How to minimize echo in audio recording

[CliffD]

Hi all. This is my first time here and I know a little about Audacity but not an audio engineer.
Today I recorded audio with my cheap but nice shotgun mic in a large room with hard walls and floor. I recorded the audio (in my JVC video camera for video) on both channels.
Now I have an echo of the subjects voice that I do not know how to clean up.
Any help will be appreciated.
Next time I'll use my Audio Technica lav mic.

[Trebor]

Today I recorded audio with my cheap but nice shotgun mic in a large room with hard walls and floor. I recorded the audio (in my JVC video camera for video) on both channels.

If it's a stereo shotgun mic, you could try making a version of the audio which only has what is common to both channels
In audacity you can do that using isolate center, (inevitably the result is mono).

If it's a mono mic, (both tracks absolutely identical) then that technique won't help.

Then your only hope is an expander to shorten any reverberation below a threshold.
Audacity's noise reduction can be used as an expander, see ... viewtopic.php?p=313265#p313265

[steve]

Audacity's noise reduction can be used as an expander, see ... viewtopic.php?p=313265#p313265

Unfortunately that does not work so well with the current version of Noise Reduction as the old version, so it's not likely to help very much.

[kozikowski]

cheap but nice shotgun mic

How long is it? I mean the microphone.



A modern, white-on-white room with no carpeting or drapes is the worst possible room to record anything. The last time I had to do that, I brought my own studio with me.



Those are furniture moving blankets. Highly recommended. One poster made a frame out of pushed-together hardware store plastic pipes. Mine is wood.



You can't take echoes out of a performance. There is no "Clean It Up."

Next time I'll use my Audio Technica lav mic.

That will only help a little. It will still sound like recording in a barn.

Try to get access to a room like that before you absolutely, definitely have to record there and try out your microphones and sound system. Live, bright rooms can give you very serious surprises—and sometimes no show.

Koz

[kozikowski]

You posted in the Audacity AudioBook section of the forum. I assume you're not really recording an AudioBook because you mentioned a video camera.

AudioBooks have other restrictions. I would bet recording an AudioBook in that room would be impossible. By the time you patched the acoustics and added equipment, you could have just moved to a better room and be way further ahead.

Koz

[Trebor]

Audacity's noise reduction can be used as an expander, see ... viewtopic.php?p=313265#p313265

Unfortunately that does not work so well with the current version of Noise Reduction as the old version, so it's not likely to help very much.

An alternative is a free windows plugin called DtBlkFx which can reduce reverb using it's contrast effect, (increases spectrogram contrast).

[ Robert J. H made Nyquist code to increase contrast, but it's not plugin ready ]