How do I use audition to reduce Room Echo Reverb

Report · Jun 29, 2019

Hi, I am a medical professional and I am recording audio to create youtube educational videos. I am recording in a large room with a lot of hard surfaces which I have reduced as much as I can. I still have a fair bit of room echo in the recording. I have seen mentioned in some youtube videos discussing noise reduction that the spectral decay settings in the advanced tab can be used to reduce room echo/reverb however, I am unsure as to how they work. I have trialled different settings but I'm still unsure as to which settings are best to use.

My questions are:

1. How does the spectral decay function act to reduce reverb?

2. Are there default settings that are likely to work well for the scenario I have described of a large room with a lot of hard surfaces and that could give me a starting point?

Report · Jun 29, 2019

Altering the spectral decay has the effect of reducing the NR effect that you have chosen gradually at the start of silences. As a method of reducing room sound in a recording, this will make no actual difference at all; it just alters the subjective effect of the decay in the NR process, and won't do anything at all to the room sound, despite the claims.

A far better approach to reducing room tone would be to use Audition's DeReverb effect. If there's just a single person speaking, then it's generally possible to adjust this to make a worthwhile difference. It only sounds really bad when you overdo it - if you have a visual image of the speaker, you need to leave a little room tone, just for the sake of verisimilitude; otherwise, the mismatch between what you hear and what you see can be a little disturbing!