Audacity Forum

I listen to audio recordings of local government board meetings where the speaker is often distant from the microphone. Not only is the voice weak, but, more importantly, the voice sounds like the speaker is inside a cave, possibly from the large room, hard reflecting surfaces, and some echo. How can I repair or improve this? thanks.

There's not much you can do about it. Reverb is notoriously difficult to remove.
The usual method is to try applying Equalization (Effects menu) to bring out the spoken word a little more clearly (usually by boosting frequencies in the 700Hz to 2.5kHz range a little, and lowering bass frequencies.

You don't remove echoes. There's nothing for echo removal software to "grab." An echo is the actor's own voice bouncing off the walls and arriving late to the microphone compared to the direct voice. In effect, you're asking the software to remove the actor from herself.

If the positioning of the participants is fixed, and you can't bake cakes for the sound person, then you need to use a much better microphone.

http://www.sennheiserusa.com/profession ... t-eng-film

Koz