Removing Echo (Audition via Premiere Pro CC)

[Dave_Lalande]

I posted in the Premiere Pro forum, but it dawned on me that maybe Audition could help me fix this problem.  Here is my post from the other forum.

I'm not even sure this is considered an echo or if there is another technical term?

I am trying to put together some "Meet the Doctor" videos and we're using a lapel mic and the room were using has no sound deadening on the walls.  There is a slight each on in the audio and I'm not sure how to get rid of it?

You can hear the echo in this clip.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By_2YLvaQba0LUg1cTZrS1kzX1U/edit?usp= sharing

We have PP CC and Audition CC so we have the latest tools, but I can't find the right one to remove or lessen this audio defect.

Thanks for any help you can throw my way,

Dave

[Bob_Howes]

There's been a long discussion about this (and by long I mean it spans several Audition versions starting at CS and also spans several forum pages).  I warn you it also gets rather acrimonious at times.  You can view it here.

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/439183?tstart=30

The long and short of it is that there's little you can do.  Some people claim that there's a 3rd party programme called RX3 that can help;  others (myself included) think the digital artifacts from that programme are more disturbing than the original echo.  Since the problem on your recording is very subtle, my personal advice is not to mess with it but others may (or possibly will) disagree.

However, although it's too late for this shoot, it's worth saying that you could have all but eliminated any issues by positioning your lav differently.  It's WAY too far down the lapel (it should be about half the distance from the mouth you have it) and, since the doctor is stood so as to speak slightly towards his left shoulder, the mic should either have been on the tie or on the left lapel.   Have a look at the positioning of lavs on programmes like Letterman--they may seem random but they're always closer to the mouth and biased towards the side the talent will be mainly talking.  It may seem simple but there's a bit of a skill to positioning clip on mics.