RX8 How to isolate Lead Vocal from Background Vocals? I don't see an exact tool for this in the editor, but maybe there is a workaround, or something in development. Lead vocals are often drastically different in sound, eq, effects, levels from the lead, seems like an AI should be able to isolate them. Just wondering if anyone has tried it and had any success. This is a common remix need.

I've had some degree of luck trying that with the Music Rebalance module, but I think it would depend heavily on the specific song -- the underlying instrumentation, how the lead vs background vocals are arranged and mixed, etc, in a particular mix. In general, that module gets better results separating parts in mixes that are not heavily processed (i.e. reverb, etc) or (especially) not too heavily compressed (unfortunately many (most?) commercial mixes these days are still heavily compressed/limited). It's certainly worth trying, but I wouldn't expect to be able to cleanly isolate a lead vocal consistently (with any such software, though I'm sure that will continue to improve slowly but surely)..

Thanks Joe--I tried the music rebalance module to start with, which got me the lead and the background vocals isolated from the instruments together on one track. I was quite impressed it did that, because they sound so different. I thought it would put the background Vox with the instruments, but it was too good for its own good. Its a live church service, where you can hear the congregation singing in the background, and the song leader is too loud. I thought it would be great if I could balance that out, but no luck. Doesn't need to be a clean isolation, just enough to change the mix. With as much as they can do already, I think the technology is there, they just don't have a module for it. I wonder if Isotope has a feature request line?

They're probably working on it.. The Music Rebalance module quietly enjoyed a big leap in quality from RX7 to RX8, and this type of processing is being worked on throughout the industry, so hopefully the algorithms will get even more sophisticated..