Reducing echo/reverb in a recording

S

stevedocmaker

Well-known member
I had to shoot an interview in an empty cinderblock building, and no matter what mic I used I got tons of reverb from the environment. I don't mind a little of the ambient sound, but does anyone know of a way to filter this out (reduce the reverb) in post?
 
If its the nature of the environment then it should be passable. Removing natural reverb is impossible. You could try adr.
 
Agreed, we've all been there, done that. Close micing is the only way around it, if even that works, from what I've found. But the location is the problem.
 
Once recorded, the room sound is kind of the room sound...

What you can do is make sure that the audio can be understood. What you are after now is intelligibility. You can try EQ, compression, whatever it takes to make sure that your interviewee can be understood, above and beyond the existing room sound on the track.

GJ
 
There are few things I normally do might help a bit.
1. Record on a Hyper mic, don't use a sensitive shotgun like sennheiser 416. They have too sensitive, easily pick up reverb sound (try Oktava 012, put overhead as near as possible to the
mouth. The ideal setup is to use a lav as well, make it as close as possible to the person's mouth, of course the further away you put the lav, the reverb will be more obvious.
2. If it's allowed, Ask the subject speaks as quiet as possible, that helps a lot in the reverb environment. I did few times, it worked until the interviewee got too excitement, and laugh
loud, it get everything in the mic ;(
3. Ask the director, if he put any music under the interview, if he does. that would save you in the end, with a music underneath, it's really hard to hear the echo, plus you could do a bit
trick in the post.

Good luck

Hiro
 
Thanks for the suggestions! I was fortunate in that my interviewee did speak softly. I tried sampling the echo on a clap and using it as noise for noise reduction, this helped, along with a little EQing. Really it's not bad, at no point does it make the speech unintelligible, it's more of an esthetic thing and my own hyper-sensitivity to audio. I showed the footage to a friend, prefacing that I had an issue with the audio, and he asked what the issue was after watching a clip.

In the end I found that the boom sounded better than a lav, and I think the establishing shots showing the environment should make it a non-issue.

Interesting comment about the mic sensitivity. I have an inexpensive AT shotgun that I left home for the shoot, probably would have done the trick. I just purchased a Sony FS100, which comes with a (probably) cheap short shotgun, on-camera mic. I used the camera but also left that mic home for the shoot. A few days later I did a quick test of the mic in my garage, and I noticed that it picked up far less reverb than my Sennheiser or far more expensive AT. Next time I'll bring a cheap mic along for the ride!
 
Two things that may help.

1. Use less compression. If you have a compressor on the channel it will (seemingly) increase the volume of the noise floor which includes all of that reverberation.
2. Ride the vocal. Get in there and "ride" the vocal fader up and down as they speak. Essentially raising the vocal during words or phrases and dropping after. If you time this right you can cut off the reverb tails considerably. It will not eliminate the reverb tails, just make them less distracting.

And for future, the above advice is good. Close proximity when recording. Mic choice. But you seem to understand this. Additionally you can control the environment by stringing up some Packing blankets to dull a live room, essentially creating a little dead space around your interviewee. If you have good stable light stand you can gripclip them to the stands. Just make sure you sand bag 'em well.

Hope that helps :)
 
To echo the above...

Being an audio recorder, acoustics have been a target of mine in my own environment. Purchase a few moving blankets. They are cheap and the thicker, the better. You can use PVC piping (cheap) or even rope when able to tie off (cheaper) and create baffles between your talent and the environment.

They mainly reduce the high end and upper mids in truth, but in many case can produce a quality increase.

I built a frame for my recording room. I already have bass traps on the wall but still wanted less "room" in the mics. Using the above helped me arrive at a very intimate sound.

Hope that helps.
Rob
 
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