Removing Echo from Audio with Adobe Audition
- 11-22-2010
- Categorized in: Audio capture and cleanup, Preprocessing your video, Streaming production
So, there I was, shooting a video for a Peer Review for StreamingMedia.com. If you're not familiar with these videos, it's where I critique videos presented by different web sites. While I simply don't have the production facilities to match the quality of some of the sites that I comment on, I do try to maximize the quality of my audio and video.
I was trying out a new microphone with the video segment, saw that levels were good, but didn't otherway pay attention to the quality. Then I got to editing the video (after putting away the lights, and storing all the audio gear, of course) and noticed a pretty severe echo in the audio. Well, here it is, you give it a listen.
Clearly unusable unless I could chromakey myself into a big church or other large room. With my deadline approaching, I quickly started Google-ing, finding many items that said removing echo was impossible. On another site, I saw a suggestion to use Adobe Audition's Center Channel Extractor (see the bottom post here).
The filter is simple enough to apply; in the main menu choose Effects > Filters > Center Channel Extractor. Here's the filter itself, which I just used in its default configuration.
I applied the filter, saved the file, and this is what I got.
It's not perfect, but it's good enough to use in the final production. Here's the before again for easier comparison.
So, if you run into a similar problem, give it a shot!
Good for you! I checked all those forum replies too. The most I found was some butthead named Steve who kept jumping down people's throats about how the echo couldn't be helped. Thank you for giving something useful!
Thanks for your note.
Jan
If the vocals were recorded with a stereo mic, you could potentially:
Open the waveform in Audition. Turn off either the left or right channel output in the waveform editor & see if it sounds any better with one mono channel as opposed to both.
I've had a phenomena happen with recording Internet radio streams from web players on occasion where the left & right channels seemingly got 'out of sync', causing the echo effect. So I delete one side, copy the remaining & paste into the empty channel.
Interesting. I'll give it a try next time I run into the problem. Thanks for sharing.
Jan
Thanks, I was just about to ask where could I find the "Center Channel Extractor" in Adobe Audition CS5.5, luckily it's in the filter sub-menu, but under "Stereo Imagery". Effects>Stereo Imagery>Center Channel Extractor... Cheers!!
Jan
Dude! - thanks for sharing! same problem here!
Jan
Please note that there is exactly one posting above from someone who actually got it to work and posted the before and after. Most non-incidental vocal work is of one single microphone, say a USB microphone, and not balanced stereo microphones atop a camcorder. When those people get echoes, they have no show, and it doesn't matter whose software you use.
We are pleased to note partial success with the stereo microphone and Center Channel Isolation technique and we will pass that along to our posters.
Koz, Audacity Forum Elf.
On behalf of SBHNS.