User Manual

108
AUDIO REPAIR
AND ENHANCEMENT
12: REMOVING REVERB
Reverb is used to add certain spatial characteristics to audio. It’s often used on vocals and instrumentation,
but can be used on sound design elements too.
It’s a relevant topic to discuss, even for audio repair. Technologies that are able to attenuate reverberations
in an audio signal are not very common, and there are only a few eective tools that do this job well.
RX TIP • RX 4 includes technology created by iZotope that reduces reverb. It’s oered as part of the
RX 4 Advanced Dereverb module.
WHAT’S THE GOAL OF REMOVING REVERB?
There are two main reasons why an audio engineer might seek to reduce reverb in an audio signal.
The presence of unwanted reverb is a common issue when editing automated dialogue replacement
(ADR), matching location recorded dialogue with studio dialogue and mixing dialogue recorded in larger
spaces.
Reverb can prevent an audio engineer from achieving a smooth, warm, and present dialogue mix. Particu-
larly if recorded in a large studio or space, reverberations might be so overwhelming that they prevent the
audio engineer from adding more reverb as an eect.
In this case, the goal is to remove as much unwanted reverb as possible, without impacting the original
audio.
Reducing unwanted reverb before doing heavy denoising is a helpful process when repairing and restoring
audio.
An overly enthusiastic denoising process may modulate reverb tails, which results in unwanted artifacts. If
you’re required to perform heavy denoising, reducing the reverb tails first may lead to a better result.
In this case, the goal is to reduce rather than remove entirely.