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Review: Accusonus ERA Reverb Remover and more

Allan Tépper

Recently, I reviewed the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin (link ahead in case you missed it). After publishing my first indie song (also linked ahead), I have been receiving great audio audio testimonials from all over the world via voicemail to play on the upcoming episodes of my radio shows and podcasts. All of the testimonials have great content, but this particular one which I am using as an example had very poor technical quality. My intention in this case was not to make it sound like studio quality audio, just to clean it up enough to make it much more intelligible and less annoying to the listeners. It will be obvious from the title of this review that one of the plugins is the Accusonus ERA Reverb Remover, but I also had to combine it with two more plugins inside of the ERA Audio-Clean-Up-Assistant, all inside of Hindenburg Journalist Pro, my favorite multitrack audio editor.

Compatibility

The ERA Reverb Remover plugin, which comes as part of the ERA Standard and Pro Bundles, is compatible with macOS and Windows, as long as your host audio or video app accepts plugins of the appropriate type. More specifically:

macOS

OS Versions: 10.13 or later

Plugin formats: AU, VST, AAX Native (64-bit)

Windows

Versions: 10 or later

Plugin formats: VST, AAX Native (64-bit)

Specific audio and video apps which are compatible:

All of the below were tested by the developer —Accusonus— except for Hindenburg Journalist Pro, which was tested my me personally. (Hindenburg Journalist Pro is still my favorite multitrack audio recorder/editor and I have covered it many articles.)

Installation

For both macOS and Windows, Accusonus offers a specific downloadable installer. In my experience, after you run it (with your audio/video editor not running), the next time you open the audio or video editing app, the included Accusonus plugins will be visible wherever you find audio plugins within the app.

Usage

How you pick among a particular audio plugin varies from the particular editor you are using. In Hindenburg Journalist Pro, you click on the Effects (Efectos) button on the particular track where you like to apply the plugin. Then you get a floating window where you can activate/deactivate and select the one that you want.

For the purpose of fixing this audio testimonial I am featuring in this review, I knew that I was going to need three plugins in tandem, not just one. That’s why I first selected the accusonus > ERA Audio-Clean-Up-Assistant option from the accunous list since it allows loading several sequential plugins. (They display their brand name with a lower case a in the menu and in most of their own website.)

 

Initially, the ERA Audio-Clean-Up-Assistant was empty of plugins, as you’ll see above. Next, since Accusonus recommends doing reverb removal before anything else, I loaded the ERA 5 Reverb Remover in slot 1, on the far left, as you’ll see below.

I discovered that 56% on the Processing Dial in the ERA 5 Reverb Remover was the best setting in this case. Here are the full settings for the ERA 5 Noise Remover:

Processing Dial

The processing dial is used to set how much reverb removal is applied to your signal. The further you turn it, the greater the amount of reverb removal applied.

Output

Use this slider to set the output level of your signal from Reverb Remover.

Auto Switch

The auto switch turns automatic make-up gain on an off. This is useful as sometimes the reverb removal process can affect the output level of your signal.

A/B Switch

Use this switch to compare your current ERA 5 Reverb Remover parameter settings with the previous settings you dialed in to work out which sounds better.

Focus

The Focus options allows you to target certain areas of the frequency spectrum for reverb removal. The options are —from left to right— the whole frequency spectrum, low frequencies, high frequencies, mid frequencies and low and high frequencies.

After being satisfied with the ERA 5 Reverb Remover settings, I then loaded the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin in slot 2 and adjusted it appropriately. See my prior review of the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin here. In the case of mouth clicks, one technique is to select a noisy section of the audio on the timeline and press the key combination Shift + Spacebar to play that section while adjusting the dial. In this case, I discovered that only 100% since it is a very severe case. Fortunately, the audio still sounds quite intelligible despite the extreme setting required to remove mouth clicks.

Although I love the built-in noise reducer in Hindenburg Journalist Pro, since this review is mainly about some plugins from Accusonus, I decided to load the ERA 5 Noise Remover in slot 3. After being satisfied with having the ideal know setting (and button-setting) in the ERA 5 Noise Remover (which turned out to be 49%, as you’ll see in the screenshot), I then played the entire clip as I toggled each plugin on and off and made sure that I was happy with the settings of each one (which I was). Then I exported the audio for you to hear.

Sample recordings, before and after.

Ahead is a 1:36 audio testimonial recorded via telephone voicemail about my recent indie song, Let it be called Castilian — Debe llamarse castellano (covered in this recent article The making of a indie bilingual parody song from 3 locations and this recent episode of BeyondPodcasting). Even though you may not understand the words being spoken, you will notice the dramatic improvement in audio quality.

https://www.provideocoalition.com/wp-content/uploads/Ma-Isabel-before.wav?_=1

Before (above), you’ll notice that there is noise and echo throughout, as well as several mouth noises. Below (after), you’ll be able to hear the corrected audio.

https://www.provideocoalition.com/wp-content/uploads/Ma-Isabel-sonido-corregido.wav?_=2

 

Unlike most of my reviews, where my intention is to achieve the highest studio quality, in this case, my intention was not to make this voicemail testimonial sound like studio quality (if that were even possible). My only intention was to make it sound much more intelligible and confortable to hear. Even if I were able to make it sound like studio quality (which I doubt from this original recording), I believe that having it sound so good would make it be less credible. It is an authentic testimonial from a listener who voluntarily recorded herself for the CapicúaFM show, and should still sound authentic.

Conclusions and how to get your trial

I love the ease of use and effectiveness of the ERA Reverb Remover plugin, ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin (reviewed previously) and ERA Noise Remover from Accusonus. Specifically, I love the simplicity of selecting from just a couple of click options and a single knob to accomplish the task. I also like how the ERA Audio-Clean-Up Assistant works if and when it is necessary to stack more than one plugin. For more information, visit the Accusonus website here. It’s in English.

I’ll very likely be reviewing other plugins from Accusonus in the near future. Be sure to be on my mail list to be notified when I do.

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Most of my current books are at books.AllanTepper.com, and also visit AllanTepper.com and radio.AllanTepper.com.

FTC disclosure

Some of the other manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. Many of the manufacturers listed above have sent Allan Tépper review units and/or NFR software for review, including Accusonus and Hindenburg. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.

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