Mar 18, 2009 12:41 pm that boils down to a skilled vocalist quiet often.
Is there a secret to hiding/minimizing breaths?
Posted on Mar 18, 2009 12:34 pm
Indellable
Music Afficionado
Member Since: Aug 12, 2008
It is hard to hear a lot of loud breaths on many songs I hear on the radio. I realize some of this is done by layering multiple takes, but is there a secret when recording in the original voal (i.e. some sort of gate? Or are individual breaths minimized during the mixdowns?
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Mar 18, 2009 12:41 pm that boils down to a skilled vocalist quiet often.
Mar 18, 2009 01:27 pm My latest song that was vocal driven had massive amounts of breath as I was really up on the mic. A very minimalistic noise gate helped alot.
Mar 18, 2009 01:31 pm yes , the noise gate can work. you can get a lot out of mic placment depending on the vocal type, and mic, 8-12" somtimes can work well. a pop filter/ windscreen helps too, plus it keeps the vocalist from getting too close to the mic .
Mar 18, 2009 02:28 pm Definitely a noise gate. The gate can be made more effective by making the difference in volume between the breaths and the vocal as big as possible. You can accomplish this by backing off of the mic like Geoff mentioned, by doing like dB said and make sure the singer manages the mic well (turn away when taking big breaths, etc.).
Also, not singing directly at the mic, but singing slightly above or below it will help keep bursts of air from moving the diaphragm.
I've had pretty good luck with noise gates thus far in my home recording. The one built in to Cubase's dynamics plugin, and the gate made by Fish Fillets both have a "listen frequency" parameter that lets you hone in on a particular frequency band to trigger the gate. Great for drums, and even vocals. You can set the gate to only be opened by the midrange frequencies particular to the human voice and not breath noises.
Mar 18, 2009 07:41 pm You just need style... Keep an eye out at around 20 seconds.
Seriously though - Breathing is part of the vocalist's technique. Good technique, smooth breathing, quiet. Bad technique, noisy draw.
You can fix it in the mix easily enough with gates or editing, but it's nice to not need it also...
Mar 19, 2009 12:39 am I do it manually in a wav editor. When I hear a breath that is too loud I pull it down. It can be time consuming, but it gets the job done.
Mar 19, 2009 04:54 pm MM, very nice bringing Tay up. That is a very good example though of how easy it can be.
But indeed, as all have stated. Its very simple editing to do.
Mar 20, 2009 01:40 am dont breathe, simple.
Mar 20, 2009 09:24 am haha, this is my newest single, entitled "*gasp...croak*".
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