Definition of Dereverberation
Dereverberation is the process by which the effects of reverberation are removed from sound, after such reverberant sound has been picked up by microphones. Dereverberation is a subtopic of acoustic digital signal processing and is most commonly applied to speech but also has relevance in some aspects of music processing. Dereverberation of audio (speech or music) is a corresponding function to blind deconvolution of images, although the techniques used are usually very different. Reverberation itself is caused by sound reflections in a room (or other enclosed space) and is quantified by the room reverberation time and the direct-to-reverberant ratio. The effect of dereverberation is to increase the direct-to-reverberant ratio so that the sound is perceived as closer and clearer.
A main application of dereverberation is in hands-free phones and desktop conferencing terminals because, in these cases, the microphones are not close to the source of sound – the talker’s mouth – but at arm’s length or further distance. As well as telecommunications, dereverberation is importantly applied in automatic speech recognition because speech recognizers are usually error-prone in reverberant scenarios.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Dereverberation?
Dereverberation is the process by which the effects of reverberation are removed from sound, after such reverberant sound has been picked up by microphones.