Any way to reduce echo in audio

[Mike Kujbida]

Here’s a number of suggestions that I’ve grabbed from various Vegas forums over the years.
Hopefully one of them will help.

If you use the Track Compressor in Vegas, which works perfectly well for this task, turn off “Auto Gain Compensation”, set “Amount” to “2.0” to start, adjust “Threshold” to taste. Set the attack time at or very close to zero in order to not cut off the first part of words and play with the release time to get rid of the reverb, maybe start at 100 to 250 ms. It’s going to take some messing.

Although nothing can eliminate echo in a recording, it can be reduced.
This approach, which is nearly forty years old, can often produce significant reduction in spatial echo, when used judiciously.
We used it to make acceptable demos from bar band tapes.
Here’s an old trick (from and old dog) dating back to analog recording days that usually gives some improvement (you need a good wave editor like SoundForge):

1. Select All, then Copy the audio.
2. Paste to a new track, invert the waveform, and apply moderate compression.
3. Reduce the new track volume so that a preselected “quiet” area is about 50% of the level of its corresponding area in the original.
4. Paste Mix the new track into the old. Renormalize if necessary.

There should be a noticeable improvement in clarity and echo reduction because you have applied negative feedback to the areas where the echo is most objectionable. Too high a compression or too high level of the feedback track will give a “pumping” effect, however.

A few people have taken it a bit farther by refining the attack / release delays and playing with the EQ’s selectively on the feedback track; it’s more of an art than a science to get the de-effect right. As I caution every time it gets mentioned — use it sparingly.

Very old trick that might work.

Duplicate your audio track and invert it. This should give you silence if you’ve got it right. Now apply a compressor to one of the audio tracks and adjust the knee, ratio, attack and decay times, probably best in that order.

This works because the compressor will leave part of the signal untouched causing partial cancellation from the two summed tracks. You want to cancel the quieter part of the tracks on the trailing edge of the sounds, that’s where the echo is noticeable.

[Dave Petteruto]

Thank you very much Mike, I will give it a shot with your suggestions.

Thanks
Dave P.

[Mike Kujbida]

Good luck Dave.
I ahven’t had to try them yet but they all come highly recommended.

[Chris Blair]

There are also plug-ins (usually have “transient” in the name) that can help. We used one called Transient Shaper, and it can add to or reduce room acoustics. So while these were developed to give audio a particular ambiance…they also work in reducing echo when used properly. I bought transient shaper because they had a tutorial on how to use it to reduce boomy audio.

It does not elimiate it and if you make the wrong adjustments it can actually distort or cut off your critical audio, but it really helped on one project where we were forced to shoot in an old school room that was unbelievably boomy.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Scott Francis]

Very interesting…this probably comes from the inverse wave causing a form of phase cancellation…I would not have thought of that for echo removal…I may have to try that. Do you find that you also loose some of the audio you wish to keep? After 15 years in the studio biz…this is a new one to me!!

Scott Francis
Mind’s Eye Audio/Video Productions