remove echo from audio?

any way of removing echo from audio captured (without having to buy a plug in)?

Not really.

Echo removal can be tough for any of the lower priced plugins depending on how bad it actually is. If you don't want to purchase them, some may offer trials that are fully functional for a period of time. You can also try to use a combination of EQ adjustments and various filters (such as the expander and enveloper) within FCPX to try to make some improvement.

Thanks guys, so if I was to purchase a plugin, which would be best?

Hey Gaddster.

Noise Gates and Expanders are your only real option without a specialist plug-in.
Unfortunately there isn't a noise gate built into FCPX but there is a noise shaping filter called 'Enveloper' It has a preset called 'Room Killer'. As the presets name suggests, it's purpose is to kill ambient room noise.
The 'High Expansion' setting using the inbuilt 'Expander' can also be fairly effective. An expander does the opposite of a compressor. Rather than narrowing dynamic range, it increases it making quiet sounds quieter and loud sounds louder. Obviously, the presets are just a starting point and you will probably have to do a good bit of tweaking to optimise the effect.

Steve.

I'm getting Deja Vous here. Didn't someone else ask the same question last week? There is a whole thread in these very forums discussing the merits of different plugins. - or was that about noise removal?
Two plugins spring to mind. 'Echo Remover' by Crumplepop and Zynaptic's 'Unveil is another. I have the latter and it has worked well on a number of occasions. I haven't tried Crumplepops solution in this instance but you can hear a demo of it in the video on their website.

Steve.

"Unfortunately there isn't a noise gate built into FCPX..."

FCPX does in fact have a Noise Gate.

So it does - I stand corrected :blush:
I actually looked through to check after initially posting to say that it did - couldn't see it and then edited the post to say it doesn't. I didn't look very hard because look - it's got two - Doh!

Two?

Noise Gate and Spectral Gate.

Thanks guys

Ive tried using your recommended effect and it worked great on one clip but another made the interviewee sound a bit metal and robot like..

Im using the Voice Over enhancement (not sure if this is the same BEN B who produced the tutorial on this that i watched last year and commenting on this thread?)

Steve Martin just talked about 'must-have' plugins and mentioned iZotope RX5 for sound repair. He demonstrates cutting down room ambience at 36 minutes in:

gaddster wrote: Thanks guys, so if I was to purchase a plugin, which would be best?

I don't think there's much question that Izotope RX4 is the best. However it is also very expensive. I use it and it's very impressive but it can be quite complex to use. It's like saying Photoshop is the best image editor and can do impressive things. It can but requires a fair degree of skill and maintained proficiency to get the most out of it.

It can also match EQ, ambience and reverb between two different mics or sound sources. So this makes it more feasible to do dialog replacement or cut between different mics when editing.

However -- this also takes a lot of time, esp. if you don't use it frequently. If your production team is large enough to have a dedicated or semi-dedicated audio specialist who uses RX4 and other tools regularly, that is the ideal situation.

Depending on who your circle of video production friends are, you can sometimes find an Izotope expert who will help you out as a favor, or you might negotiate some kind of deal.

There is no real substitute for getting good sound in the field. It is very tempting to be in a hurry not take the time to double-check the sound, then get stuck with an acoustic science project in post.

I haven't tried Crumplepop's Echo Remover. Usually when I get bad audio there's more than one thing wrong, not just echo. However it looks interesting.

I think he means the RX5 Plug In, which is currently only $99?

There's also CrumplePop Echo Remover. Also $99.

www.crumplepop.com/fcpx-premiere-audio-plugin-echoremover/

simonpwood wrote: I think he means the RX5 Plug In, which is currently only $99?

Yes, the current version is RX5. The $99 plug in pack is very limited and cannot do de-reverb. The RX5 Audio Editor which can do this is $349, and the Advanced Editor which does this plus handles "de-plosives", EQ match, dialog leveling and ambience matching is $1,199.

It can be confusing since there IS a plugin for de-reverb but it's not available for separate purchase, but only as part of the Audio and Advanced Editors.

Separately, there is the $59 SPL De-Verb product but I have not tried it. Their web site says it doesn't work with El Capitan.

www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/spl_de-verb.html

I recently had a shoot where we were in an old manufacturing mill that had been renovated into office space. It was beautiful, with brick walls, hardwood floors, really high ceilings, and enormous windows. We got clean audio, but there was a distinct echo effect, doubly noticeable because the shot that precedes it was outside and not echoey at all.

I tried the demo version of the CrumplePop Echo Remover and was pleasantly surprised at how good a job it did at normalizing the dialogue, so I bought the full version for $99. Totally worth it for me; saved the job. Maybe not as sophisticated as some of the other fancy options mentioned here, but it did the trick.

Yeah RX does have a great Dereverb algorithm. I wast only available with Advanced which is quite pricy, but now its available in Standard and as part or their plugin pack.

www.izotope.com/en/products/repair-and-edit/rx.html

Zynaptic have their Unveil plugin, also very good tech. Additionally they also have an Unchirp plugin which is great for removing chirp like effects off overly compressed audio, or audio that has had too much denoising which has resulted in artefacting. Then there is Unfilter, which is great at removing the resonances off bad sounding room recordings.

www.zynaptiq.com/unveil/

There is another option which is not as effective as the above, but it does sell for much cheaper, especially when its on sale, SPL De-Verb. It's simple, cheap, but as I said not as effective.

www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/spl_de-verb.html

You can, however, combine it with a gate plugin to improve the result a little.

simon.a.billington wrote: …There is another option which is not as effective as the above, but it does sell for much cheaper, especially when its on sale, SPL De-Verb. It's simple, cheap, ….

… and doesn't work under macOS Sierra.

Owning and using it (to fix 'room' when using the cam mic only) - I was happy with the results. But actually not working!

Send a request, answer "many plugins based upon AU api don't work with Sierra (some do) fix in about a month"… hmmmm <grumpy>

Yeah Plugin Alliance have yet to get on top of that. Word from the devs is they are already working on it. Unfortunately they didn't give a time frame.