Audio Filters (Apple or FCP)

[Louis Bertucci]

Is there an Apple or FCP audio filter that can be used to reduce/eliminate echo/reverb in an audio clip, i.e. in a large church?

[Ben Balser, ACT]

Unfortunately reverb is not something you can "take out" in post. You can use EQ and Noise Gates and Compressors to reduce it's impact. But the reverb itself is recorded, is the same frequencies as the source sound, so it very difficult to deal with. No, it can't be removed. But again, with some experimenting with EQ, Noise Gate, and Compression, it's impact can be reduced, in the right situation.

How long is the sound clip you need to fix?
How bad is the reverb?

[Louis Bertucci]

It's a typical echo sound I get off the camera mike in large churches. Not bad; no worse than what you hear when sitting in the pew and it's okay for the music but when the priest is talking while away from the wireless mike clipped on the groom (and you have to go to the 2nd camera mike to get the audio), it's an annoying sound and certainly doesn't match what you hear through the wireless mike.

I've never bothered with it in the past but I thought I'd check if there was a filter I could drop on the clip to improve the situation. I have to confess that I am not familiar with EQ, Noise Gate or Compression.

[Ben Balser, ACT]

I used to use two wireless mics. One on the groom, and one on the podium where the priest would talk, and where readings would be done.

Take the audio clip into SoundTrack Pro, and play around with those filters. A little experimenting and you should be able to figure something out.

[Louis Bertucci]

Thanks Ben for the assistance. You're worth your weight in gold.

We do use 2 wireless mike sets; one on each camera, one on the groom and one on the podium. We disconnect the podium mike after the readings since it can't pick up the music as well as the camera mike and it is useless to hear the priest when he talks away from the groom's mike, and I like to have it as a crutch in case of a problem on the groom's mike.

This arrangement works well for the most part but in a recent wedding at Holy Name Chrch, we had a ton of interference on the wireless connected to the groom and I had to run both audio tracts on top of each other to cover the pops I had to remove in the groom's audio track. This resulted in some reverberation that I was attempting to reduce.

In 75 weddings I have never run into the problems I encountered at Holy Name in this paricular wedding; Enough to make you pull your hair out!

[Ben Balser, ACT]

Are you using UHF or VHF wireless? Some locations just suck, yep, seen that happen before. You just do your best. Can you send me a sample AIFF clip of the audio you need to fix? About 30-60 seconds or so?

[Louis Bertucci]

I'm using Sennheiser EW G2s; I think they're UHF.

I'm in New Orleans this weekend for a wedding. I can send the sound clip next week.

Thanks for all of the interest.