Is there any plugin I could get that could recognize and shorten silences?

Basilosauridae

Basilosauridae

Member
I do audiobook narration and its generally good practice to silence/reduce breaths and then shorten the gaps by at least 30%. My current process for audiobook processing is to create a duplicate of my vocal track and the apply a noise gate to one of them set at the average RMS amplitude to cut out all the breathing. I think use the duplicate track to replace any of random words that may have been butchered by the noise gate, and then I have a clean room noise track that runs under it.

However, after I do that, I still have to shorten all of the gaps made by my breathing. For longer audiobooks this is a total pain the ass. Since the gaps are complete silence, is there any plugin or anything that could help automate this process for me? I know its probably a long shot, but anything to shave time off audiobook editing would help.

Also let me know if you have a better way of eliminate breaths from recordings, so far this is the best method I've found besides doing it manually which takes hours upon hours. I didn't have any luck with the Waves debreath plugin.

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
Audacity can do that.

Sound forge had the same hook up, and I think it's available on even older versions of Vegas that you can pick up for cheap...
 
no, i do not. sorry.
the manual might get you there tho..
sometimes, this function is hidden as a 'noise gate'

on my own tracks, i simply cut out the blank spaces manually. takes very little time.
 
If you have so many breath noises to cope with, I think your issue is mic choice, mic placement or genuinely heavy breathing - you shouldn't have to be doing this level of editing because recording books is a long enough process without having to listen and check this many auto edits. What is your background noise like, because cutting those pauses without artefacts is quite hard - it's not just level, but the timbre of the room sound. Cutting pauses is an indication of poor delivery. Cut when they happen and fix, but the exact length of any pause (beat) is dependant on the audio content - inflections that fall can have longer pauses than rising ones, for example.
 
rob aylestone said:
If you have so many breath noises to cope with, I think your issue is mic choice, mic placement or genuinely heavy breathing - you shouldn't have to be doing this level of editing because recording books is a long enough process without having to listen and check this many auto edits. What is your background noise like, because cutting those pauses without artefacts is quite hard - it's not just level, but the timbre of the room sound. Cutting pauses is an indication of poor delivery. Cut when they happen and fix, but the exact length of any pause (beat) is dependant on the audio content - inflections that fall can have longer pauses than rising ones, for example.
Click to expand...
I have asthma, so yeah, some breathing issues to deal with. It is what it is.
 
Basilosauridae said:
It is what it is.
Click to expand...
No. Fight it. I hear stories of people with challenges similar to asthma. They take up Rock climbing and get some altitude. The height changes the amount of oxygen in the environment. Reaching the peak and getting to the summit each time, resets the body's hypoxic drive. The function of the body is to adapt and overcome. If you are strong, you will win. You can beat it. Climb that mountain.
 
I think Lazer is right - from the don't give up perspective (mountain climbing seems a bit extreme?) if your asthma just produces the usual wheezy sound, then mic position can really help - sometime you see people with this or teeth gap whistles mount the mic looking down on the mouth at 45 degrees, well out of the great stream. It probably means tablets not paper scripts though. If you do have noise, then I fear the auto systems are going to cut out the silences but then leave you many manual edits to hide the cuts. They work fine with real silence - but not noise.
 
LazerBeakShiek said:
No. Fight it. I hear stories of people with challenges similar to asthma. They take up Rock climbing and get some altitude. The height changes the amount of oxygen in the environment. Reaching the peak and getting to the summit each time, resets the body's hypoxic drive. The function of the body is to adapt and overcome. If you are strong, you will win. You can beat it. Climb that mountain.
Click to expand...
yes but what are the acoustics like at the top of the mountain
 
rob aylestone said:
I think Lazer is right - from the don't give up perspective (mountain climbing seems a bit extreme?) if your asthma just produces the usual wheezy sound, then mic position can really help - sometime you see people with this or teeth gap whistles mount the mic looking down on the mouth at 45 degrees, well out of the great stream. It probably means tablets not paper scripts though. If you do have noise, then I fear the auto systems are going to cut out the silences but then leave you many manual edits to hide the cuts. They work fine with real silence - but not noise.
Click to expand...
It’s not a wheezing sound luckily but I do have some deep breaths and have to pause for breath more often. It’s more of a shortness of breath issue. As long as I’m taking breaths as I need there are no other symptoms like wheezing or sounding out of breath, but that’s where some of the unnatural pauses come from.

Im interested in what you are saying about mic position. I have an EV RE20 and i can set it at a 45 degree angle in the horizontal from my mouth but I feel like the quality goes down significantly when moved up or down from my mouth. Also not sure I understand what you mean about tablet vs paper? (Luckily I have a tablet for reads)
 
Last edited:
When you do VO recordings and have to use the above, looking down mic placement - the scripts rustle, that's all. Condensers, and I've actually noticed my 414 is very prone to this, really hear the page turns. I doubt the RE20 does. It's also designed for close miking isn't it - so a more distant position wouldn't really work. I suspect that you'll end up doing the edits manually, but the real time taker is blending the edits. I'm guessing on your breath noises when you run out of steam, but hopefully the cuts will be invisible. Auto silence could work, but the actual gaps need to fit the context and the structure - so a comma, a full stop and a paragraph all have defined pauses from tiny to quite long but a phrase upturn, like a question, might need longer than a definitive down inflection. I just wonder how an auto system would do it?
 
Papanate said:
You could us RX8 Advanced - it has a couple of plugins that remove breath, clicks and pops.
Click to expand...
i have their cheap package which includes the de-click which is really nice. I’m skeptical about the breath removal because it looks like it works like Waves Debreath does and that wasn’t sophisticated enough to cut the breath without cutting into the starts and finishes of sentences. Curious to hear if anyone has used Waves Debreath and RX8 breath removal and has any thoughts.
 
Basilosauridae said:
i have their cheap package which includes the de-click which is really nice. I’m skeptical about the breath removal because it looks like it works like Waves Debreath does and that wasn’t sophisticated enough to cut the breath without cutting into the starts and finishes of sentences. Curious to hear if anyone has used Waves Debreath and RX8 breath removal and has any thoughts.
Click to expand...

It's nothing like the Waves plugin. It's refined and very accurate.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top