getting rid of echoes and ambience

[virtualso]

Does anyone know how to get rid of ambience/reverb sounds from a recording? Someone I know is trying to cut out the ambience, b/c it sounds too far away and the accompanying image on the screen is much closer.

[GZsound]

In a word..no. You cannot remove reverb that is imbedded in a sound file without destroying that file.

[trock]

If it's a single track you could try an expander.

[TimOBrien]

Go to the ocean and throw a rock in... then try to remove YOUR waves from the natural ones. That's basically what you're trying to do.

Remember, sound waves are analog not digital.

[Robert D]

Fraid not. Something like a Keepex can sort of dry up a single track, especially something percussive, like drying up a snare track, but for a complete mix I don't think there's really anything that you could do without completey butchering the track. The only thing you could try is just removing some reverb off of any stops, places where the amount of reverb suddenly becomes very obvious. I wouldn't use a dynamics processor to do it, I'd do some carefull digital editing to quickly fade out such tails.
Regards, RD