Quote:
I know the recording is bad to begin with and there is only so much one can do with it, but perhaps I could learn some nice trick here.



I listened to several seconds of each and then jumped to the vox and listened of a few seconds.

The old computer term GIGO (garbage in/garbage out) seems appropriate. Yeah, there are no "tricks" that I'm aware of that will let you fix this to where it sounds good. If you have recorded the tracks together and done so in a poor manner, there is no rescue possible.

You MUST always start with the absolute best tracks you can.

I've had some folks send me tracks that sound like that, and ask me to "fix" them and add my instruments so it "sounds good". One lady sent me a vocal track that was not recorded to pitch, or a click, and recorded with a cheap dynamic mic with tons of hollow room sound. I refused the job. She wanted me to put the instruments to it. My advice to her was the same advice I give to you now regarding this. Record it again, and this time, pay attention to the details.

Having said that, there are some software packages that allow you to remove things from the mix. I have not heard anything spectacular about these. Melodyne can do this to some degree in the poly mode. I have used ME for this and it works OK with small things. I've never used it to remove or attempt to remove an entire guitar track from a mixed track. Obviously, the more stuff in the mix the harder it is.It would be a chore to do this cleanly. There's another program that came out a year or two ago more specifically designed for this job. However, that assumes that you have good underlying tracks to start with.

In your case, with this song, it would be best to start from scratch and record it again, this time, doing it right.

Just a side note here..... I never worry about trying to preserve an older recording that sounds bad.....if I like the song, I approach it from square one and 99% of the time, it turns out so much better than it would if I had tried what you are wanting to do. Just start from scratch and rework the song.

You can find my music at:
www.herbhartley.com
Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.

The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.