Sound To Echo-y
 

I just filmed something today in a big room and found out after the fact that I had a mic problem and the audio instead was recorded my the camera mic. Now i cant reshoot this fottage and the audio quality isnt bad for what I am doing. I was wondering how i can minimize this echo after the fact either in premeire or audition.

Your dry track can be boosted a bit and perhaps compressed alot. In Audition, try the VST plugin "multiband compressor". There are a few presets to get you going. Also the "dynamics" plugin might help.

My understanding is he didn't have a dry track.

Anyways, I don't know the details but I've heard that
light use of a noise gate can remove some echo.

Sorry not dry, but distant with some late reflections ... large room echo ... not present ...

Given the nature of the echo this may or may not work.
Make a copy of the track and invert, should get nothing.
Now add serious compression to the inverted track. Play with the compressor settings, and I mean all of them, and the level of the inverted track.
What you are trying to achieve is have the compressor compress the wanted signal whilst not touching the unwanted echo leaving it to cancel out. You do reach a limit, artifacts start to creep in. I've had pretty good results with this technique at times.

You can also use some EQ to reduce the problems with your on-camera track. A low end rolloff will reduce some of the echo, which tends to be lower in frequency than the original source. Experiment until you get some reduction that doesn't greatly effect the vocals.
You can also roll off the highs. Since you were more distant than you intended to be, then higher frequency sounds such as noise in your preamps or mic, camera motor noise, AC vent hiss or brighter reflections if this was a hard-surface room, can all be toned down a little. Again, experiment to get some benefit without harming your audio.

Not really. Whatever you do to "fix" the problem will have it's own compromising effects. Consider your pooch officially screwed. The good news is that you have learned the first lesson of audio; Listen to everything all the time.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Hello Folks,

What program is best to reduce any audio echo or if I want to do audio work... Soundtrack??? I have FCP and it comes with Soundtrack

Also I have a question, let's I would like to get my audio to sound sort of what we see on tv, how would I establish that? use a good Shot Gun mic capture the audio and mix it with the image?

Im just trying to reducing ambient noise & echo and I woul dlike your help thanks :)

Joey Dee

There are few if any programs to unbotch echoey audio. CEDAR is the only one I know and geting rid of echoes because of bad mic usage is NOT its primary function.

To get the sort of audio you hear on TV, you have to hire someone with the tools and experience. Regardless of what you've been led to believe, good audio is not trivial or point and shoot. You need the right tools used the right way for any particular job.

Shotgun mics have their uses, but more often than not you'll want a hypercadioid on the boom, not a shotgun.

Regards,

Ty Ford

Deff makes sense what your saying Ty. What do you suggest me to do, I mean i don't have the money to hire people left, right and centre... Should I buy as you said a Hypercadioid on the boom (im guessing this is a type of mic???) and jsut keep on practicing until I get the hang of it? Should I have the audio record seperate from the film and mix it later or just record it on the film (when I say film meaning dv tape)

Also if you can give me an idea on what type of mic I should get to practice with that would really help me out mate.

Many thanks,
Joey Dee

Ty is correct that you need expertise to get the "network TV or movie theatre sound" and hiring someone with the knowledge is the quickest way to get it on the set. But all business decisions boil down to a choice of either 'make' or 'buy'. Hiring someone is taking the buying option. But there are other ways - the professional mixer wasn't born with that knowledge (though they may have been born with very good ears) - he built it up with years of study and experience and you can follow the same path he did. So the alternative to hiring a pro is to 'make' the expertise and you do that by studying, reading, studying, experimenting, reading some more and did I mention studying? No offense meant here but your lack of recognition of the term "hypercardioid" as being a type of mic pickup pattern shows you really haven't begun to do your homework yet and you still need to pick up a foundation of some basic textbook larnin' before you're ready to pick up a mic. Get a couple of good texts on audio for film and TV production and read them thoroughly - a couple of good ones for starters I've found are Jay Rose's "Great Sound for Digital Video" and "Audio Postproduction for Digital Video." Also visit the Shure website www.shure.com and the Schoeps' website www.schoeps.de to review their tech support downloads - lots of good instructions on mic techniques. Also I've disccovered the DPA Microphones website, www.dpamicrophones.com, has what they call "Microphone University" and a number of application notes - while oriented to music recording an awfully lot of it applies to micing film and video as well.

What Steve said.

Ty

Sup Fellas,

sorry for the late reply as I was away for the world cup :) upset italy won but thats' football.... OK... So many thanks the info STeve & TY... Im deff here to learn im not afraid to ask for help. I need to just read, expriment & practice until I get a good understand of this medium.

Thansk again,
joey Dee