and not have the song get picked up by the mic.  It means I have to rewire my PC.  I have a good PC based surround sound speaker setup, but it's hooked up to a different PC which is set up with a touch screen just for music in another room.  My "work" PC is hooked up to my receiver, and I can't reach the back of the pc for the headset.  

Always something  :)
best,

Tim

There are surely times when it is good to be stubborn.  Knowing when is the gift of experience.

I have spent many years in elearning and advertising. I believe in Orthogonal Projection of information when it comes to learning - Straight without any Noise so that the learner gets it immediately. We have to stay focussed on the contextual use of the information. 
In marketing, one could use all kind of tactics to play up some peripheral information to projects one's image. But while helping / tutoring somebody one must stick to the point and maintain Brevity.

That was my point.

Besides, my mind is trained to detect  deviations. Many years of serious training wouldn't go away easily. Even a very casual side glance will catch a deviation. That's why wrong, out-of-context or meaningless padded info catches my attention immediately. That's the only way I could manage a large production floor. And the habit has stayed with me.

I do not react to Sw00000p's padded info when he deals with the senior guys. But I find it difficult to ignore the same when a newbie is involved.

My job is to point out the issues to him. He will take a while to change. And that's fine.

He is helpful. just that he needs to change his style when he is in a peer group. There is no personal issues between us.

@prabhatM

Thank you for taking the time to explain the reasons for your responses and the background behind your actions.  I did actually get the point that you were clarifying that it is not as easy a "drop it in and Poof", the miracle happens.

I have spent countless hours in forums for Daz, Hexigon, Blender, Vue, Carrara, Gimp, and 3d_Coat.  Sometimes I just read, without a specific topic in mind, purely for education.  Often I get good information and then it is a matter of figuring out how a different program does it.  What I have learned is that while some programs may be better at some tasks, there is no one program that does it all.

In my opinion, IClone6 Pro is the best product I have come across.  I am truly excited to work with it.  I have actually read the entire on line help file.  There is still a gap, and it is on my side of the fence.  The folks who write these files know how to do what they are explaining.  Until I get a frame of reference, I may not understand something that is clear to the author or others. 

I pick something as a project that I want to do and then stick with it, one step at a time, until I get as close as I can.  I will almost always find myself on side trips down rabbit holes, because I believe that others are trying or will try to do the same thing and there might be something out there that might save me a few hours or frustrations.  For example, Audacity would let me strip the vocal out of my mp3, but it means that I need the instrumentals from the song in order to cancel out the instrumentals in the mp3.  Makes sense.  The reality is that I am not in a position to get the instrumentals, so that solution is not an option.

I really hoped that I would find some tools that would allow me to write a step by step account of how to extract the vocals out of the mp3 and use them to drive the Visemes with almost perfect timing.  I think that would be a great contribution to the forum.  It's something that I would really have liked to discover.

When I am finished (or as close as I can get), I will provide a summary, including which software has been helpful in getting me closer and what that software allowed me to do.  I believe at this point, that I can get close enough that I will be left with adjusting the the lips track of the Viseme manually to finish the timing.  

I am of the opinion that the best suggestion was given to me on the first page of this post.  I can't quote it exactly, and I will credit the post in my summary since I didn't note the name before I started this post and can't get back there while I am in it.  Get a mic, practice the song and record your own vocal track.  It can be done entirely within IClone6.

I have learned a great deal by researching possible options and actually working with the results in the software.  My time is the price I pay for education and it is always a good investment.

I thank you for standing up on my behalf although I regret being the cause.

best,

Tim

There are surely times when it is good to be stubborn.  Knowing when is the gift of experience.

Good to see a 'same old' feud that didn't involve me for a change,  good call Prabbhat,

• My Spotify  My Twitter  My Twitch
  
• My NFT    My Marketplace My Blog
  
• Music Sync Licensing

☯🐉

"To define Tao is to defile it" - Lao Tzu

Then you do a whole lot in ICLONE than just rendering. You set up these animated characters and props. You set up the scene and interactions between the elements. It's not just bringing in a WHOLE PRECOMPOSED SCENE TO ICLONE AND JUST RENDERING IT.
This is not just clicking the Rendering Button in ICLONE and ..................... Poof ...........you are done with ICLONE !!!

And you are not alone. Most people do that in ICLONE. They import many individual elements to ICLONE and work.

When you say :" I just use ICLONE for Rendering and IMPORT everything" , you almost sound as if ICLONE is GOOD FOR NOTHING AS FAR AS YOU ARE CONCERNED and only attractive  feature that it has is RENDERING. You use ICLONE just for a few seconds.

You almost made the World believe that you have a SECRET WEAPON / ALEMBIC IMPORTER FOR ICLONE through which you can IMPORT the whole scene with a single click and then just click the ICLONE render button....Poof !!!

You offer out of context suggestions and blatant wrong impressions to the newbies who look for sincere guidance. 

You take them on an unnecessary wild goose chase. Do that with your clients. They might get impression that you are an EXTRAORDINARY TALENT, and their only hope, and may dole out a few extra bucks. Don't do that with the newbies here on the forum.

Resist that. DO NOT SAY WHAT YOU DO NOT INTEND TO SAY. YOU ARE A TUTOR. YOU MUST KNOW WHAT TO SAY AS A PART OF YOUR REPLIES.

@TimV

You see a few, perhaps 10-15 people being active on the forum. Does it mean ICLONE has only these 15 users all over the world ? Does it mean that only these 15 people have problems with ICLONE ?

No. 98% people do not ask questions. They search the forum for the answers to their problems, read diligently and learn.

So your question actually does not remain yours once you put on the forum. You represent a whole lot of people who have similar issues. When the problem is resolved, it is resolved not only for you but also for whole lot of people out there.
In any reply, every sentence is important, particularly the conclusion part. 

People may offer TENTATIVE SOLUTIONS. That's OK. They are just offering suggestions and may not be perfect. They are participating in a debate with their suggestions. They can make mistakes. No issues.
But.....

When somebody PRETENDS and POSES as an authoratative Industry Expert and offers a DEFINITE ANSWER, he must not BS and be careful what he says.

Hope you got the context of this debate. There is nothing personal about it.

@sw00000p and @prabhatM

I'm not sure if there are any moderators.  I'm not sure how long you two have been feuding.  I'd like to ignore it and pretend that it isn't happening.

What I do know is that the conversation that you two are having in MY thread doesn't have anything to do with MY issue and is not helping ME or ANYONE else make any progress.  

If the two of you have any further suggestions that would help ME, by all means, please share.

If you really want nothing more than to slug it out with each other, might I kindly suggest an exchange of email addresses might provide you with a direct link to each other that wouldn't be interrupted by my posts of what I am trying to do and how I am approaching it.

It has been my hope that someone would pick up on something I was saying and think of something to share with me that might be helpful.  Rampa's post is a perfect example where he suggested adding a second character in order to be able to assign the full version of the song to a voice channel where I could then see the wave form.

If there are any suggestions on embedding MAPI5 tags in my text file, or other ways of manipulating that file that can impact the timing of the words, THAT would be very much appreciated.  

Thanks,

Tim

Edited to add the I for If

There are surely times when it is good to be stubborn.  Knowing when is the gift of experience.

===========================
You famously said you  IMPORT everything and use ICLONE only for the rendering.
===========================

What all do you IMPORT through 3dX for RENDERING in ICLONE ?

Do we presume that you set your SCENE in another software and IMPORT it to ICLONE ONLY FOR the RENDERING ?