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Since visual media and content creation became more accessible, audio restoration has become a crucial part of the post-production craft. Reverb is commonly used to cement characters within soundscapes. However, It can also have a troublesome side. There are many factors which can result in audio being captured with too much reverb. Without the myriad of tools available today, this could lead to time consuming and sometimes expensive issues further down the line. Today on the 344 Audio blog, we’ll be diving into Acon Digital’s solution to this, DeVerberate.
Company: Acon Digital
Product: DeVerberate 3
Price: £79
Our Rating: 4.9/5
Overview:
In recent years Acon have become a big player in audio restoration software. And with products like this, it’s easy to see why. DeVerberate 3 is an incredibly powerful reverb reduction plug-in. Driven by newly developed A.I algorithms, Acon continue their trend of developing products that focus on executing some of the more common, yet important tasks to a high standard without having to compromise on value for money.
In their own words:
”DeVerberate is a reverb reduction plug-in that can attenuate or boost the reverberation that is already present in recorded material. The new version includes an entirely new algorithm based on deep learning for fully automatic reverb reduction of recorded dialogue. By training a neural network on thousands of high-quality voice recordings and a wide variety of acoustical surroundings, the artificial intelligence can automatically separate dialogue from reverb”
Key Features & Benefits
Similarly to their Extract:Dialogue plug-in, the U.I layout is incredibly clean and well labelled. Allowing users to quickly familiarize themselves with the software and focus on the tasks at hand. You'll find a frequency spectrum showing the estimated spectrum of the reverb, as well as the spectrum of the input and output signals. The newly included early reflections filter, frequency emphasis filter, and 4 controllable settings; sensitivity, spectral smoothing, dry level, and reverb level.
The early reflections filter is a feature new to DeVerberate 3. Working in conjunction with the included algorithms to estimate the impulse response of the early reflections, then cancel them out. Engineers who frequently work on content captured in small rooms with minimal acoustic treatment will no doubt find this feature invaluable. Lastly, the frequency emphasis filter allows you to apply frequency weighting to the reverb spectrum. Consisting of high shelf, low shelf and two peak filters, it gives you the ability to fine tune the estimated reverb amount. Allowing users to keep vocal clarity in tact and customize the reverb profile to taste.
What It's Useful For
Naturally, audio restoration plug-ins are most commonly used to clean up dialogue. We tested DeVerberate on both a podcast edit, and dialogue edit to see how the software dealt with varying levels of processing. The included pre-sets serve as a great starting point, delivering very good results and leaving only a few small artifacts. Which, thanks to the fully automatic nature of the plug-in were very quickly eliminated after making some small adjustments on sensitivity, dry and reverb level settings.
When dialogue editing, one plugin we use frequently to control reverb on dialogue is Transient Master. It's great for subtly controlling reverb whilst maintaining vocal characteristics. However, if pushed too hard, obvious level drops can be heard. DeVerberate's high level of control over settings In such a quick and easy way, yields better results and helps keep the essential consistency of dialogue with next to no detriment to vocal clarity in most cases.
We would use this software as part of our dialogue and/or podcast editing workflow. Alongside occasionally using the plug-in for sound design work on vocals, particularly ghostly or demonic voices.
The Bottom Line
This is the second Acon Digital product we’ve reviewed. It’s clear that Acon design these products with efficiency, usability and value for money at the forefront of their mind. Instead of getting caught up overloading the software with niche features, or a distracting U.I, their focus is perfecting the science that serves as the solid foundation of DeVerberate. The integration of their latest algorithm, with useful new features, and the large amount of adjustable settings leaves you with great results no matter the amount of processing needed. The only small thing left to desire being a change in colour scheme now most DAW’s have adopted darker palettes. Deverberate 3 is a fantastic tool, offering incredible value for money, and comparable results to industry standard de-reverb software.
DeVerberate 3 is available as VST, VST3 or AAX plug-in on both PC and Mac.
For more from Acon Digital and the purchase information for DeVerberate 3 follow these links:
If you enjoyed this post please check out our ultimate guide to audio post-production:
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