How do you get rid of echo?

[gtacy2]

I have a phone recording a when people talk they have like a echo in there voice how would I make it clear so u can understand what they are saying

[steve]

Echo is virtually impossible to remove, which is why recording engineers go to extreme lengths to avoid it in the original recording (unless they actually want an echo). Attempting to remove echoes is very likely to do more damage than good.

[kozikowski]

It's valuable to stop referring to echo as a "thing." It's a singer's own voice reflecting from a wall or ceiling to the microphone slightly later than the main performance. In effect, you're asking the software to remove the singer from himself. A notoriously difficult task.

This is one of the things that kills a back-of-the-hall camcorder recording of a performance.

We still do this kind of stuff to avoid that problem...

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/Boom.jpg
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/pix/lavalier2.jpg

Koz

[kozikowski]

Recording a telephone conversation is harder than it looks, too. If you use Skype or any internet voice service, the echo is built-in. Internet Protocol was never intended for live performances and sometimes it drops the voice management ball -- even if you have stunning internet connections.

You can record a live land-line telephone, but it's not cheap. Telephone Hybrids -- ones that work well like the talk shows use, can go for thousands.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/4 ... ybrid.html

One of the people in our shop produces a live talk show over Skype between him and another performer thousands of miles away. The trick is they both record their own voices and then one emails the other their own voice for integration into a finished show. None of the voices in the finished show ever went through Skype. They just use it for coordination.

Koz