I recorded a voice and music church service from my seat (unfortunately the only choice). I would like to clean up the echo effect. I’ve tried several of the effects but unable to obtain a satisfactory result. I know I will not get the optimal result but I think there may be some things that I could do to improve the voice at least. Thanks for any help you can give.
We can’t remove echoes and large-room ambience from a performance.
Koz
I’ve never tried it and I’m highly skeptical, but there are echo/reverb removal tools. Try Googling “deverb” or “remove reverb”.
Of course the problem is, reverb & echo contain the same-exact sounds you want to keep. But, your brain knows there’s something wrong with the timing.
I recorded a voice and music church service from my seat (unfortunately the only choice).
Yeah… The amount of reverberation that sounds wonderful coming from all directions in a church or concert hall usually just sounds “stupid” when coming from a pair of speakers in your living room. Even if you play it back in the original hall, you get double the reverb. So usually, you’ve got to locate the mics a LOT closer for more direct-sound and less reflected sound than you’d get in the normal seating/listening location.
Close micing also helps to reduce background noise (technically it increases the signal-to-noise ratio). Your brain is pretty good at filtering-out “live” noise coming from different directions, so noise that you didn’t notice live often “jumps out” and becomes annoying in the recording. If you are experienced at recording you become more tuned-in to background noises and when you’re recording, or if you know someone else is recording, you cringe when someone rattles papers or coughs. 