How do you remove reverb from audio?

[MikeInBoston]

Hi,

We recently recorded some lectures in a town hall auditorium. The audio is swimming in reverb, which makes the speech less intelligible. Is there any way to diminish or remove reverb from these audio files? Would any of DP's plug-ins be of any use in this regard?

Thanks.

Mike

[mikehalloran]

There are a few 3rd party plugins. I use Deverb, part of Izotope's RX 6 and RX 6 Advanced.
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/rep ... ndard.html

Here's a tutorial.:
https://www.izotope.com/en/learning/rx/ ... odule.html

Can't say I use it often — little need — but some of the other tools in RX are essential to my work such as De-hum, De-noise and De-click. I have recently become a convert to the abilities of Mouth De-click while De-plosive can work miracles in ways I've not experienced with other methods.

It used to be that I needed Advanced but, with RX 6, Izotope finally put the tools that most of us will use into the Standard package. Those who do audio for film will still want Advanced. The other big difference is that all the Advanced tools are available as separate modules and have greater control which I find useful. Still, with 6, Advanced is overkill for most users.

[stubbsonic]

You could mess with the dynamic expander. I think a multiband expander would probably help.

[mikehalloran]

Although I favor using a dedicated plug for this use, Here's DIY approach using free and shareware plugins:
https://riddlermike.wordpress.com/2013/ ... e-plugins/
As you can see, it's somewhat complicated. Really, what is your time worth?

A Google search will reveal a number of dedicated plugs for the use. My recommendation for RX 6 is based on the usefulness of the other included tools. For $299, it's actually less expensive than, say a €129 single-purpose plugin. (Resellers may have a better price). Fortunately, most of the tools out there have an evaluation period.

Me? I like projects where I can justify buying a new tool and charging part or all the cost to that project. When you consider the amount of time involved in the Whizbang approach described in the above link, are you benefiting the client spending the time on it?

[HCMarkus]

My recommendation for RX 6 is based on the usefulness of the other included tools. For $299, it's actually less expensive than, say a €129 single-purpose plugin. (Resellers may have a better price). Fortunately, most of the tools out there have an evaluation period.

Me? I like projects where I can justify buying a new tool and charging part or all the cost to that project. When you consider the amount of time involved in the Whizbang approach described in the above link, are you benefiting the client spending the time on it?

That's how I got RX some years back... a talking head's voice was recorded too hot; RX Declipper reduced the distortion to passible, and saved significant time and money for the producer.

RX is very handy to have around. Great for reducing annoying acoustic guitar pick clicks, getting rid of hum and hiss on saturated electric guitar tracks, and cleaning up residual noise at the tail end of fades at the end of tunes, like when Ivory piano is ringing out with lots of soft notes. I don't have RX Advanced, so am missing the reverb reducer plug-in, but it sounds like just the ticket here.

Since I am typically working with little problem sections of audio, I don't use RX as a plug in. I spit the offending region out, drag and drop on RX, clean it up, drag and drop back into DP and "Move to Original Time Stamp". I guess I could just apply RX as a plugin to the offending region... might have to try next time!

[stubbsonic]

I was hired to clean up some very roomy voice-over and I used WaveArts MultiDynamics (a versatile multi-band compressor/expander). With it I was able to reduce the room ambience very effectively. It took a little time to set the thresholds and releases, but it worked surprisingly well.

I bring this up in case the OP has something similar in their plug list.

[mikehalloran]

I don't have RX Advanced, so am missing the reverb reducer plug-in, but it sounds like just the ticket here.

It's an upgrade away now that De-reverb part of RX 6 Standard along with De-plosive and Mouth De-click.
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/rep ... ndard.html

If you've ever been given a vocal sung into a small diaphragm condenser, Mouth De-click might become your new best friend—I had no idea till I tried it on an old track that never did sound right before. De-plosive just works and was the reason I bought 5 Advanced.

Except for those working with film/av location recording, I don't really see the need for Advanced anymore unless you like the greater editing features in the various modules. RX 6 Standard has really made Advanced redundant for most users.

[daniel.sneed]

RX Deverb does some real job, which may be fine in some situations.
But don't expect to always get a perfect dry sound, though. Which, IMHO, may be an unrealistic demand.

[HCMarkus]

I expect that, after running De-Reverb, one may want to ADD back a tad of reverb (using a verb that doesn't muddy the dialog) to mask any artifacts, especially if this is a stand-alone track, not a track that is backed by music or ambiance FX.

I don't have RX Advanced, so am missing the reverb reducer plug-in, but it sounds like just the ticket here.

It's an upgrade away now that De-reverb part of RX 6 Standard along with De-plosive and Mouth De-click.
https://www.izotope.com/en/products/rep ... ndard.html

If you've ever been given a vocal sung into a small diaphragm condenser, Mouth De-click might become your new best friend—I had no idea till I tried it on an old track that never did sound right before. De-plosive just works and was the reason I bought 5 Advanced.

Except for those working with film/av location recording, I don't really see the need for Advanced anymore unless you like the greater editing features in the various modules. RX 6 Standard has really made Advanced redundant for most users.

Only an upgrade away means I can go to RX6 (I have 5) if and when I need it. The Mouth De-click function would probably prove useful for me. OTOH, I don't seem to have much trouble with plosives and, when they arise, find they are generally pretty easy to remove using editing/EQ.

I was hired to clean up some very roomy voice-over and I used WaveArts MultiDynamics (a versatile multi-band compressor/expander). With it I was able to reduce the room ambience very effectively. It took a little time to set the thresholds and releases, but it worked surprisingly well.

I bring this up in case the OP has something similar in their plug list.

Good thought. Waves C4, used as an expander, can do this as well.

[dix]

Unveil is the weapon of choice for several sound designers I know. DeVerb not so much. http://www.zynaptiq.com/unveil/

[Shooshie]

HC... Can you explain how you'd use the C4 expander to reduce reverb or ambience? I haven't thought of that, and though I've used the C4, C5 and C6 in expander mode quite often, I don't get how it could reduce reverb.

I often use it to soften the slope of the decay of high notes on a piano when they are cutting through a lot of sound. Would it be similar to that? Reducing the slope of the decay? But that seems opposite of what you'd want, doesn't it?

You tell me. I am tired and not thinking straight, anyway, right now. It'll probably make more sense when you explain it.

Shooshie

[HCMarkus]

Hey Shooshie! I'll give it a go here, on a theoretical level, as I wrap up my Labor Day weekend...

Let's start with the example you offer of a use for a multi-band compressor/expander like C4, reducing the slope of a note's decay. In such a case, you would be using C4 as a compressor to (once attack time has passed) reduce the peak volume of the note, effectively lifting the relative volume of the tail of the note. In this case, C4's "range" parameter" is set to a negative (compression) value for the frequency band in which compression is desired.

To reduce reverb, one can start with C4's "Unprocessor" preset, in which all Range controls are set to positive (expander) values. An overly-reverberant signal is similar to an overly-compressed or noisy signal, and using C4 as a fast-attack multi-band expander, one can emphasize the desired portions of each band of the signal, while attenuating the trailing reverberant wash.

The key concept is having C4 quickly expand (positive Range value - increase in volume) desired portions of the signal (above Threshold) in each band. Once the desired signal has passed, C4 drops back to the level set by the Gain parameter (a negative value) at the speed set by the Release parameter, effectively reducing reverberation volume. Range, Gain, Threshold and Release parameters need to be carefully tuned for each of the four bands to prevent attenuation of desired signal and obvious processing artifacts.

I'm gonna leave it at that for now, as it's getting late here, but will return soon. In the interim, a review of the Waves C4 manual might answer a lot of questions. It's well written, and it's here:

http://www.waves.com/1lib/pdf/plugins/c ... ressor.pdf

Once you have a handle on how the Range and Gain controls interact, see page 26 "setting up a noise reduction processor".

[bleach30]

I would give this a try.

http://www.zynaptiq.com/unveil/

Unveil by Zynaptiq. You can download the demo for free and check it out. For me this gives better results than the De-verb module in RX.

Hint: The demo times out after 15 or 30 min and you can not save anything..but..you can take a screen shot of your settings and restart the plugin then use your screenshot to get back to where you were. When you're happy with the result, record it in real time to another track.

For the record..I did end up buying it

[philbrown]

@HCMarkus - thanks for that explanation. Really good info. I deal with this kind of thing quite a bit.

[David Polich]

+1000 for Zynaptiq Unveil. It works a treat.