Editing vocals in a remix

Hey twiddlers. Funny, I've been on WATMM for over five years and I've never posted here.

I'm currently working on a major project, and to complete it, there's one little thing I need to do.

One of the tracks in my upcoming mix has a vocal layer, and I would like to make a subtle edit to the lyrics. The sounds I need are all spoken in the track, so I just need to cut it up a little.

Here's the problem: There are a lot of layers and background noises, and the vocals are not centered properly. I've tried the standard karaoke technique (inverting one channel and mixing as mono), but it seems there's nothing I can do to isolate the vocals from everything else.

What I wanted to do was take a sample of the vocals, edit the phonemes to make a different word, and put it back in so it plays seamlessly with the rest of the vocals.

How do people usually do this? Can it be done?

btw, I'm using Audacity. I have FL Studio, but I don't have much experience with other sound/audio programs.

Someone in this thread will inevitably say Melodyne DNA, so I'll just get that one out of the way now.

Is it impossible to dig out or at least minimize the noise with EQ? Or blend the noise in your mix so it sounds intentional?

I would chop up the vocals and map them out on a sampler.

  On 12/5/2011 at 11:40 PM, kokeboka said:

I would chop up the vocals and map them out on a sampler.

yeah, and make sure your samples all start and end on a zero crossing. elementary, i know..........