Remove Mouth Noises in Voice Over or Podcast Audio Pt.5

We learned how to zoom in and get rid of stubborn, remaining mouth clicks in voice recordings in the previous post.

With the mouth clicks gone from bad spots, we've cleaned things up nicely, but we're not done yet...

Like the left over mouth clicks remaining after our gentle pass through the entire recording, we still have annoying mouth smacks to deal with.

How do we remove these prominent sounding mouth noises to present a clear and distraction free experience to our listeners?

And how do we remove the smacks in RX without harming the natural sound of our dialogue recordings?

Strategies For Individual Bad Spots - Mouth Smacks

Despite this being a separate post from last week's mouth clicks post, it makes good sense to process mouth smacks around the same time you're dealing with the clicks.

That's because you'll probably have located the smacks together with the clicks in bad areas and you'll be using the same module (the mouth de-clicker).

That isn't to say that mouth smacks will always be located with the mouth clicks, but they often will be...

And that isn't to say that they can't be isolated on their own in bad spots with no mouth clicks - because that can certainly happen as well.

Listen to the audio example back in Part 1 of this series (in the blue box at the top of the article).

You'll hear mouth smacks in my voice-over project in the same bad area as the mouth clicks:

• To recognize the smacks, turn up the volume fairly loud and try to focus your listening on the higher frequencies
  
  
• Listen for the popping sounds in these words: "and"; also after "s" in "problems"
  
  
• You may have to listen several times to hear them
  
  
• The mouth noises at the start and end of the entire phrase are the mouth smacks (the higher sounds in the middle of words are mouth clicks) 

How To Find The Bad Spots - Mouth Smacks

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

• be sure to check in areas that also had mouth clicks that you already removed (since clicks and smacks will often congregate together)
  
  
• now, if you stop and look closely in RX as you listen, you'll see them in the display (try zooming in)
  
  
• they look like this:

• in the image above and as a rule, the mouth smacks will show up in long, thin, orange shapes below the blue waveform (lower frequencies)...
  
  
• however, they may extend above the waveform as well (this is probably an instance of a mouth smack combined with a mouth click, which is what you see above)

2. Play your bad section back several times to be sure of the specific area that has the smacks:

• since you've already removed the mouth clicks, the remaining popping mouth noises will be exactly what you're looking for...
  
  
• look for the long, thin, orange shapes below the blue waveform as you listen (these are the smacks in that section)

3. Next, select the general bad area where you're hearing and seeing the 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 smacks to correct below:

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

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

• remember, using this same module, we already ran a gentle pass over the whole recording and another pass over this bad section for mouth clicks...
  
  
• but problems still remain, so we'll need to use different settings to effectively deal with the mouth smacks...
  
  
• 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. Don't use the RX preset "Reduce Smacks" for your entire bad section because it's too heavy handed:

• it will remove much more that just the mouth smacks (it's not a transparent processing option)...
  
  
• instead use a modified setting of that preset as seen below:

• this setting just reduces the "Sensitivity" to 5.0 instead of 7.0 and doesn't affect the surrounding audio as much
  
  
• compare this setting against the original audio using the "Compare" function...
  
  
• listen back and forth to both versions and look too see if the orange shapes of the smacks disappeared or were decreased...
  
  
• if it removed the mouth smacks while preserving the sound of the surrounding audio - you're done...

3. BUT, if there are still mouth smacks remaining, which is often the case, you'll need to select each one individually:

• select just the area with the stubborn, remaining mouth smack (this will be a very small area)...
  
  
• by only processing in the tiny area with the smack, you are preserving the natural sound of your voice recording (see below):

• next, use the powerful "Reduce Smacks" preset we mentioned above or a version of it...

• by "a version" I mean, if you need to, increase the preset "Sensitivity" higher than 7.0...
  
  
• these left over smacks can be very stubborn since they've withstood various passes already...
  
  
• so don't be afraid to push the "Sensitivity" all the way up to 10.0 (this is seek and destroy mode!!)...
  
  

4. Finally, if you still can't remove the smack with the strongest settings using mouth de-clicker:

• move to the spectral repair module with the trouble spot still selected...
  
  
• use the "Attenuate Unwanted Event" preset (see below): 

• play the trouble spot back in context with the preceding audio using "Preview" in the "Compare" function...
  
  

• if it sounds good and you see the stubborn smack removed, you're all set - hit "Process" and you're done!

Summary

Remember, deal with mouth smacks around the same time you're dealing with mouth clicks since they're often bunched together.

Plus, you'll be using the same module you already used for the clicks and will just need to tweak the settings.

Next, to find the mouth smacks, listen and look for the watery, popping sounds that show up below the blue waveform in RX.

Finally, treat bad sections with mouth smacks with a gentler setting than RX's preset to preserve the surrounding audio.

Bear in mind that you'll often need to zoom in on stubborn remaining smacks using stronger settings in the mouth de-click module or with the spectral repair module.

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