Remedial Audio Tips or Tricks?

[Gra]

Hi Guys

I've just done a video interview in an unfurnished room and the playback result has quite an echo.

The actual interview was good and I can't repeat, so my question to the more experienced out there is do you know of any audio settings/ audio filters/ enhancements that would reduce or soften the echo?

I know trying to repair such a situation during editing is not good and the first rule is to get the orginal sound as good as possible but I had no choice in the location and my (cheap) equipment left me with little room for manoeuver in setting-up audio capture.

Any tips or tricks would be gratefully received.

[tv_news_guy]

Gra
I work in the news biz and this happens all the time. We don't have the luxury of selecting our interview locations... they kinda select us.
You can reduce the apparent echo by fiddling with the tone settings "Bass, midrange, treble... to some extent. However the easiest fix is to confuse the ear. Two suggestions... background music that sounds like it was in the room to begin with, ambient back ground. Elevator stuff. Fools the ear by masking the echo. SO LOW you almost cant hear it.
You can also add other ambient back ground sound to mask it. If the small room was a "TOO" quiet office... tape a couple of minutes of "BUSY" office sound and sweeten the interview with that. Works for me all the time.
Hope this helps.

Bill tv_news_guy
Non-linear editing is half art/half brain damage

[Gra]

Hi Bill

Many thanks for the 'masking' tip: that solution had never occured to me but seems so simple a quick fix instead of playing with the mixer console or filter settings. I'll go and collect some background noise!