I have some vocal tracks where the vocalist's breaths between phrases are quite loud - enough to be distracting. Is there a relatively easy way to lower the breath sound short of riding the fader between phrase?
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Use a noise gate, if the breathing is too loud, and triggers the gate, then use a ducker and trigger it with synth sound through a the side-chain. Be careful though, you don't want to get rid of it competely, that'll probably sound just as bad. what prodcution suite are you using? |
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If you are open to tweaking, you can use a volume envelope in most DAWs to automatically "ride the gain" control for you. In the illustration below, a volume envelope is being used to turn the volume down on steel guitar part that is too loud in a couple of places:
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Other than riding a track/writing automation, can't see much there. If it's too loud for an expander (which you can set the range that you wish to drop the level by) it's also too loud for strip silence. And I would think you'd want to use an expander, not a gate, since you mentioned that you don't want to get rid of it completely. One thing I'd be curious to try (albeit never used it for this purpose): Waves vocal Rider? |
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sometimes you've just applied too much compression to the vocal (or a similar effect -- limiting, proximity, saturation). |
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3 simple things to try: 1) Automate the volume. This means changing the volume when the breath is too loud. You can draw it in manually or "play" it in by enabling "Write" on the automation and then dropping the volume of the track when you want it while while the file plays. 2) Gate the breath. Noise gates don't have to mute the entire signal - in fact, most of the modern ones allow you to set the ratio or amount of noise reduction. This may not be practical without turning the gate on and off with automation since you don't want to gate the entire vocal track (And you shouldn't if the rest of the song doesn't need it). 3) EQ the vocals. This should be a last resort as it affects the timbre of the vocals a bit, as well as how they sit in the mix. If you have to use this option, make sure you make the EQ unique for this example, and automate it on and off. As previously stated, if you have a lot of compression, or a compressor that really hits the vocals hard, this can make the breaths seem too loud. Make sure this isn't the case for you (Or if it is and you like how it sounds across the whole track, do option 1). If you have any questions about automation, gates, or any of the terms I've used, just ask! |
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