How to get rid of bleed when the signal is too high to use a gate?

Report · Feb 19, 2017

When editing our podcast I'm struggling to find a solution for removing bleed thats coming through the hosts ear buds. The signal is too high to remove with a gate so I end up having to go in and manually silence out all of the bleed sections which as you can appreciate takes a while. Whats the best solution for dealing with bleed that can't be removed with a gate?

Report · Feb 19, 2017

I don't think that there is one, and I'm absolutely certain that it isn't the way to deal with the situation anyway; you should be looking at the circumstances that cause this, and treating the cause, not the symptoms!

For a start, decent earbuds don't bleed that much - how loud is he running them (I'm assuming it's a he)? The ones that are external to the ear canal always leak though - the proper internal ones are all much better from this POV, and may fix your problem at a stroke. Alternatively and more commonly, most people doing a pres job tend to use closed-back headphones like Beyer 150s, or 250s (rather more comfortable, and the ones I use) and even with a close mic, bleed-through generally isn't a problem.

The other thing is the mic you are using. Obviously, the closer you get to it, the more bleed you will experience. With most mics, you should be able to work them at 8-10", but that is somewhat mic-dependent. You may find that if you use a more directional mic that you can use it slightly further away and get acceptable results. Shure and Electrovoice make pretty good studio mics, and generally people don't have any real problems with them at all. On a budget, Shure PGA27s have a cardioid response (more directional) and if you can afford a bit more, then go for a classic like an Electrovoice RE20.

Report · Feb 19, 2017

Is the bleed from his own voice, unlikely, or from the incoming interviewee when the presenter isn't speaking? You might find that you can use ducking using cross channel side chaining rather than a simple gate on the presenters mic. Thus the presenters mic output can be automatically ducked when the far end is speaking.

However as Steve says the problem should really be tackled at the source.

Report · Feb 19, 2017

A couple of side issues...

First, if the earbuds are turned up so loud that you have such a bleed problem, your host is almost certainly doing permanent damage to his ears.

Second, I endorse Steve's suggestion of closed cup earphones and the importance of mc position. If the professional headphones Steve mentions are too expensive, some of Sennheiser's cheaper domestic closed cup phones do an amazingly good job for under $50.

Report · Feb 22, 2017

Thanks for your help everyone. I really appreciate it!

The bleed is coming from the interviewee via the hosts earbuds.

The host is hard of hearing and needs to have her earbuds turned up super high and she doesn't like headphones. I am trying to work on convincing her to use to some better ear buds but shes taking some convincing as her hearing is a sensitive matter. We have recently got a better directional mic which has definitely improved things but after I've applied the gate theres still a lot of manual cleaning up I need to do.

I was just hoping that there might be some plugin or simple hack that might save me the time of manually silencing out the bleed and any background noise

I have not tried ducking before so will have a go and see if i can do it in post as i just get the recorded audio file.

Report · Feb 22, 2017

jonathanw2812900 wrote
The host is hard of hearing and needs to have her earbuds turned up super high and she doesn't like headphones. I am trying to work on convincing her to use to some better ear buds but shes taking some convincing as her hearing is a sensitive matter.

Okay, I'll wear my other hat for a minute - I'm an acoustician. If she's hard of hearing but can still hear via normal auditory channels somewhat, then the canal-fitting earbuds will be a lot more effective than the outer ones it sounds as though she's currently using. But at some stage, she's going to have to bite the bullet and get some sympathetic professional advice; not taking a more sensible approach to hearing loss could potentially lead to more damage, not less - and it will also impact on other people, obviously. And you can tell her I said so...