We’ll look at the top five reverb removal plugins available in 2023.
Effects and other audio-processing tools are common in today’s plugin selections. Each major company has plenty of these to showcase, and they tend to be up to their standards: we have fantastic equalizers channeling their vintage units’ inspirations. These extraordinary delays mimic the classic tape sound and excellent reverb worth of the most majestic cathedrals.
Speaking of which, reverb is a fundamental effect that creates a sense of spacing in your sound. Of course, you can have natural reverb in a large ambient, but it can also be digitally replicated these days. Either naturally or not, you may wish to remove this effect from your sound. Is that possible?
The answer is yes, as most digital tools can easily remove or edit certain aspects of your audio file in unimaginable ways. To prove this right, today we’re looking at the best reverb removal software you can find in 2023.
Top 5 Reverb Removal Plugins 2023
Waves Clarity VX DeReverb PRO NEW*
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
Clarity Vx DeReverb Pro is an advanced plugin developed by Waves Audio for reverb removal in dialogue and vocals.
It employs advanced AI algorithms and Waves Neural Networks technology to remove reverb from voice recordings. It can effectively analyze and process audio signals to reduce or eliminate the presence of reverberation.
The plugin operates in real-time, providing instant results and allowing for immediate adjustment and fine-tuning of the dereverberation parameters. This feature facilitates an efficient workflow for post-production engineers, dialogue and ADR editors, and re-recording mixers.
Key Features:
- Precision and Control
Clarity Vx DeReverb Pro offers precise control over the dereverberation process. You can adjust the amount of reverb reduction according to your specific needs, maintaining a natural-sounding voice throughout different levels of reverb reduction. - Power and Efficiency
The Pro version of Clarity Vx DeReVerb provides enhanced dereverberation power, enabling up to 200% reverb reduction. This increased processing capability allows for even more effective reverb removal, ensuring optimal results in challenging recording environments. - Main Controls
Located at the bottom of the plugin, this section allows you to configure the settings for reverb removal. It includes options for selecting the neural network, adjusting the strength multiplier, increasing tail smoothing, controlling image width, preserving presence, and reducing neural network reverb. - Graphic Controls
Found at the top of the plugin, these controls are used to fine-tune dereverberation with the Main Controls. You can adjust the graph to maximize frequency reduction with the most reverb while maintaining less frequency reduction where you want to retain the reverb. This feature enables focused reduction with minimal impact on the voice. - Graphic Display
The plugin offers a Graphic Display that visually represents the dereverberation signal, input signal, output signal, and the dereverberation strength curve. This display can be hidden to save screen space if desired. - Tooltips
Clarity DeReverb includes tooltips that briefly describe each control’s function. When hovering over control, a tooltip appears in the bottom corner, allowing you to understand its purpose quickly. The control’s current value is also displayed in a nearby value box. - Interface
There are options such as Neural Network Selector, Reset, Auto Reset, Main Knob for reverb reduction adjustment, preset modes for Analysis/Output Width, Strength Multiplier, Tail Smoothing, and Presence control, present in the interface. Besides these controls, the plugin’s interface is quite straightforward to understand.
Compatibility:
The Clarity Vx DeReVerb Pro plugin seamlessly integrates into popular digital audio workstations (DAWs) and supports various plugin formats, such as VST, AU, and AAX. This compatibility ensures easy integration into existing production setups.
Summary:
Clarity Vx DeReVerb Pro is a powerful tool for professionals working in post-production, offering AI-driven reverb removal with precision, control, and real-time processing capabilities. It streamlines the dialogue-editing workflow and provides efficient solutions for achieving clean and professional-sounding vocal recordings.
Accentize DeRoom Pro²
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
A powerful tool that uses the best technology available to remove reverb in your track.
DeRoom Pro² is an innovative audio software brought by Accentize that promises to remove the reverb in your audio track. In essence, it works with the help of a machine-learning environment based on an artificial neural network that has experienced multiple ambient scenarios to recognize and apply the removal feature to each profile correctly.
Key Features:
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- Real-time processing
Thanks to those above artificial neural networks, every change made in DeRoom Pro² happens in real-time. This tends to use up some processing power, so be aware that while the effect may be removed on the go, you may also experience some lagging in your system (if your computer isn’t high-end). The bonus is that this eliminates the tiring process of removing the effects manually, which can improve productivity. - Accurate speech restoration
When listening to your audio file, DeRoom Pro² automatically detects signal components that clarify which conditions your track presents to start removing reverb. This affects reverb and echo effects alike, thus improving the detected speech and increasing its clarity and quality. The result is that DeRoom Pro² works either with a slight reverb, like a room, or a larger one, like a cathedral ambient, in the same way. - Automatic room size estimation
The “amount” of reverb is closely related to its size. More extensive reverb settings tend to present more echoes and form a bigger space, for instance. DeRoom Pro² can estimate the best room size that fits your track by listening to it. As the software has many inputs of different sizes, it’s easier than ever to let it work by detecting the appropriate ambiance in your audio file and automatically applying any changes tailored to that spatial setting. - Improved algorithm
This is the second instance of the DeRoom Pro software, reinforced by the “²” symbol. This not only means that the interface design is changed but also the inner workings: you can expect a revamped and updated filtering algorithm that provides higher accuracy when detecting room reflections, primarily noticeable when applying settings to larger reverb rooms and bold settings. - Visual graphics
There’s a valuable waveform and spectrogram monitoring window on the upper part of your user interface design. You can select between the two visualization modes to monitor how DeRoom Pro² alters your signal. The waveform view shows the broadband energy, while the spectrogram view enlists different frequency elements.
- Real-time processing
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for macOS 10.12 or higher (64-bit only) and Windows 7 or higher (64-bit only). It comes in VST3, AAX, and AU plugin formats.
Summary:
The specific aspect of the user interface design window makes DeRoom Pro² a considerably easy plugin to work with. Of course, the real-time processing offered by it makes it even easier to mess around with by automatically analyzing your audio file and applying the changes to remove reverb or echoes instantly. The visual graphics are an excellent addition, but the real power comes from within: the algorithms are well-designed and present usefulness if compared to more complex software, which can make DeRoom Pro² a reliable tool to work with.
Waves Smack Attack (Transient Shaper That Can Behave As De-Verb)
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
The most refined way to alter the transients in your audio file is possible with this plugin.
For those who are not so familiar, transients take an important place in how your track sounds. Quite literally, the transients shape the overall sound and the frequency spectrum as well. A transient shaper such as Waves Smack Attack nearby is helpful, thanks to how it alters attacks and sustains to fit your desired setting best.
Key Features:
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- Attack
The green section on your left is dedicated to the “Attack” of your transients. The more prominent knob sets the “Level” for it, and below that, you’ll see other controls, such as “Sensitivity,” “Shape,” and “Duration.” By mixing these different parameters, you can make the attacks sound sharper or smoother, depending on your goal. - Sustain
This is where the de-verb magic happens. The exact configuration for the “Attack” section is kept, with the color and position in your screen interface changed accordingly. As the sustains can be more or less prolonged, this can be imperative to cut down the reverb tail attached to your transients. One effortless way to rid your instrument or audio track of reverb is simply by reducing the value on the big “Sustain Level” knob – tweak it counterclockwise. - Components
Waves like to divide plugins into smaller sections to be most helpful in diverse situations. One way to do this is by dividing the plugin into components, which deal with the input and output in the software: “Smart Attack Mono” offers mono-in to mono-out. At the same time, “Smart Attack Stereo” brings stereo-in to stereo-out. - Graphics
It’s always helpful to have a decent monitoring graphic nearby. They are imperative to see how the plugin alters your signal and reading, which may bring you the best possible results. Located on the top of Smart Attack’s user interface design, you can have visual feedback on the transients in multiple colors: “Blue” refers to the input waveform signal, “Green” tells you the “Attack” sensitivity, “Yellow” reads the “Sustain” sensitivity (crucial for de-verbing), and “Orange” tells you how the gain has changed throughout the process. - Guard
This segment, located on the lower right side of your user interface design screen, allows you to choose how to treat the output signals in Smart Attack. There are three distinct modes available: the first is “Off,” the second is “Clip” (any alert above 0dB is clipped without changing its dynamic range), and the third is “Limit” (the dynamic range is set with a fast limiter, where leveling is limited to -0.1dBs). - Sustain shapes
To better tame the transients and how they will react when the processing finishes, Smart Attack includes some “Sustain Shapes” that is helpful to set how your “Duration” bar configuration is set. They are mere visual aides to help you see how that fader bar is affecting your track, and they are (from left to right): “Linear” (sustain decays at a linear rate), ” Non-Linear” (providing a rapid or gentle curve), and “Soft Linear” (a softer peak and a linear fall). The first two shapes are best suited for drums, while the latter can be helpful for a more diverse range of instruments.
- Attack
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for macOS 10.14.6 or higher (64-bit only) and Windows 10 or higher (64-bit only). It comes in VST, VST3, AAX, SoundGrid, and AU plugin formats.
Summary:
Waves excel at always bringing excellent sound-editing tools that can make your life easier. Smart Attack is a plugin that tames and shapes the transients in your audio track in the most extreme ways possible. Our main goal is to see how well it de-verbs a path, and the valuable “Sustain” segment can deal with that effortlessly—as simple as that, just tweaking the “Sustain” level knob around can get you pretty results from the beginning. This is very good because it provides a substantial correction with minimal effort, aside from simultaneously offering various configurations.
zynaptiq UNVEIL
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
Be prepared to have control of every aspect of your reverb effect at your fingertips.
Capable of removing or boosting the reverb effect in your track is the specialty behind UNVEIL. Zynaptiq brings this excellent plugin to be your ultimate toolkit for reverberation, with multiple controls and graphics to visualize how exactly the effect will take place in your signal. Feel free to apply this software in live recordings, sound design situations, and even to remove the “mud” from your track.
Key Features:
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- Removal
To remove the reverb effect in your project, UNVEIL mimics the human auditory system to capture the crucial aspects and peaks involving the effect successfully. This ensures the reverb will be removed from your audio track and showcases how well the algorithms inside can work to make it happen, all occurring in a very organic process. The plugin will listen to peaks and other variations to remove them as best as possible without using phase-cancellation techniques or anything that could lower your file’s final quality. - Boosting
Besides removing the reverb altogether, UNVEIL can also boost it according to your taste. You can make your instrument sound as big as possible, move it back in the ambiance spectrum, adapt the amount of reverb for your instrument, and much more. All this can be done in real-time, using mono files, and even within a mixed signal. - Algorithm
The algorithm inside UNVEIL can be precise and work as naturally as possible. The main inspiration was to develop an environment replicating the human auditory system, correctly detecting what we call “mud” and the reverb’s reflections throughout the dynamic range. As a result, the plugin can reduce the level of anything that sounds out-of-place and bring the essential sonic features out, leveling the details to deliver the ultimate performance. - Simple controls
You don’t need to worry about all the maths behind UNVEIL, as every control included was intended to be as straightforward as possible. This is evident because the user interface screen shows no complicated rules or overlooked parameters, only the best commands available displayed in an intuitive distribution that makes it easier to mess around with. - Graph
The big graph at the top of the main interface design screen details how your signal is treated inside UNVEIL. The different colors are helpful to differentiate the processes, such as green for “Original” (for the original signal coming into the plugin) and pink for “Output,” which shows how the movement is behaving in its final form. For example, the overall dynamic range can be visualized, so you know how your track sounds muddy or too bright.
- Removal
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for macOS 10.15 or higher (64-bit only) and Windows 8 or higher (64-bit only). It comes in VST 2.4, VST3, AAX, and AU plugin formats.
Summary:
Arguably the most comprehensive reverb adjustment tool we’ve ever seen, zynaptiq’s UNVEIL is an excellent software in your arsenal that deals with reverb editing wonderfully. You can boost or cut it altogether, meaning that much is possible when you twist the parameters convincingly. The algorithm is based on the most natural way to perceive sounds: the human auditory system. This ensures that every subtle aspect of the reflections is considered, with enough tools to shape it however you’d like.
Acon Digital DeVerberate 3
More Info & Price (Trial Available)
Based on deep learning, this excellent plugin deserves a good mention for its fluid workflow.
DeVerberate 3 does not solely focus on removing reverb from your track, as it’s a complete sonic toolkit to assist you in nailing the perfect tone for this effect. Acon Digital presents the new third version of it, with revamped looks and an excellent algorithm that efficiently deals with reverb adjustments via deep learning methods that make the entire workflow much more straightforward than usual.
Key Features:
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- Deep learning
Deep learning is the main engine behind DeVerberate 3’s interface, which takes inspiration from complex algorithms to provide a meaningful and correct analysis of your reverb reflections. This ensures most of the effect can be manipulated, boosted, or removed entirely if needed. Aside from musical applications, this algorithm also excels in dealing with dialogue recordings and speech-related productions. - Musical uses
DeVerberate 3 can work with audio tracks generated from an instrument, vocals, or even direct dialogue if that’s the case. For musical uses, you’ll find essential parameters to be tweaked, such as the original reverb effect’s level or decay time for each reflection. This takes up the impact to provide a correct adjustment regarding tempo and the overall effect’s loudness. - Dry and mix
On the lower section of your user interface screen, you’ll see that two small knobs can adjust the dry and wet signals’ level in dB. To the left, the “Dry Level” knob sets the volume for your unaffected signal, while the other knob (“Reverb Level”) only deals with the signal affected by DeVerberate 3. Mixing these two can lead to more subtle corrections, opening space for not-so-expressive reflections that build a particular organic aspect of your final sound. - Frequency spectrum
The visual graph that takes up the majority of visual space in DeVerberate 3 allows the user to read the frequency spectrum, spectral loudness, and emphasis filter. There are three central representations included: “Input,” for the incoming signal; “Output,” for the signal leaving the plugin; and, lastly, “Reverberation,” which reads an estimate of the overall reflections left in your audio signal.
- Deep learning
Compatibility:
The plugin is available for macOS 10.9 or higher (64-bit only) and Windows 7 or higher (64-bit only). It comes in VST, VST3, AAX, and AU plugin formats.
Summary:
This sound tool can be as valuable as the previous item in our list, as both tend to focus solely on reverb and its reflections. Straightforward controls in DeVerberate 3 respond nicely to minor adjustments, and the frequency-oriented graph is very resourceful for taming the exact spectrum your track needs. Other than that, the functions are backed up by a robust deep-learning algorithm that can capture all the nuances in each reflection for you to decide whether to remove or boost them.
Bonus
iZotope RX 10 De-reverb (Part of RX Bundle)
More Info
This is only one of the multiple features kept inside the RX Bundle.
One of the market’s most used and renowned audio fixing software nowadays is the RX Bundle by iZotope. This excellent software brings together multiple correction tools that can restore a damaged audio file, remove unwanted noise, set the appropriate loudness, and much more. Today we’re analyzing only one aspect behind that multitude of elements in De-reverb, a reverb removal plugin that can easily do what it promises.
Key Features:
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- Learn
One of the most exciting features in De-reverb is the “Learn” button located at the upper left corner of your user interface screen. It teaches the plugin how much of the reverb effect is present in your signal before doing anything else. It also analyzes the wet and dry ratio per frequency and the rate of decay in development, with some suggestions available after the operation is complete. - Reduction
The big fader on the left side of the screen is responsible for reducing the reverb effect in your signal. More significant amounts mean more reverb is removed from the audio track, representing an overall target of your dry and wet mixing signals. - Profile
De-reverb’s central segment is entitled “Reverb Profile,” which defines how much each frequency band will receive from the reverb effect. This is a clever tool that allows for precise control over each bandwidth, be it “Low,” “Low-mid,” “High-mid,” or “High.” They are firstly set automatically by the “Learn” feature, but you can further tweak them as you’d like. - Metering
The graph on the top of the De-reverb’s user interface screen tells you everything you need to know about your signal: the grey line represents the “Input” signal, and the white represents the “Output.” In contrast, the yellow one means how much was boosted or cut in your reverb effect. The basis is time measured in seconds, and it’s nice to see that they separated the yellow line from the two others for better reading. - Tail length
Setting the tail length of your reverb effect is crucial for determining the decay of your processing. In essence, you should increase this setting in case the reverb tails reappear after processing (or if the earlier ones are too noticeable) and decrease it if the sounds seem over-processed and unnatural to the ears. - Smoothing
To determine whether the frequencies in De-reverb are being correctly processed, you can adjust that amount in the “Artificial Smoothing” fader located in the lower part of your interface design screen. Reverb is generally gentle across the frequency spectrum, but if, in any case, you’d need to remove something as specific as resonance in a room, for example, decreasing this control will bring more uplifting results to you.
- Learn
Compatibility:
This plugin runs on macOS 10.8.5 or higher (64-bits only) and Windows 7 or higher (64-bits only). It comes in VST2, VST3, AU, and AAX plugin formats.
Summary:
The RX Bundle is the ultimate collection for audio engineers and producers dealing with SFX design or sound production. The number of configurations and corrections to be made within this plugin is absurd, and you’ll surely enjoy how cleverly the algorithm works. In this case, we’re analyzing the De-reverb unit specifically, and we can safely say it handles the task it was given proficiently. The controls are easy to follow and don’t open space for confusion, which can be the number one argument for why anyone should use iZotope’s products.
Conclusion
Removing noise from existing audio can be an arduous task, even more, if you don’t know exactly how to do it. More complex than that is removing a real effect, which reason automatically tells us may not be possible. However, we live in the 21st century, and such tools are expected to exist and work in the easiest and most fluid ways possible. And that’s true!
Today’s article showcased some friendly tools for removing reverb from your audio track, musical or not. You may need to remove reverb from a speech recording or a drum part or reduce it from your vocals, and these plugins can do the job very efficiently, mostly with minimal effort.
The best items listed are zynaptiq UNVEIL and iZotope RX 10 De-reverb, primarily because they provide the most valuable results with the least work required. Both present a straightforward user interface screen design – you can argue the De-reverb’s cleaner than UNVEIL, and that’s ok – and include a robust algorithm that can deal with reverb removal instinctively. If we were to choose only one from these options, iZotope RX 10 De-reverb would undoubtedly win because of the multiple other tools also included in the same software, thus being the ultimate toolkit for producers and audio engineers.
Each product solved our problems similarly, but we highlighted these two to see how the real-deal plugins compare to the rest.
Remember to test each product before buying, and don’t be afraid to explore the multiple configurations each can offer.
See you next time!
Eduardo Cardoso is a musician and audio producer based in São Paulo, Brazil. He studied both music production and theory in college and has successfully launched his career as a solo artist in 2021. With over 10 years of experience with the music business, he currently acts as a session musician, music producer, audio editor, and content creator. Read more..