How to eliminate breathe sounds?

[Eric Pederson]

I am lucky to have not too much of the problem you are describing (through practice) but you might just need to do some careful editting.

I try to edit out most of them in my own personal recordings, but sometimes a breath can add emotional perspective/feeling etc.

EDIT: If you are sneaky, you can breathe silently =)

[CJ Mastering]

volume envelopes/automation or splicing out the breaths will work. I prefer automation.envelopes myslef
Cj

[Eric Pederson]

If it is your stuff, or your artist is paying you appropriately, I would take the time to edit out the breaths.

(again, very subjective to the project, and again breaths can be either useless or not)

or

(useful to the emotional message)

etc..

[RCM - Ronan]

Its really tough since you have vocals and guitar in the mics. I can not say for sure but you might be able to deal with this using Izotope RX. It can do some pretty amazing things for getting rid or specific sounds in a recording.

iZotope RX - Complete Audio Restoration: Declipping, Declicker, Hum Removal, Denoiser, Spectral Repair, Restore, Remaster, Download

[sound_music]

i rarely edit out breaths, i find they add a very human touch to a performance, and 9 time out of 10 it's not worth the time and effort. do they really bother you? maybe just leave them as they are?

[Rocksoff]

Personally, I like breath sounds and string noise.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by Lauren2010

Greetings,

I have an audio track with live vocal and acoustic fingerpicking guitar. I tend to make lots of annoying breathing sounds between verses. Trying to change my habits, but in the meantime is there an Apple Logic compatible plugin that can do a good job of eliminating or reducing unwanted sounds like that without noticeably affecting the acoustic guitar under the vocal?

I saw that waves has a debreathe plugin, so would that do it, and be easy to use for non-expert like me? Are there cheaper and equally good alternatives?

While I'm on the subject, is there a plugin or technique to eliminate or reduce really loud acoustic guitar string squeaks while preserving the music? I got this new martin and I think the strings are uncoated like my taylor elixirs; it's squeaking like heck in the meantime as I try to tighten up my technique.

Many thanks

First -- kudos for addressing the actual problems, which flow from less-than-perfect technique.

Next, while there are specialized plugs that are purpose-designed to eliminate breath sounds between vocal phrases, they are preumably just expanders (noise, gates, compressors set to negative compression below a certain threshold).

But one of the easiest ways is simply to go through your vocal track and simply edit out dead space between phrases.

It is worth noting, however, that some of these breath sounds help contribute to a natural sounding vocal. (Not everyone wants natural, of course. By a stretch.) So, many folks will actually leave some breath intakes in just before a vocal phrase, but lower the level to make it just barely noticeable.


With re guitar squeak... I'll let others weigh in on that, except to say that sometimes you can get in there and minimize the squeak -- but a lot of times doing so will effect the guitar's continuing ring/resonance. Still, in this age of questionable miracles like the ability to 'retune' chords and such, almost every thing that can be tried has or will be tried, to varying degrees of success and failure.

[Lee Cardan]

definitely editing them out

if you wanted to do something plugin wise though, perhaps a gate which is triggered off a duplicate of the signal with the breath region of frequencies EQd out

[idylldon]

Originally Posted by sound_music

i rarely edit out breaths, i find they add a very human touch to a performance, and 9 time out of 10 it's not worth the time and effort. do they really bother you? maybe just leave them as they are?

Originally Posted by Rocksoff

Personally, I like breath sounds and string noise.

These.

Just listen to any Glenn Gould recordings. He not only breathes, he sings, hums, and makes all kinds of vocalizations while playing some of the most amazing classical piano ever recorded.

We seem to have arrived at a place where we can do pretty much anything we want in post production. I'm not sure that's such a good thing at times.

Cheers,
--
Don

[John N]

in general, being Human, is not good enough anymore, hence quantizing, pitch correction, etc in music. Also consider that ad for the Droid phone: the desire to be more mechanical, less human, less limited is the theme there. Too bad we can't quantize bad behavior on the parts of people, governments, corporations, etc...

As an avante-garde composition I heard back in the early seventies lamented:
The machine is more perfect than you.

not much help to the OP there, sorry.

Become more aware of your breathing while singing, in time you will have it more under control - but it will still be there, because, good golly, you're human.
Same with finger squeaks on the gtr - practice will improve that, just have to lift your fingers a smidgen more and/or mute the strings briefly with your picking hand. I'm sure there are tricks that guitarists use for this without resorting to digital wizardry.

[Muyukiguki]

If the vox are on a separate track, you can try a combo of compression and gating to tame some of the breath noise. Or instead of editing out the breath noise you can use automation to "ride" the fader. thumbsup

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by John N

in general, being Human, is not good enough anymore

Frankly, I think we need to figure out how not to breathe while tracking acoustic guitar. I might also be helpful to learn how to do it without touching the strings.

Seriously, though.......I am frimly in the camp of leaving that stuff in there as much as possible. Breaths and string noises can become a distraction though. Technique is crucial, not that I have mastered such.

My esteemed yet somewhat anal partner in the JDL project wears a surgical mask when tracking acoustics. Don't laugh.....it works. I have worn the same here at my house. Don't tell him, though.

[blacklion]

If this is a single mic performance, wouldn't de-breathing sound kind of funny with fingerpicked guitar?

If this is a 2 track, then go ahead and automate during the breaths and compensate on the guitar track if necessary.

If it's a single track, then picking your spots where to take a little off can keep your natural performance and reduce how noticeable the breaths are depending on what other parts are in the track.

I do know that breath sounds and guitar squeaks are more noticeable to the one making them than anyone else. If you're happy with your performance and the song is only meant to be picked guitar and vox on a single track, you may do more harm than good if you try and mess with it.

If I'm not mistaken the waves de-breath thing is more or less a gate, is it not?

[blacklion]

Originally Posted by Unclenny

My esteemed yet somewhat anal partner in the JDL project wears a surgical mask when tracking acoustics. Don't laugh.....it works. I have worn the same here at my house. Don't tell him, though.

That's a neat one. I'll have to keep that in mind. Aren't you risking having a track that sounds like it's been played by Dearth Vader?

[Silent Sound]

Years ago when I first started recording, I would cut out all of the breath sounds from my vocal recordings. I just thought it would give my recordings a more professional sound. I learned after a couple of songs that it did the opposite.

Occasionally, I'll automate the sound of a breath if it annoys me enough, so it's not so prominent in the track, but I don't cut them out anymore. If you hear a vocal track were the singer never inhales, well, it just sounds off. Everyone breathes, even non-musicians, and everyone knows that.

Back off the mic a bit or slide it over a tad so you're not breathing directly into it while you're working on breathing techniques. Point I'm trying to make, is the same old tired adage. Tracking it right the first time is always preferred to fixing it in the mix.

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by blacklion

That's a neat one. I'll have to keep that in mind. Aren't you risking having a track that sounds like it's been played by Dearth Vader?

It actually works great.

I have come over to the dark side myself.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by blacklion

That's a neat one. I'll have to keep that in mind. Aren't you risking having a track that sounds like it's been played by Dearth Vader?

I don't know if Dearth Vader was a typo -- but I know I've got a new nom de guerre in case punk ever crawls back out of the grave it crawled into (presumably to hide) about the time mall stores with complete, off-the-rack, ensemble-ized 'punk outfits' [and I don't mean the hypodermic kind] popped up...

[woodnote]

If you have the Waves DeBreather plugin, the trick that I do is to double the track and have it loaded on both tracks. The original you use it just like a noise gate to get rid of all the breaths. But on the duplicated track, you set it to "Difference", so then you only have the sounds of the breathing. Then you just lower the fader to taste. Still sounds natural but not nearly as annoying as it can sound, and takes less time than going through and manually edit them all out.

[Eric Pederson]

Anyone succesfully using Strip Silence (PT) to do this?

[Unclenny]

On a more serious note.......I deal with breath noises and extraneous acoustic guitar noises constantly in my effort to capture my tunes as naturally as possible.

Quite often I'll find myself with a take that simple has to be used, but is chock full of nasty noises.

In these cases judicious volume automation, coupled with carefully automated EQ cuts and a healthy dose of acceptance can yield a pretty natural yet mostly noise free track.

[metrostudio]

I realize I'm late to this thread, but I'd like to add something. I, and everyone else in these forums, realize the abilities that this digital age has afforded us concerning editing capabilities. However, I prefer not to cut and paste and process the life out of a track. I'm sure that when most people like myself post a question as to how to solve a recording problem, the last thing we want to see is a million ideas on how to fix the problem in post production. Yes we are all aware of the digital cuts, mutes, pastes processors and software that can be employed to "fix" the track. But doesn't it all come down to proper recording technique? I don't want to hear about fixing the problem after it's recorded, tell me how to avoid the problem all together. How did they do it in the 70's when it was all tape machines and the sound had to be "right" going into the tape machine? I'm very interested in the approach to recording things the way it was done in the 70's and 80's. Teach me proper technique not band aid philosophy. Ok, I'm stepping off my soap-box now!

[Marshall Oliver]

Originally Posted by Eric Pederson

Anyone succesfully using Strip Silence (PT) to do this?

no but I do alot of automation and sometimes gating to reduce breaths, noises, and other unwanted sounds.

[NothingTheory]

in addition to automation reversing the phase in the mic picking up the vocals from the mic on the guitar can have a cancelling effect. It takes experimentation in mic type and placement but ive used this trick a couple of times with success.

[Matti]

Waves have Debreath plugin but I think automation and taking care where to
edit if editing is more natural. Remember that when you compress you compress also these and some automation can help.

Matti

[Karloff70]

Originally Posted by Unclenny

My esteemed yet somewhat anal partner in the JDL project wears a surgical mask when tracking acoustics. Don't laugh.....it works. I have worn the same here at my house. Don't tell him, though.

LOL....oh dear. You don't know what you've done......as I already tend to get my jeans off for acoustic takes to avoid the guitar/trouser rub sounds.......it's going to look arrestable from now on.....lol

[awimoe]

editing would be a choice and a noise gate.

[theblue1]

Originally Posted by metrostudio

I realize I'm late to this thread, but I'd like to add something. I, and everyone else in these forums, realize the abilities that this digital age has afforded us concerning editing capabilities. However, I prefer not to cut and paste and process the life out of a track. I'm sure that when most people like myself post a question as to how to solve a recording problem, the last thing we want to see is a million ideas on how to fix the problem in post production. Yes we are all aware of the digital cuts, mutes, pastes processors and software that can be employed to "fix" the track. But doesn't it all come down to proper recording technique? I don't want to hear about fixing the problem after it's recorded, tell me how to avoid the problem all together. How did they do it in the 70's when it was all tape machines and the sound had to be "right" going into the tape machine? I'm very interested in the approach to recording things the way it was done in the 70's and 80's. Teach me proper technique not band aid philosophy. Ok, I'm stepping off my soap-box now!

Assuming one is tracking guitar and vocal at the same time (as it appears the long ago OP was), it mostly comes down to optimal mic placements as well as performance technique.

If the RE sticks the mic up right in front of the talent's mouth to get that breathy quality, he better hope the talent has the technique to pull it off. For some vocalists, breathing through the nose between phrases helps. For others, though, it can be just as noisy or maybe even worse.

Of course, getting the vocal mic out of the blast path of the vocalist's breath is pretty crucial no matter what, as it will not only reduce the impact of plosives but will also tend to minimize breath noise. (My sinuses, for instance, sound like foley from a slasher movie when said slasher calls up the victim and wordlessly breathes into the phone. )

Gating during tracking can be risky, and, of course, if it's a dual mic setup on a singer-guitarist who plays and sings simultaneously, the vocal mic will almost certainly be picking up enough of the guitar that gating that mic's signal will be a no-go.

[Unclenny]

Originally Posted by Karloff70

LOL....oh dear. You don't know what you've done......as I already tend to get my jeans off for acoustic takes to avoid the guitar/trouser rub sounds.......it's going to look arrestable from now on.....lol

This means absolutely nothing without pictures.

[UG Studio]

You can go into the audio Zoomed, ANd either cut or cross fader the breaths but usually i do not take out breaths makes it more natural.