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Schneckensirup
Inspiring
May 5, 2020 9:12 PM UTC
Question

Salvage poor headset mic recording?

Hi, I am in desperate need of help. I received a podcast recording to clean up, made with a headset mic (I know, terrible!). We usually never use those mics for recording, but in this particular case there was no other option. 

In addition to a few plosives (which I can deal with), there is a constant air "puff" in the background. Is there anything I can do to at least reduce this? I've attached a sound sample. I know - garbage in, garbage out. This is a really bad recording , but can anything be done? I'd be grateful for any suggestions. Thanks!

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5 replies

MikeHarrison
Inspiring
May 5, 2020 9:57 PM UTC

The quality of this mic, itself, sounds fine. But those "puffs" ARE plosives. Plosives don't happen only with the letter "P;" a plosive occurs anytime there is a direct blast of breath (or air) into the mic. This person just happened to have the mic far too close to his mouth, and this is the result. Some of them may be fixable, and some may be only reduceable... by locating each one the Spectral Frequency display (they are low frequency noises, so they will appear as bright yellow blotches – see the screenshot)

 

, highlighting each one separately using the marquee selection tool and reducing the gain until they sound OK to you. But it will require addressing each one separately because they are all different.

 

Is it possible you can have the guy re-record the piece and tell him to move the tip of the mic to just outside the corner of his mouth (not directly in front)? Let him know why you're asking him to do this and have him do a couple of tests until he gets the positioning right. Again, IF you can caonvince him to re-record. If not, depending on how long the piece is, it could be a nightmare.

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SchneckensirupAuthor
Inspiring
May 5, 2020 10:21 PM UTC

Mike, thank you so much for replying quickly, I really appreciated it. As you can tell, I am fairly new to audio editing... This is a long piece, so yes... would be an absolute nightmare. I sent a request to re-record, hope he agrees. Thanks again!

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SteveG_AudioMasters_
Community Expert
SteveG_AudioMasters_Community Expert
Community Expert
May 5, 2020 10:42 PM UTC

If you can't get a re-record, then the other way you can easily and effectively reduce plosives is to use the marquee tool, as already mentioned, but instead of playing with the volume, use the Favorite 'Auto Heal'. This generally does a good job on plosives (I tried it on some of yours, and it clears them up a lot), and more importantly, you can assign a short-cut key to it, making it much easier and faster to use.

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