Getting rid of breathing and replacing with silence

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brownrottger
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Post by brownrottger »

I wanted to share. To get rid of breathing and replace with silence. Highlight the breath clip. Click on Generate and pick silence then just hit return and the breathing will be replaced with silence. Hope this helps!
Availle
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Post by Availle »

That's great!

Except that you shouldn't do it.
Unless of course you prefer to sound like a robot rather than a human being. :D
If that's your goal, however, then you should make sure that each and every silence is exactly the same length to aid with the mechanical feel of the piece. :mrgreen:

Seriously, it's not a good idea even though it comes up with newbies all the time. If you search the forums, you will find plenty of older threads discussing why you shouldn't do it.
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TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

Also, note that if you have any background noise, replacing breaths with dead silence will add to the unnatural sound of the recording. The background white noise will also be cut out, giving the recording a very choppy sound.

I think of breath sounds as I do about the squeak sound that acoustic guitarists make on the strings when they change chords. You don't notice it until you notice it, then you can't stop hearing it and obsessing over it. :lol: But it's perfectly natural, and unless you breathe like an asthmatic rhinoceros, 99.999% of people won't notice it.
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Post by DACSoft »

Another perspective. (It would be a boring world if everyone agreed or had the exact same opinions on everything.) :wink:

I partially agree with the advice given thus far. I'm a heavy/loud breather. I do some form of what you are suggesting, but replace the breathing with a clip of background noise from the recording (which I then cut/copy/paste to the desired length needed). I never use the (dead) silence option as the complete lack of "noise" is noticeable (at least subliminally) and "sounds" unnatural to me. My method takes a little extra (worthwhile IMHO) time.

I must be in the .001% who notices breathing (and guitar squeaks), and although it doesn't turn me completely off from listening to audio, it can be an annoyance to me. Conversely, not arguing the fact, but I figure if 99.999% (or any other percentage) don't notice the breathing, then it makes sense that the same percentage don't notice the lack of breathing, although I think they would notice lack of (even subliminal) noise. :D

Of course, this opinion may not be in agreement with many professional voice artists (as I look around the Internet), but then again, my goal is simply to make good, fun to create audio books, as a volunteer, that listeners enjoy. :)
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Post by Kazbek »

In some commercial audiobooks all breath noises are removed, in others none are removed, and in yet others some are removed and some kept. I never notice breath noises while listening to an audiobook, unless I'm specifically paying attention to them. Our brain is aware of our breathing habit and can handle it just fine, thank you. :) There's not one size that fits all, though I agree that it helps to realize that some methods of removing breath noises could be more distracting than the breath noises themselves.

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Post by KevinS »

I wonder if Darth Vadar has ever done an audio book?
ColleenMc
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Post by ColleenMc »

I also replace the bigger inhalations with a snippet of background noise from a silent part of the recording -- I did learn the hard way that it has to be truly silent or I risk cutting a tiny inhale, a click or a shifting-in-my-seat noise into every pause, which would be even more annoying! I usually highlight a snippet about the right length and then turn the volume all the way up and make sure it's nothing but background "static" before I hit the copy button.

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knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

As I have said elsewhere, I typically leave some but not all breaths. If there is a big enough pause to just cut the breath out, I will sometimes do that, otherwise I have a short clip that I made by letting the mic run without speaking in the space where I record. The theory here is that this is the same as the background in all my recordings. I use 0.5 sec of this "room noise" wherever I need a little extra quiet space between sentences or paragraphs or to replace big gasping breaths, etc. In other cases, I just reduce the volume of a breath as needed so is still there but less noticeable. This is time consuming, but I have a system that works for me. :) On the other hand, I could get a lot more recording done, if I wasn't quite so picky... :lol:
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Post by lorda »

I breathe very loudly - like a stranded wal.
My way is a little different. I reduce the volume by -10 dB in every pause in speech. In this way, I find that the natural flow of speech is preserved and the breathing, which can also be used to support the drama, can still be heard, at least unconsciously.
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Post by zachh »

When I'm editing I too like to keep a half second chunk of ambient noise on the clipboard so I can drop it in where the inhalations are too loud, or use it to stretch pauses that are too short. I run noise reduction before I start editing, and any inhalation that is still loud enough after NR to leave a mark on the line gets cut out. If I can hear them but they're not loud enough to chart I usually let them go.
brownrottger
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Post by brownrottger »

The thing that takes care of this issue with me is that I do noise reduction on the whole section before I start editing. Then, for me, I can replace the loudest breathing, at least, with silence and it is not inconsistentwith the rest of the silences, in my experience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79zeZnIBpbQ
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Post by annise »

If that's what you want to do, no one is going to argue with you, people can do what they want as long as the basic rules are followed. As a personal opinion I like listening to most fiction as if it read to me by a friend - and most of my friends breathe. :D

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Post by iBeScotty »

I definitely like breathing in readings but not when too heavy and/or loud which can sometimes happen in close micing and soft speaking where the relative breath loudness is greater. Since this has been my problem before, I would use an expander to amplify only above the threshold of the breath thus keeping it at a lower relative level but still there.
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Post by lurcherlover »

Most professional voice artists, actors etc., are able to control their breathing (like singers) so there is not much of a problem. However, we lesser mortals have to learn how to do this and also rely on editing to clean up recordings. As I mostly sight read I also make some frequent and obvious blunders and stumbles. This leads to more editing, but that's OK as far as I'm concerned.

In any case, many producers and broadcasters do not worry too much about breathing, as we all do it and it's natural. Most news items on TV and radio are snatched on the run or live, and we don't notice or complain about it. One thing you can do is to undertake something that makes you breath heavily, such as running, and then immediately record something! That's heavy breathing! (Some competition runners are immediately interviewed as they finish, and the very heavy breathing is expected, natural, and required for the immediate end of a sprint, and if it was not there something would not sound right).

But you can go in the opposite direction and control your breathing. Take small quiet breaths and you nor anyone else will notice them, and they do sound natural anyway. Basically recording the voice should be set up so that no editing is necessary, apart of course for those mistakes and blunders that we all do, including experienced professional narrators.
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Post by ScottinTexas »

TriciaG wrote: May 29th, 2021, 8:15 am Also, note that if you have any background noise, replacing breaths with dead silence will add to the unnatural sound of the recording. The background white noise will also be cut out, giving the recording a very choppy sound.

A movie I am fond of was one of those movies-about-making-a-movie movies by the title "Living in Oblivion." I would link the video here but it does have at least one PG-13 kinda scene. But you can look it up (Living in Oblivion (room tone)) Anyway, it was the first time I heard of the concept of "room tone" as they called it to fill in silences.
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