Remove Mouth Noises in Voice Over or Podcast Audio Pt.4

In the preceding post, we learned important concepts connected to removing mouth noises, but also related to any type of correcting in iZotope RX.

Along with those concepts in part 3, we learned how to remove mouth noises from an entire recording in part 2 using a gentle, overall pass.

But there are often bad spots remaining after doing an overall pass with the mouth de-click module.

How do we remove these stubborn remaining mouth noises without negatively affecting the sound of our voice-over recording?

Strategies For Individual Bad Spots - Mouth Clicks

Let's look at the settings you can use for an area that still has mouth clicks after a gentle pass with the module already did its work.

The name of the game as you do any editing and correcting in RX is transparency. You want your edits to be "invisible" so to speak.

As much as possible, any corrections should go unnoticed when anyone listens to your voice recording.

That sounds nifty, you might say, but how do we pull that off?

How To Find The Bad Spots - Mouth Clicks

1. Play back an area of your dialogue recording with bad spots and listen for the watery sound of the mouth clicks:

• now, if you stop and look closely in RX as you listen, you'll notice them in the display (try zooming in)
  
  
• they look like this:

• in the images above, the orange shapes above the blue waveform represent higher frequency content...
  
  
• from this you can see that mouth clicks for my voice-over recording tend to happen at higher frequencies and this has held true in the voice recordings I've worked on...
  
  
• however, mouth smacks will typically show up in orange shapes below the blue waveform (lower frequencies)...
  
  
• we'll learn to deal with these smacks in the next article

2. Even though you're learning to see mouth clicks, you don't need to see each one in that area to deal with them:

• go ahead and play your bad section back several times to be sure of the specific area that has the clicks...
  
  
• again, these could be clicks or smacks - but don't worry about hearing the difference at this point...
  
  
• you just need to be able to hear that there's a problem and to recognize that it's related to clicks, pops or smacks from the mouth (not plosives or sibilance for example, which sound very different)...
  
  
• this ensures that you're using the right corrective module for the problem

3. Next, there are different approaches you could take since you can really, REALLY zoom in with RX to deal with bad spots:

• but, you want to balance that zooming in and correcting ability with the amount of time that you want to spend editing...
  
  
• you could deal with each individual mouth noise (and it would sound quite transparent), but it usually isn't expedient to do so...
  
  
• that's why I suggest selecting a general bad area where you're hearing mouth noises and treating it for these left over clicks and smacks...
  
  
• but be sure to select only the area that you need to correct and leave other areas untouched...
  
  
• this is part of making your edits sound transparent...
  
  
• see my selected area where I hear the mouth noises to correct below:

How To Set Up The Mouth De-click Module - Mouth Clicks

1. Once you've selected the area to treat, it's time to find the best settings in the mouth de-click module:

• remember, we already ran a gentle pass with this module and problems still remain, so we'll need to use stronger settings to be effective
  
  
• this is where the "Compare" function of this module (and others) is so powerful and useful...
  
  
• compare allows you to hear and see (test out) settings before you commit them to your voice recording...
  
  
• use "Compare" as much as possible when you're learning to use RX to become familiar with how the different corrective modules work (see below):

2. Try the "Default" preset first to see if it will be sufficient to deal with the remaining mouth clicks:

• compare this setting against the original audio using the "Compare" function...
  
  
• listen back and forth to both versions - did it remove the mouth clicks?
  
  
• if the "Default" preset worked, stick with that (see below):

3. BUT, if there are still mouth clicks remaining, move to the "Eliminate Clicks" preset (see below):

• this preset is set quite a bit stronger than the "Default" - it seems to be finely tuned to deal with probably 95% of any remaining mouth clicks...
  
  
• so, I often end up using it for bad spots that remain after the gentle pass over the whole voice recording - this is a very useful preset - use it often! 
  
  
• as always, listen back and forth between this setting, "Default" and the original using "Compare"...
  
  
• which one removes the mouth clicks and sounds the best?
  
  
• do notice how the "Eliminate Clicks" preset can subtly reduce some of the top end...
  
  
• this is where EQ can come into play later in your processing to help compensate
  
  

4. If there are still mouth clicks remaining after testing out this preset:

• try bringing the "Sensitivity" up to 8 rather than 7...
  
  
• on the other hand, if this preset is pulling out too much top end or more than just mouth clicks, take the "Sensitivity" down to 6...
  
  
• even though the "Eliminate Clicks" preset is very effective, it won't remove mouth smacks which are at a lower frequency (see next article on removing smacks)
  
  

Look at the "before" and "after" images below (pinch to zoom in) to see:

• the original bad section with mouth clicks (notated with red arrows)... 
  
  
• and the same section cleaned up using the "Eliminate Clicks" preset:

 [ BEFORE ]

[ AFTER ]

It's nice to see the difference, but hearing how the voice-over recording clears up after this correction is truly impressive.

Give it a shot today to hear the difference for yourself!

For a more in depth example of what mouth noises look and sound like, check out part 1 of this series.

Summary

Remember that transparency in your correcting is key for success in RX. You want your edits to be "invisible" so to speak.

To begin, select a general bad area where you're hearing mouth noises while leaving good sounding areas untouched.

To remove the mouth clicks in that area, compare the presets mentioned above to see which is most effective.

Finally, don't forget that the "Eliminate Clicks" preset is very useful as it eradicates the majority of any remaining mouth click problems.

Try out this technique on your voice recording today and let me know how it's working for you!

Cheers, Bryan
Your Dialogue Editing Mentor