Mic bleed Question.

Hi, after upgrading to Cubase 11 (and still loads of eLicense issues)… I was really intrigued with Spectralayers… I’m considering purchasing the Pro version, however one thing I would like to know.
I do a lot of Live recording…and though most instruments are DI, the main vocal mic picks up everything…Iv tried using a gate but it just doesn’t work. Would Spectralayers be able to eliminate the bleed and keep the voice intact?

TIA

yes - but it’s not always 100%. Often you get artefacts and can make the resultant vocal a little odd. It really depends on the source and what you want to do with the resultant vocal. Certainly a useful tool in the armoury though.

Try the demo ?

Hi - was exactly my need too…!

I looked at the demo of Pro 7 to tackle this task and was left disappointed. What I found I wanted the tool to do was:-

  1. Working with the Main Vocal track only, give SL a sample of the ‘bleed’ I wanted removed (highlight a section between vocals) to analyse/register a noise print.
  2. Then be able to apply/decrease that noise print across the full track length, via dB amount, including through the vocal sections.

Unfortunately this kind of automatic method can’t be done. And I quickly gave up trying a manual approach, using the various selection tools.

Trying out the global processes ‘Noise Reduction’ or ‘Reverb Reduction’/removal, as my noise print instead, weren’t right for this task and didn’t fully satisfy (caused artifacts and glitching on the vocals).

It was back to gates and EQ’s and hand editing for now…

try the “unmix stems” function - it’s not really noise removal when trying to remove bleed

Understood - just thought I’d give it a try… you know, experimenting with the demo.

Anyway, demo’s run out now, so good luck to the OP

I just quickly tried this in One (in Cubase Pro 11). As I am in an identical usage situation as the OP, I was really intrigued by the results I got when I took the live recorded vocal mono track and unmixed the vocals from it. I ended up with an absolutely pristine vocal track. Magic.

Now, what I would like to know is this: with Spectrallayers Pro, would I be able to easily unmix bleed from other instruments (guitars, bass etc) in my drum mics, including the overhead mics? And will S Pro be able to unmix sax and flute on mono tracks from other instrument bleed?

The way One handled my vocal track is a dream come true in itself. If it actually works like this on other instruments I will be dancing, if not screaming, with joy!

So, please enlighten me.

Best,

Magnus

possibly - there are a limited number of unmix algorithms - drums/vocals/piano for example

I’d strongly suggest you give the demo version of Pro a try to see if it does what you want

Thanks, great. I may just do that.

Best,

Magnus

Regarding the mic bleed problem, in addition to the unmix features, you can also try the Imprint processes : they take the frequencies from one layer and remove them from the other layer.
So in that case you could take the frequencies from the vocal layer, and remove them from the other layer, this would effectively remove the mic bleed.

Hi Robin, that sounds like a great tip! Just wondering… in that function I see Cast and Mold options. Despite taking a quick look at the manual these two concepts remain a little obscure to my mind. What is the essential difference between cast and mold and which would be best to use in the above mic bleed solution?

What you would need is to cast your other layers (those identified as bleeding the most into your vocals) onto your vocal layer. So the vocal layer should be selected, and then call the cast process, maybe multiple times, choosing different layers.

Details appreciated. Thanks.

On a recent live video recording I was able to do a little bit of vocal tuning, but there was enough bleed in the acoustic guitar mics at some points where I could hear the tuned vocal in the vocal mic and the untuned vocal bleed in the guitar mics. By using Spectralayers One I was able to bring down the vocal bleed in the guitar mics about 10db without hearing any artifacts in the guitar sound. If I removed the vocal bleed completely, the artifacts appeared. So the trick for me was to bring down the bleed just enough to make it work. Very happy with the results.