Removing echo in audio

Harry3232007,

If you reread the post Nick wrote, he mentioned nothing about race. The original poster mentioned nothing about race. Nowhere, except YOUR post was a racial reference made. All I got from Nick's post was a reference to a person with bad linguistic ability. YOU made the point that the person MUST be black.

Be careful when you tell other people to be careful.

FYI --

Yesterday I added a post to a similar thread, at
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2378238&tstart=0

which followers of this topic might find of interest.

Meantime, I gotta try that damp towel idea someday!

jb

An echo is a repeat of the sound that you already have so you are trying to get rid of something in the same frequency range as the original. It won't work.

You will need to record it again in an environment with less audio reflection from hard surfaces -this is what causes echo. Strategically hanging heavy drapes or using surroundings with soft furnishing will help minimize echo. Test your recording and mic positions with proper monitoring -don't just shoot blind (or deaf in this case).

Hi -
Nick Holmes is exactly correct in the difficulty of removing echo from audio. The best way to fix it is during the recording process.

A very distant second best way is to try and filter it. Often, in trying to repair audio, the cure is worse than the symptom, so tread lightly and use your judgement if this is actually an improvement or not.

Go to the Effects Tab > Audio > Final Cut Pro and drag the effect Expander/Noise Gate on your clip.
This filter makes loud sounds louder and soft sounds softer, so in an ideal application it should help lower the volume of the echo, since the echo should be lower in volume than your source.

You will probably need to fudge around with it quite a bit - and you may decide your original is better.

Good luck..

Nick Holmes is exactly correct...

Yay me! Has to be a first time for everything, I suppose.

Original poster, you could always sell that echo on using the "Voice of the Lord" angle. Leave it in, dammit. When questioned, you just go; "Dat jus' be de voice of His Imperial Majesty, confirmin' de tinkins of de preacher". Try to do this in an authentic accent.

Report back too, let us know how it turned out. Or move to Europe. We have churches with really cool audio characteristics here.

Whoah, Nick.

It sounds as if you aren't from the USA. Just a friendly warning that people get upset about jokes, however gentle, which might be considered racist. My American co-citizens take words very literally and one of the things that people don't find funny at all is "racist" or "race conscious" humor.

I personally don't give a hoot, but I offer this partly as a sociological observation, and partly as a warning that folks do get all bent out of shape about this stuff ... generally liberal whites worrying that black people can't look after themselves. These, by the way, are people who think of themselves as champions of the African American, but in truth they have deeply patronizing attitudes.

Best

Harry.

In my 15 years as a sound editor (before computers) I learned a very odd trick, but it requires an acoustically pristine room. Set up a speaker and a microphone about a foot apart, each the best and flattest you can get your hands on. now get a bath towel and get it nice and damp-- not soggy, and hang it between the mike and speaker. play the audio out of the speaker and rerecord. Mess around with placement. you can knock down the echo considerably, but depending on how "bouncy" the original room was, you will never eradicate it. And if the towel is too wet, you'll muddy up the primary.

you might think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Do however keep in mind that this is a last ditch effort when all else has failed. Easier to reshoot. Take along an audio engineer; they can be worth their weight in gold.

Wow, Jim ... in all the years I've been in this line of work I have never heard of that one. You can bet I'll try it next time someone brings in some echo-y audio. Thanks for the tip! (and keep 'em coming)

-DH

And if you can't reshoot, you might try a noise gate filter to cut the audio off before the echo. But don't expect it to sound pretty.

-DH