KVR Audio

georgelegeriii · Post by **georgelegeriii** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:16 am

Hi,

Does anyone know of a de-reverberation plug-in that can decrease reverb on dialog? I'm doing some audio restoration and can't find anything other than allot of theory on it.

Thanks,

George

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:21 am

I've tried on and off for years to rid voiceover of reverb, without much luck.

Usually the verb in question is natural room from an unfortunate recording location.

I've eq'd verby voice to death, and while it is possibel to reduce the verb, the voice loses all it's natural timbre and sounds like another person.

Anyone else any clues here?

Hunter · Post by **Hunter** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:26 am

try a gate perhaps?

KingofBeers · Post by **KingofBeers** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:57 am

Try using an expander a little and a gate after it....had some ok results in the past....failing that..maybe a very soft filter set to envelope follower??

Cheers.

meister eder · Post by **meister eder** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:08 am

I get very good results with the de-reverberation algorithm from Prosoniq's SonicWORX. For realtime applications Logic Pro's Enveloper plugin gives quite decent results, as does Logic Pro's Spectral Gate to some extend.

All Mac only, but you didn't state if you are on PC or Mac.
There might be plugins similar to Logic's Enveloper out there - basically it works like SPL's Transient Designer. There are some Spectral Gate like plugins however (e.g. by iZotope, if I remember correctly).

Barbarossa · Post by **Barbarossa** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:33 am

If the reverb is stereo, use M/S-technique and reduce the S-signal.

michu · Post by **michu** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:20 pm

in past i've used noise reduction algorithms with some luck.
i think that if one can get on with the learning curve, dblkfx spectral plugin could fit the bill with its contrast algorithm

Blue Cat Audio · Post by **Blue Cat Audio** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:00 pm

If the reverb is stereo, use M/S-technique and reduce the S-signal.

That's right. And even better, you can just low-pass the side channel: usually most of the reverb is noticeable in the high frequencies. It works only if the reverb is stereo (any natural reverb is).

We have tools that you can use for such purpose, it's Mid/Side equalizers. A Parametric one (most powerful), the Widening Parametr'EQ, and a linear phase one (if you want to keep phase), Widening Liny EQ. you can try one of these and remove some high frequencies on the side channel, it works very well.

If this does not work (in case your track is mono for example), if you can get the impulse response of your room I am sure you can find a deconvolution plug-in somewhere here to remove this reverb.

Mango · Post by **Mango** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:16 pm

hey great advice here guys i was wondering how to do this myself the other day

orangesuite · Post by **orangesuite** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:23 pm

neodynium could be used fir this to an extent. but we all know what happened to that...sniff

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:54 pm

Gate is the most efficient "de-reverberator", especially with an Expander as KingofBeers said. One is pumping up what you need - expand, and one is pumping down what you don't - gate

.

Cheers!

Lagrange · Post by **Lagrange** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 2:11 pm

Hey guys I might be off base here but what about deconvolver??

http://www.voxengo.com/product/deconvolver/

??

Let me know if this would work cause I've been interested but havent read/heard much about it..

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 3:28 pm

I've tried pretty much most of the above over the years (try running a video studio and not get used to f***ed-up voiceover)

The problem with verb is that it gets everywhere

Gating works in theory but people's speech is very variable. Tight gating chops the ends off words. But looser gating means that the verb "rush" creeps through.

And gating loses any background ambience noise, which often sounds very wrong - tho' I guess this could be redubbed later to create a more "natural" effect.

Eq boost and cut lets you isolate a sweet spot where compromise is possible, but while the voice might sound unverby and thus acceptable, it doesn't sound like the person any more.

I would be tempted to put a music track underneath if at all possible, and so distract the ear. Nothing wrong with a bit of legerdemain

But it's all a tough call, with none of it easy.

Verb in voiceover is like sand in your sandwiches.

michu · Post by **michu** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 5:23 pm

the idea is to use multiband gating, where spectral gating in fft based plugins is pretty much as 'multiband' as one gets. using noise reduction with noiseprint captured from reverbated ambiance can improve situation, if you overdo it, it sounds like low quality audio codec artifacts. i think any multiband gate or spectral plugin with gating could come close (isn't rocktron hush multiband btw?)

michu · Post by **michu** » Tue Jun 06, 2006 8:28 am

kevvvvv, for your way of working
take an IQ4 plugin (or some commercial counterpart, i believe Sonalksis has some eq/dynamics hybrid), dial in the eq curve you need to dampen the room sound then switch the bands to downward expander mode and play around with tresholds, so it works only on quieter parts and doesn't affect the voice.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=72521

edit - all praise IIRs for this as useful as underrated plug-in

De-reverberation