Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010), and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb, that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about, so you'll have
to re-record your vocals, but you can reduce the room effects by getting
closer to the mic when you sing.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about, so you'll have
to re-record your vocals, but you can reduce the room effects by getting
closer to the mic when you sing.

porky wrote:

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...

there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,

Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about,

Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

- Logan

porky wrote:

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...

there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,

Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about,

Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

- Logan

Zomoniac wrote:
Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb, that
will dry out an over-ambient sound?

Prosoniq sonicWORX [1] contains a de-reverberation effect.

[1]=20
http://products.prosoniq.com/cgi-bin...dbycategory&c=
ategory=3DApplication%20Mac&num_items=3D10

Johann
--=20
warum ich lese hier schon ein paar monate mit und von dir kommt nur mist =

du beleidigst die leute gemein und f=E4kal von asis wie dir nehme ich mir=
=20
nicht an. zudem kommst du aus der ostzone
("Bernd P." in )

Zomoniac wrote:
Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb, that
will dry out an over-ambient sound?

Prosoniq sonicWORX [1] contains a de-reverberation effect.

[1]=20
http://products.prosoniq.com/cgi-bin...dbycategory&c=
ategory=3DApplication%20Mac&num_items=3D10

Johann
--=20
warum ich lese hier schon ein paar monate mit und von dir kommt nur mist =

du beleidigst die leute gemein und f=E4kal von asis wie dir nehme ich mir=
=20
nicht an. zudem kommst du aus der ostzone
("Bernd P." in )

Zomoniac wrote:
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that
does the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound?
It's not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough
work with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

Zomoniac wrote:
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that
does the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound?
It's not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough
work with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

"Zomoniac" wrote in
:

Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does
the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's
not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough work
with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

Using Adobe Audition or the like, you can apply ugly amounts of noise
reduction that can effectively gate your voice. Using a little less might
help your situation.

"Zomoniac" wrote in
:

Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does
the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's
not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough work
with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

Using Adobe Audition or the like, you can apply ugly amounts of noise
reduction that can effectively gate your voice. Using a little less might
help your situation.

You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
porky wrote:
Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

Isn't that a digidesign plug in? ;-)

CA

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
porky wrote:
Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

Isn't that a digidesign plug in? ;-)

CA

Zomoniac wrote:

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010), and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb, that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.

Nope, not really. Try retracking in a better room.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Zomoniac wrote:

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010), and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb, that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.

Nope, not really. Try retracking in a better room.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Zomoniac wrote:

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010), and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb, that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.

Nope, not really. Try retracking in a better room.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

Echo-cancelling HARDware (and subsequently SOFTware) has
been a significant development of Bell Labs for several decades.
None of us could carry on a telephone conversation to a different
area code without it.

But the kind of echoes you get from telephone connections (whether
wire, microwave, optical, satellite, etc.) are much more detectable
and predictable than the reflections in your average room. Almost the
difference between 1-dimensional and 3-dimensional. Certainly there
are mathematical ways of cancelling echos. But when you start
looking at the echoes of echoes, it begins to get hairy. You need a good
reference (a mathematical description of the room, mic placement,
source location, etc. etc.), or a reference "ping" that can be analyzed
to develop the mathematical model. This is mostly beyond the scope
of people who are recording entertainment content, even pros with
big budgets.

OTOH, if you have the logging tapes from the police radio channel
they were using in Dealy Square on 22-Nov-63, it might be worth
some careful analysis of the timing of various sounds.

"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

Echo-cancelling HARDware (and subsequently SOFTware) has
been a significant development of Bell Labs for several decades.
None of us could carry on a telephone conversation to a different
area code without it.

But the kind of echoes you get from telephone connections (whether
wire, microwave, optical, satellite, etc.) are much more detectable
and predictable than the reflections in your average room. Almost the
difference between 1-dimensional and 3-dimensional. Certainly there
are mathematical ways of cancelling echos. But when you start
looking at the echoes of echoes, it begins to get hairy. You need a good
reference (a mathematical description of the room, mic placement,
source location, etc. etc.), or a reference "ping" that can be analyzed
to develop the mathematical model. This is mostly beyond the scope
of people who are recording entertainment content, even pros with
big budgets.

OTOH, if you have the logging tapes from the police radio channel
they were using in Dealy Square on 22-Nov-63, it might be worth
some careful analysis of the timing of various sounds.

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program
that actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was
horrendously computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My
Athlon-64 could probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had
25 years ago, and perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would
be a product. I wonder what happened...

Echo-cancelling HARDware (and subsequently SOFTware) has
been a significant development of Bell Labs for several decades.
None of us could carry on a telephone conversation to a different
area code without it.

I'm aware of that. No, this was software for dealing with room echoes.

Richard Crowley wrote:
"Arny Krueger" wrote ...
About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program
that actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was
horrendously computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My
Athlon-64 could probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had
25 years ago, and perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would
be a product. I wonder what happened...

Echo-cancelling HARDware (and subsequently SOFTware) has
been a significant development of Bell Labs for several decades.
None of us could carry on a telephone conversation to a different
area code without it.

I'm aware of that. No, this was software for dealing with room echoes.

Agreed, depending on the amount of refectivity (compare the primary db to
reflected db's) an expander application may work very well. Levels should
be custom set based on the review of the recording.

Rich

Brendan Thompson wrote in
message ...
You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied
huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals
are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

Agreed, depending on the amount of refectivity (compare the primary db to
reflected db's) an expander application may work very well. Levels should
be custom set based on the review of the recording.

Rich

Brendan Thompson wrote in
message ...
You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied
huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals
are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

On Tue, 25 May 2004 22:14:27 +1000, "Brendan Thompson"
wrote:

You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound?

I'll second the expander suggestion. It's not really the mythical
"deverb" (thanks, Logan, for a useful addition to our vocabulary!),
but it will help. Been there, done that.
Mike T.

On Tue, 25 May 2004 22:14:27 +1000, "Brendan Thompson"
wrote:

You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound?

I'll second the expander suggestion. It's not really the mythical
"deverb" (thanks, Logan, for a useful addition to our vocabulary!),
but it will help. Been there, done that.
Mike T.

On Tue, 25 May 2004 22:14:27 +1000, "Brendan Thompson"
wrote:

You could try an expander, but you may not get the results you want.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound?

I'll second the expander suggestion. It's not really the mythical
"deverb" (thanks, Logan, for a useful addition to our vocabulary!),
but it will help. Been there, done that.
Mike T.

Try using a gate to chop off the reverb tails. Jack it up until you start
messing up the direct vocal then back it off a bit. With a good gate this
can work out well enough. There are a couple of apps or plug-ins out there
that try to reduce verb. The one I tried (forget the name, it was part of a
stereo wav editing program) sounded much worse than just using a gate.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

Try using a gate to chop off the reverb tails. Jack it up until you start
messing up the direct vocal then back it off a bit. With a good gate this
can work out well enough. There are a couple of apps or plug-ins out there
that try to reduce verb. The one I tried (forget the name, it was part of a
stereo wav editing program) sounded much worse than just using a gate.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

Try using a gate to chop off the reverb tails. Jack it up until you start
messing up the direct vocal then back it off a bit. With a good gate this
can work out well enough. There are a couple of apps or plug-ins out there
that try to reduce verb. The one I tried (forget the name, it was part of a
stereo wav editing program) sounded much worse than just using a gate.

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle
of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard (Delta 1010),
and
there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,
that
will dry out an over-ambient sound? It's not a final recording, I just
want
to be able to do very rough work with it but it sounds like the vocals are
in a cave. Thanks.


Zo

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
porky wrote:

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...

there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied
huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,

Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about,

Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

- Logan
________________________


Hey porky, Good One!

-bg-

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
porky wrote:

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...

there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied
huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,

Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about,

Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

- Logan
________________________


Hey porky, Good One!

-bg-

"Logan Shaw" wrote in message
...
porky wrote:

"Zomoniac" wrote in message
...

there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds like I've applied
huge
amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that does the opposite of reverb,

Unfortunately, there is no "anti-reverb" that I know about,

Well, if there ever is such an effect, it needs to be called "deverb".

- Logan
________________________


Hey porky, Good One!

-bg-

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

Nope, not really. Try retracking in a better room.
--scott


This brings up an important point. Always try to set up right even for
scratch tracks. I can't count the times I've ended up using a scratch track
because I could never "better" it in subsequent takes. Sometimes they had
horrible technical flaws but worked brilliantly because of the feel. Don't
discount psychology when you are recording. You'll often get better on a
"scratch" take because the performer doesn't feel the pressure so it pays to
treat them like the final track whether you intend to keep them or not.

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

Nope, not really. Try retracking in a better room.
--scott


This brings up an important point. Always try to set up right even for
scratch tracks. I can't count the times I've ended up using a scratch track
because I could never "better" it in subsequent takes. Sometimes they had
horrible technical flaws but worked brilliantly because of the feel. Don't
discount psychology when you are recording. You'll often get better on a
"scratch" take because the performer doesn't feel the pressure so it pays to
treat them like the final track whether you intend to keep them or not.

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...

Nope, not really. Try retracking in a better room.
--scott


This brings up an important point. Always try to set up right even for
scratch tracks. I can't count the times I've ended up using a scratch track
because I could never "better" it in subsequent takes. Sometimes they had
horrible technical flaws but worked brilliantly because of the feel. Don't
discount psychology when you are recording. You'll often get better on a
"scratch" take because the performer doesn't feel the pressure so it pays to
treat them like the final track whether you intend to keep them or not.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
Zomoniac wrote:
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that
does the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound?
It's not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough
work with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

Close-miking was a lot cheaper and not computer intensive at all.:-)
I remember the reasearch, what they did was make an acoustic model of
the specific room and simulate the room reverb, then invert the phase and
apply it to the original recording. It was never considered practical for
musical application because it requires making a very accurate model of each
room that needs to be de-reverbed, and even then there are a lot of
unmusical artifacts. However, it is useful for intelligence operations where
the room response needs to be reduced to clear up recordings of
conversations of interest, since all that's needed is to decipher the
conversation, and tonal quality is unimportant. Governments still use
similar technology.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
Zomoniac wrote:
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that
does the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound?
It's not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough
work with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

Close-miking was a lot cheaper and not computer intensive at all.:-)
I remember the reasearch, what they did was make an acoustic model of
the specific room and simulate the room reverb, then invert the phase and
apply it to the original recording. It was never considered practical for
musical application because it requires making a very accurate model of each
room that needs to be de-reverbed, and even then there are a lot of
unmusical artifacts. However, it is useful for intelligence operations where
the room response needs to be reduced to clear up recordings of
conversations of interest, since all that's needed is to decipher the
conversation, and tonal quality is unimportant. Governments still use
similar technology.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
Zomoniac wrote:
Hi all

I did some rough vocal parts in my office, just slapped an NT2 in the
middle of the room, through a Voicemaster Pro into the soundcard
(Delta 1010), and there is a huge amount of room ambience, it sounds
like I've applied huge amounts of reverb. Is there an effect that
does the opposite of reverb, that will dry out an over-ambient sound?
It's not a final recording, I just want to be able to do very rough
work with it but it sounds like the vocals are in a cave. Thanks.

About 25 years ago I heard a Bell Labs demo of a computer program that
actually removed room reverb from a recording. It was horrendously
computer-intensive but that was about 20 years ago. My Athlon-64 could
probably out-compute the biggest thing Bell Labs had 25 years ago, and
perhaps by some substantial margin.

It seems like that if it were a working technology, by now it would be a
product. I wonder what happened...

Close-miking was a lot cheaper and not computer intensive at all.:-)
I remember the reasearch, what they did was make an acoustic model of
the specific room and simulate the room reverb, then invert the phase and
apply it to the original recording. It was never considered practical for
musical application because it requires making a very accurate model of each
room that needs to be de-reverbed, and even then there are a lot of
unmusical artifacts. However, it is useful for intelligence operations where
the room response needs to be reduced to clear up recordings of
conversations of interest, since all that's needed is to decipher the
conversation, and tonal quality is unimportant. Governments still use
similar technology.

"BB King" wrote in message
...
Try using a gate to chop off the reverb tails. Jack it up until you start
messing up the direct vocal then back it off a bit. With a good gate this
can work out well enough. There are a couple of apps or plug-ins out there
that try to reduce verb. The one I tried (forget the name, it was part of
a
stereo wav editing program) sounded much worse than just using a gate.

Niose gates have their own problems when attempting to use them to chop off
higher noise levels, I seriously doubt if gates or anything else would make
the recordings usable for even a very rough demo, better to just re-record
the tracks using close mic techniques.