Tips on how to mitigate echo in a large reflective space?

L

Lkorver

Well-known member
Have a shoot coming up in a large studio/barn with big windows, 30ft ceilings, wood floor, very empty space. The echo is really sharp.
I'm going to lav the subject of course, and put blankets/rugs on the floor where I can. Because it'll be a fairly wide shot, I can't get any blankets very close to the subject. There's some rafters and things I could hang sheets/blankets from, but wondering what level of effect that may have, if any.

I'm using a Sanken Cos11-D with G3s. I'm not a professional sound guy, just the DP, so any advice on mic settings for those would be much appreciated. (sensitivity and gain setting adjustments?)

For post, have the reverb/echo plug-ins gotten any better over the last few years. As of 2019, I read on this forum that the best tools can only reduce echo by about 10%. Thanks!

Subject will be at the island area in the back right of the photo, moving about behind the island area.
 

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Wow, an echo chamber with a 30' ceiling. I can say that without extensive use of "sound blankets" all over that space, it's going to be a reverberant mess. That's easily one of the worst rooms I have ever seen for reflections.
At this point, you definitely need to be managing your client's expectations about sound. IMHO, it will not sound good, no matter what you do, I wouldn't bother with a boom mic, I would only use lavs.

I've shot in a similar spaces and made a "tent" of sound blankets with only an opening in the front and back for picture, the roof, sides and floors were all sound blanket. Took a LOT of gripology to make that work
and the result was usable but not "good".

Izotope RX8 with the De-Reverb plug-in is probably about as good as you are going to get but don't expect better than "usable" sound, it's still not going to sound "good" As the old saying goes, GIGO, Garbage In, Garbage out.
 
If possible get creative with the shot list… Get all your wide shots to establish the space when there’s action but no dialogue and then save all of the dialogue when you’re in a medium close up and can build a sound blanket tent.

Just taking a wild guess that you’re shooting some sort of cooking show type deal you could have the talent go through the whole thing in a wide and record the audio for reference, but treat it as a recorded rehearsal, then film the real deal in a medium close with sound treated dialogue, and then shoot lots and lots of close-up inserts. Between all of those options hopefully you’d have enough times to cut to the wide where either of the talent is not talking or you could line up her mouth with the sound from the medium close up occasionally and no one would be the wiser and your sound would be better than the wide shot

Also if you scroll long enough on these guys’ Instagram you’ll see this overhead diy sound dampening thing they use all the time in big cavernous locations and they say it really helps: https://www.instagram.com/daystarfilm/?hl=en
 
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Well, the de-reverbs have got an awful lot better - and things like spectral layers can remove amazing amounts of reverb - but the best thing to do is a test with lavs in the space and see what problems you have to deal with. For info - your problem is reverb I suspect, it looks little small to have actual echo?
 
The OP is probably not aware of the technical term, 'early reflections'.
In my experience, none of the 'de-verb process are very good for reflections approaching 'critical distance' without producing awful even worse sounding artifacts. That said, SpectraLayers Pro 7 is freak'n amazing otherwise.
 
Rick R said:
The OP is probably not aware of the technical term, 'early reflections'.
In my experience, none of the 'de-verb process are very good for reflections approaching 'critical distance' without producing awful even worse sounding artifacts. That said, SpectraLayers Pro 7 is freak'n amazing otherwise.
Click to expand...

Hi Rick, not familiar with "early reflections" Looking at the picture of the space, what would be the techinical/industry appropriate term for the issues i'll be facing? Thanks!
 
Reverb is the stage where there is not just one path from source to mic, so a impulse sound 'extends', but is not separate. At the point you hear a clear double pulse - that's echo. Reverb is the general term for that characteristic room sound - usually made up of lots of different deals that merge together as the sound bounces around. Our brains determine the size by the early reflection time. If you clap your hands in a hard walled bedroom - the sound has no reflections until it bounces from the first hard surface - and our brain knows we're in a small room. In a church, it could be a long way to the first surface in a huge cathedral, but in a smaller church it would be less distance = less time. Complex buildings with loads of surfaces then reflect the reflections - so if you have a clever reverb creating plugin, the initial setting is a kind of 'size' control, and then the number of reflections creates the complexity of the space. Your space has not got a huge maximum distance to travel, but lots of surfaces. It's rare to find even a cathedral with a proper echo. Most folk don't realise the difference between echo and reverb. In DAWs, we tend to have reverbs and delays, delays being the echos.
 
paulears said:
Reverb is the stage where there is not just one path from source to mic, so a impulse sound 'extends', but is not separate. At the point you hear a clear double pulse - that's echo. Reverb is the general term for that characteristic room sound - usually made up of lots of different deals that merge together as the sound bounces around. Our brains determine the size by the early reflection time. If you clap your hands in a hard walled bedroom - the sound has no reflections until it bounces from the first hard surface - and our brain knows we're in a small room. In a church, it could be a long way to the first surface in a huge cathedral, but in a smaller church it would be less distance = less time. Complex buildings with loads of surfaces then reflect the reflections - so if you have a clever reverb creating plugin, the initial setting is a kind of 'size' control, and then the number of reflections creates the complexity of the space. Your space has not got a huge maximum distance to travel, but lots of surfaces. It's rare to find even a cathedral with a proper echo. Most folk don't realise the difference between echo and reverb. In DAWs, we tend to have reverbs and delays, delays being the echos.
Click to expand...

In looking at the design of the place, any music played in there would likely be plagued by standing wave bass reflections too! So many reflective corners in there, it's insane. Cool space to be in visually but the audio, Oy.
 
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