totally unrelated to Gimp but since so many of you do more than Gimp I will ask ...anyone know of a (free) program that can preserve one voice out of a video with background noise and another voice, both of which I would like to eliminate? It's just a camera video, so no multiple tracks.

Very tricky. With Audacity you can sample the frequency you want removed and then run a filter to reduce or remove that frequency from the whole thing. The trouble with that is that the frequency is then removed from the voice you want to keep making it sound strange. ( A voice has a whole range of frequencies so it's virtually impossible not to change it in the process. )

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Yes but audacity does have a learning curve, most people can't just start using it for the trickier projects. I agree that it's the best for the job,

For full use I agree but it's easy enough to find this particular filter and use it. ( or at least I found it easy )

Pazera audio extractor will extract audio from a video, I use it every day but it will just extract everything.

I found audacity very easy too, until recently when I wanted to use it to capture audio that came through my speakers. I used to do that all the time but that was on my other laptop.

uh oh, sounds like a bigger project than I am capable of, but I am going to check out Audacity anyway...hmmm, wonder if my imovie would work in any capacity...another project I don't want to get knee deep into.

It's fun just to play with the filters on sounds anyway 2-ton.

would there be any specific plug in that I would need to try and eliminate just my voice? I suppose that means downloading the plug in installer and the plug in, and then there are other goodies...and I haven't even started yet, lol.

Use Effect/Noise Removal. I think you have to select a sample of the noise on its own first, open the effect and sample it then select all and open the effect again to remove the noise. I haven't used it for ages but I think that's right.

Good answer, Erisian. I was just about to post about Noise Removal.
2-ton,
At Audacity, Noise Removal
http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/Noise_Removal

Another take,
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/remove-amb ... -audacity/

ed.,
I would suggest you zoom in and use it selectively.

AWK, looks to hard to me, not even sure what they are talking about...but nothing ventured, nothing gained!

*well, tried it out...I need lots of practice, but I at least managed to do a crappy job, but a job nevertheless, lol.

The good news is Audacity now has an Isolate function.



Select an area where there is only the audio you want to keep then open Effects/Noise Removal and click on "Get noise profile." Then choose Edit/select/all and reopen Noise removal and click on Isolate.
You'll probably need to play with the sliders to get it right but that's basically how it works.

And yes that screen helped me figure it out a bit. I would have liked to just remove the voice and not all the background, but that isn't going to happen with mono! Still, it worked ok for now. Some of the other effects look cool but didn't have time to try them out. Now all I have to do is try and replace the original video sound track with this new one!!!!

Good to know it's going OK.

Avidemux can do it.
http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/

first I think I'll try to see if I can do it with iMovie. Theoretically I should be able to mute the original sound and then add the changed file from audacity. Since it's the same thing, basically, it should fit perfectly. Oy I hope it isn't going to be like the old dubbed movies where the lips are slightly out of synch with the audio, haha.