De-reverberation - The final cut

[grymmjack]

here is a test file, a segment of typical singing/playing guitar at once..
http://www.asseca.com/designermonkey/kv ... b_test.rar

it's 44.1khz 16bit stereo stereo waveform rared using maximum compression. filesize is ~5mb.

please PM me when you download this so i can remove it.

[OMU]

For those who are questioning the reason behind having such a plugin, the area where engineers deal with reverberation problems is in post production.
Recordings made in non-adequate (but natural) spaces are to be considered when testing this plug.

And those recordings suffer from early reflections: an area of which the O.P. says it's still not quite working well (as far as I've understood)

Indeed.
It would be very healthy, in the long run, to focus your efforts in solving early reflections too.
I can't really see any reason why an engineer would want to apply such an effect to a processed file or to a mix(!)
By comparition, the post prod guys will be in their knees to have such a tool.

[Krakatau]

pluginnow

After searching, i've found something, as test, that may have an interest for me, of course, and as a specific kind of soundtake

This is a portion of a finalised track of african traditionnal music, taken at once with a single stereo microphone ( electret condenser )

You may notice the reverberation coming from the original location of this soundtake...
( a small court from western africa with walls of brick and behind the musicians, a house also of bricks, less than 10 meters distant and about 5 meters high )
...quite enhanced by the use of multiband compression, nothing really disturbing except maybe for the most sounding instruments ( Dum-dum, Djembe ) that i suggested to be placed in equilibration to the other ones ( a bit distant to the microphones and therefore closer to the brickwall behind )

Counting out a complete removing of the natural reverberation ( that insn't really recommanded anyway ), i'lle be nevertheless, very curious to hear how your "dereverberator" would behave in this case

Only to see what could be the added flexibity it would give in sculpting achieved soundtakes of this kind ( i mean that there traditionnally no way to compensate the absence of a mixing table, but all in one, the good combination of appropriate mastering tools can sometimes make real miracles )

www.anak-krakatoa.net/~downl/misc/Mahama.mp3

And yes, in this case, it would make sense to insert this de-reverberator, as a real-time plug-in... before inserting other mastering tools

[pluginnow]

Hey Krakatau, thats piece of cake for my de-reverberation algorithm. I'll just dinner, and after that I'll post the result.

Also, I made some improvements to the algo, and I really can take out ER! It just needed more "detection resolution". Also, the tails got improvements with just this technique also.

You can't believe in what I can do now with this.

I'll post 2 files shortly.

Thanks

[pluginnow]

Here's your file:

http://savefile.com/files/133909

[pluginnow]

Here's another one. I'll use capslock!

Listen the file COMPLETELLY.. Check the potencial:

http://savefile.com/files/133932

Still open to publish this..

[Krakatau]

Well, let say...

...the only comparison i know is an algo from prosoniq sonicworks and obviously, yours is much more improoved and effective on that de-reverberation task

But...

From a "Pro" point of view you'd need to avoid any artefacts completely, and this is the most important, sine qua non condition :

- even if you just REDUCE the ambient reverberation the most important in the case is that you should keep untouched the overall feeling of a natural soundtake.

I don't want to dissapoint you but honestly, It doesn't seems to be usuable on that purpose as it is actually

Perhaps if you add a last "dry / wet " mixing stage you'd get something more usuable, but i'm no coder so i'm not qualified to give you a technical advice

[st3pan0va]

i tried processing that first sample file with kn0ck0ut - then forgot to post the result...

so here it is now. not mindblowing, but decent - better than the example above. and it's easy ... didn't spend long matching reverb etc just fired up kjaerhus classic R and tried to get roughly the right length and pre-delay.

http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/speech_dereverb.mp3

[st3pan0va]

OK, and here is Krakatau's track processed - maybe a little more successful. because the instruments are so resonant, it was tricky hear exactly what the reverb component was, so i just played around with it till it sounded to me like they could have been performing outdoors.

http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/mahama_dereverb.mp3

edit: you might need to cut & paste the url

[Krakatau]

OK, and here is Krakatau's track processed - maybe a little more successful. because the instruments are so resonant, it was tricky hear exactly what the reverb component was, so i just played around with it till it sounded to me like they could have been performing outdoors.

http://www.freewebs.com/st3pan0va/mahama_dereverb.mp3

edit: you might need to cut & paste the url

ermm... why does your links take me back to the top of this page ?

[st3pan0va]

hi krakatau, yes, you're right...i noticed that too, i have snafued the link somehow... that's why i put a note to cut and paste the URL. let me know if that works