Emphasize background conversation to make subtitles

Question

I have an video file of somebody talking and some conversation taking place in the background. I need to remove or lower volume of the main voice and emphasize the background conversation. Is there a way/program that helps me do that?

I need this simply because I want to make subtitles for said video, but I can't clearly hear what is said in the background because the main voice just overpowers it (especially when I crank up the volume)

I've seen this question asked here before, but that was like 5 year and more years ago and I was hoping for some new developments on that end ^^"

Thanks in advance for any helpful info on that :)

Answer 1

Method 1:
Use any standard compressor to reduce the peaks & therefore lift the background noise. A multiband comp might be what you need, to keep consonants clear.

Example multiband comp from Waves [mainly because these are the ones I know best - there are a myriad different companies making this type of plugin]

Method 2:
Use a dedicated voice "de-noiser" & listen to the 'Difference' - which is the opposite of what the effect is designed to do. In effect you will be listening to 'what is left after it has done its job'.

Below is just an example of Waves' X-Noise [again, there are many variants on this theme], which has this 'difference' function. Not all clean-up tools have this facility.