How to elimate "Lip Smacking/ Mouth Noises"

Hi,

I can't record anything without getting lots of clicks (a sharp fine line in the wavefile).  I've tried so many different things and I still get these mouth clicks.  Here's what I now do to help reduce the "click" noise.  I'm using Adobe Audition CS5.5.

After I record my audio I select a portion of the dead air for removing noise.  Then I highlight the file and go to Effects- Amplitued and Compression and select Tube modles Compressor and preset to voice leveler.  This will really compress your audio file.  Then I go back to Effects - Amplitude and Compression and select Hard Limiting with the preset on Light.

Now listen to your file and see if it has reduced some of the clicks.  Really loud clicks might still need to be removed manually.  You can also try DeClicker and the Click remover in the noise reduction window.  I'm using a Shure SM-58 Mic and it picks up all noises.  I might try working about 12 inches away from it to see what it does.  Normally I work about 6 inches away from the mic and sort of talk off to the side of the mic, but it still picks up my mouth clicks.  Hope the above steps helps a little.  It did for me,but I'm still experimenting for another fix to the problem.  Your comments are welcome.

Ed

edwardto@shentel.net

If you haven't recorded it yet, then fixing it at the source is best. Not my area of expertise, so I'll defer to others here on that. I'd imagine though that some kind of instant feedback for him would help him tone it down. Have him wear headphones to monitor the recording and boost the high frequencies slightly. That would make him very sensitive to it.

But it is possible to edit it by hand to some extent. Unfortunately no automated process is going to work, because while those noises are typically isolated to certain frequency ranges, they happen sporadicly in time. So a static filter cutting certain frequencies won't work well without the side effect of losing other content you want. Noise reduction won't work either, because it relies on the noise being at a consistent level, consistently present, and at a consistent set of frequencies.

But you can likely edit them out by hand with Audition. The initial trick is learning what they look like. In Audition 3.0 the menu sequence is View-->Spectral Frequency Display. Zoom in on the time scale so that only 5-10 seconds of audio are shown, around the area where there's a problem. Listen to it and watch the playback. You'll likely see a thick vertical line in the range of around 4-8kHz where it happens. Now select the Marquee Selection Tool (looke like a square with dashed lines) and draw a box snug around the problem area. You can either press the Delete key on your keyboard, or go to Favorites-->Auto Heal. Delete will erase that area of audio, keeping everything else around it that you want. Auto Heal will blend it a bit more than deleting it, but takes a moment for the processing.

You may have to adjust the settings on the spectral display to more clearly see the artifacts. In Audition 3.0 this is accessed by going to Edit-->Preferences-->Display and then try Bands in the range of 512-1024, window width 100%, and dB range set to 80dB. Hanning window should be fine - pretty much anything other than Triangular is good.

Tedious, but it should work as long as you isolate the right areas. If you have a great recording and this only happened a few times I'd do this. Otherwise if you haven't recorded it yet then stopping it acoustically at the source is best.

This is one of the most common if not really annoying aspects of voice recording.  As SteveG mentioned...mic placement, talent standing and only h2o are all you can do and it's roll up the sleeves and start editing out or doing re-takes.   I've found that when the talent starts to go into what I call...mung tung, piffle or denture clicks... I have them purse their lips together and blow for a minute or two and have them wipe their mouth with tissue at the ready, which does help.  There is real no cure.

Difficult with that sort of noise. Record him slightly off-axis and slightly above mouth level, but I'm afraid most of the answers to this lie with him. One thing that's quite important is to make sure that the only thing he has to drink anytime around the sessions is clear non-alcoholic liquid (ie, water). Most specifically, avoid fruit juice and anything milky, like tea or coffee - although both of these are okay if taken black. Anything else is likely to cause more mucus in the mouth, and that's really going to hype up the 'smacking' noises.