Breath Removal

[hoffy]

Hey team,

Just a quick question on breath removal (which isn't specific to Pro Tools...)

I'm currently using strip silence and tried that recently with Waves deBreath.

I had very good results except Waves deBreath also occasionally removed f's and k's; so, for example, the end of words like "cliff" and "book" would be truncated.

How accurate are other people getting with this combination? Returning a 10 hour audio book with even a dozen words truncated for me would be unacceptable, and I don't want to purchase the Waves software (as cheap as it is) if I still have to listen to the entire recording for the spots the plug-in eliminated incorrectly.

Is anyone using it with perfect results?

[BillBoy]

Strip silence is a dangerous game unless you can listen to everything and by that time you may as well do it yourself. I have never used waves de breath but again, I wouldn't trust it and wouldn't want to send work to clients thinking that a plugin could have ruined their audio!

To add to the question, stripping or just editing silence between words and sentences can sound funny, especially when the voice will be used on it's own. Do people do this or do you add a noise print between lines to keep it natural but a bit noisy?

[PoxyMusic]

I used to work for a company that produced audio tours, and we found it was best to simply leave the breathing in...don't know if that's an option for you.

A good narrator will know to not attach the breath to the words (by breathing, pausing, then speaking) to allow for a clean edit. If your at the recording session that's a good thing to try to remember. If you get a good pause in there you can tweak the region start and end pad to avoid truncating words...but in the end you have to QC it anyway.

[Dallas Taylor]

Yeah, either edit them manually or leave them in. I've tried everything, and there's no magic bullet when it comes to ultra-exposed narration.

[hoffy]

Thanks for the replies.

Looks like I've got the best solution that's out there... Waves deBreath definitely helps. All it means in the end though is I have to listen to the whole thing but I have less cutting to do.

Regarding Room tone/ pink noise- I don't worry about this at all. Using a well treated vocal booth with a good microphone, compressor and pre-amp and the noise floor is so negligible there's practically no difference. I definitely wouldn't mix in "room tone"

As for "leaving breaths in", I do leave the occasional one in but it's an audio book, not a film, and it definitely sounds better without breaths.

[mikevarela]

I agree that taking things out sometimes sounds very weird - unnatural.

You could try playing with an expander, but only slightly... maybe 3db dip between passages with a fast attack and medium to long release, that should at least give you space between phrases... but always check before giving to client.

[Bill@AudioVision]

I always leave mild breaths in for audiobook or otherwise cold-voice narration. Never remove the time occupied by the breath - people will sound robotic.
However, I do find a couple 'golden' breaths that I keep handy for dropping on top of louder ones. Never cut or fade to silence - always go to room tone if you have to add anything. I also will drop breaths by 10-12dB on some narrators - just depends on their style. Cut out double breaths.
In some cases, you can cut the middle out of very long breaths, but usually for speed I'll just paste one the 'golden' breaths and move on.
No breath plug-ins - takes too much time to setup.

[PoxyMusic]

Originally Posted by Bill@AudioVision

Never cut or fade to silence - always go to room tone if you have to add anything.

I usually cut to silence, often not even bothering to fade. As long as your signal chain is reasonably quiet, it hasn't been an issue.

Your ultimate format may dictate otherwise however.

[Bill@AudioVision]

Originally Posted by PoxyMusic

I usually cut to silence, often not even bothering to fade. As long as your signal chain is reasonably quiet, it hasn't been an issue.

Your ultimate format may dictate otherwise however.

In my case, most of this material is listened to (and edited) on headphones. Cutting to silence is not my work style. Even though I have a very quiet chain, but I still feel room tone is the better choice.