De-Reverb corruption

[F1lmGuy]

Hey folks,

I'm cleaning up a bit of boomy audio and have been experimenting with several de-reverb plugins. The Acon plugin seems to produce the best result for the money. However, I'm leery of buying because it only works on some clips. Other clips just become hopelessly corrupted as soon as I drop the Acon plugin onto them. Changing settings seems to have no affect. They remain corrupted until I remove the Acon plugin and then they're back to normal. Am I doing something wrong?

[stian]

Hi!

Hey folks,

I'm cleaning up a bit of boomy audio and have been experimenting with several de-reverb plugins. The Acon plugin seems to produce the best result for the money. However, I'm leery of buying because it only works on some clips. Other clips just become hopelessly corrupted as soon as I drop the Acon plugin onto them. Changing settings seems to have no affect. They remain corrupted until I remove the Acon plugin and then they're back to normal. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for the interest! If reducing the reverb level under "Source reverb settings" doesn't have any effect, there's definitely something wrong. Which host and operating system are you using?

Best,
Stian

[F1lmGuy]

Stian,

Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and dialed the reverb level all the way down to 0. It still sounds like the audio is being massively overdriven. But only when the plugin is enabled.

I'm on OS X 10.11.6 running in Final Cut Pro X 10.3.1.

I tried to export with and without so you can hear the distortion I'm getting, but oddly enough, the export replaces the distortion with clicks!?!? Anyhow, here are links in case it's helpful.

The first audio clip (the young man speaking) is using the plugin and sounds fine. The second line is also using the plugin, but with "reverb level" at 0, is replaced with clicking. When the clicking stops it's a new audio clip without the plugin.

https://youtu.be/avlm3M6nFJ0

And the same thing with the plugin turned off for the second clip:

https://youtu.be/lZKPYa0paAs

[stian]

Stian,

Thanks for the reply. I went ahead and dialed the reverb level all the way down to 0. It still sounds like the audio is being massively overdriven. But only when the plugin is enabled.

I'm on OS X 10.11.6 running in Final Cut Pro X 10.3.1.

I tried to export with and without so you can hear the distortion I'm getting, but oddly enough, the export replaces the distortion with clicks!?!? Anyhow, here are links in case it's helpful.

The first audio clip (the young man speaking) is using the plugin and sounds fine. The second line is also using the plugin, but with "reverb level" at 0, is replaced with clicking. When the clicking stops it's a new audio clip without the plugin.

https://youtu.be/avlm3M6nFJ0

And the same thing with the plugin turned off for the second clip:

https://youtu.be/lZKPYa0paAs

Thanks for the clips. That's definitely a compatibility issue and nothing you do wrong. We'll try to reproduce the issue and get back to you as soon as possible.

Best,
Stian

[F1lmGuy]

Thanks, Stian. Look forward to hearing from you.

[F1lmGuy]

Hey Stian,

A little update from my end. I made a duplicate of the project on a portable SSD and hooked it up to my laptop. The timeline plays back without corruption on my laptop. So I checked the versions and saw that my laptop (OS X 10.12.5) was running a different version of FCPX (10.3.4). I don't want to change the OS on my Mac Pro, but I thought I could probably bump the FCPX version. I did. Same problem.

Because I have a looming deadline, I went ahead with the edit on my laptop. However, I've discovered when I export, even on the laptop, I get that horrible clicking you hear in the sample clip I posted. I've tried a variety of different techniques and formats and no matter what I export (audio only, uncompressed, finished video files) it all has the same breakups in the same places.

Am I the only person trying to use this plugin in FCPX?

Thanks!

[stian]

Hi!

Hey Stian,

A little update from my end. I made a duplicate of the project on a portable SSD and hooked it up to my laptop. The timeline plays back without corruption on my laptop. So I checked the versions and saw that my laptop (OS X 10.12.5) was running a different version of FCPX (10.3.4). I don't want to change the OS on my Mac Pro, but I thought I could probably bump the FCPX version. I did. Same problem.

Because I have a looming deadline, I went ahead with the edit on my laptop. However, I've discovered when I export, even on the laptop, I get that horrible clicking you hear in the sample clip I posted. I've tried a variety of different techniques and formats and no matter what I export (audio only, uncompressed, finished video files) it all has the same breakups in the same places.

Am I the only person trying to use this plugin in FCPX?

Thanks!

Thanks for the update! That's very strange -- I would think that the export format would be affecting the problem, but not the clips on the timeline. I've installed FCPX 10.3.4 and tried to reproduce the issue with no success. I'm aware of several customers using DeVerberate in FCPX, so that alone can't be the issue. Maybe it has something to do with the format of the clips in the timeline? What format are they in? What happens if you move the clips -- do the distortions follow the clip or are they static on the timeline?

I apologize for the inconvenience, but this one seems very hard to track down.

Best,
Stian

[F1lmGuy]

Hey Stian,

Thanks for continuing to look into this, and my apologies for the delay in my reply.

The troublesome audio clips are 24-bit/96kHz wav files from a Tascam DR-70d. However, all the clips that the plugin works correctly on are ALSO 24-bit/96kHz wav files from a Tascam DR-70d.

Here's another interesting piece of information: I was able to "work around" the problem, by loading the clips into Audacity, running them through the Acom De-Reverb plugin, and then importing and resyncing the resulting audio files in FCPX. This isn't an ideal solution, but it did solve my immediate crisis. However, once again, we're talking about the same clips, same machine, same plugin. The only difference is FCPX vs Audacity. It's confusing to me.

If it would help, I'm happy to upload copies of a couple of the problem clips for you to play around with.

Thanks!
Ted

[stian]

Hi Ted,

Hey Stian,

Thanks for continuing to look into this, and my apologies for the delay in my reply.

The troublesome audio clips are 24-bit/96kHz wav files from a Tascam DR-70d. However, all the clips that the plugin works correctly on are ALSO 24-bit/96kHz wav files from a Tascam DR-70d.

Here's another interesting piece of information: I was able to "work around" the problem, by loading the clips into Audacity, running them through the Acom De-Reverb plugin, and then importing and resyncing the resulting audio files in FCPX. This isn't an ideal solution, but it did solve my immediate crisis. However, once again, we're talking about the same clips, same machine, same plugin. The only difference is FCPX vs Audacity. It's confusing to me.

If it would help, I'm happy to upload copies of a couple of the problem clips for you to play around with.

Thanks!
Ted

Thanks for the additional info and I apologize for my late reply due to the Acoustica 7 release and vacations. It seems as if the problem is due to a combination of the source file format and the host, thus making it hard to reproduce. We'll try some stress testing here...

Best,
Stian