I've been struggling with mouth noises and wondering if there's a solution...?

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Mangangan

Mangangan

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I am 18M and struggling with mouth sounds. Clicking, lip smacking, you name it, it's a problem for me. I've been trying to find a solution for some time now, and I've read about as much advice as you can possibly read; to no avail. I've tried different pronunciation, microphones, microphone positions, changing gain level, hydrating, and de-clicking programs like RX by IZotope. None of these things seem to help dramatically.

The best help has been IZotope, but even that has its problems. If I set the settings too high, then my voice sounds robotic and certain letters like K's, B's and D's are barely audible when I'm speaking. This is also a problem no matter where I place the frequency skew. On the contrary, if I set the settings too low, then my voice is super clicky and it seems like the software does nothing. Plus no matter the settings, IZotope doesn't seem to fix all the mouth sounds, only the clicks in particular. I have yet to find a middle ground with the settings that work. It seems like I have no choice but to either eviscerate my audio quality to remove clicks, or just live with the clicks. Seems like my voice is just the right frequency that the software has to cut out my voice to get rid of the clicks.

My mouth sounds range in frequency, so it's hard for the program to pick up on all of them. Sometimes they're high pitched, other times low pitched. It feels like no matter what I do, I have bad audio, and it's getting frustrating since if I didn't have these mouth sounds, I'd be perfectly happy with my audio. They aren't that bad, but I just feel like mine are worse than most people's and I'm not sure why. Do some people just have naturally noisier mouths? Or is there just some secret I'm not being told about?
So is there anyway to fix these clicks? Or a certain way to make IZotope actually work properly with my voice? Thanks in advance everyone!
 
Some people DO just have noises, but other people are simply over sensitive to them, because their brains have become adept at doing the filtering subconsciously. Why dont you post a clip so we can hear the noises and how loud they are and then perhaps we can try a few ideas? 10 secs would do.
 
I've been desperate about this when I started recording my voice. I tried a lot of different techniques and none really seemed to help until I read somewhere that coating one's mouth in oil (olive, avocado) works... I gave it a try; it's not what I'd call pleasant but it got rid of 80-90% of the clicks.

I think the noise is caused by the mouth being "tacky" -- not dry but just enough saliva residue causing those noises. In hindsight I'd recommend making sure you're well hydrated (have a tall glass of water about 1-2 hours prior to the session) and perhaps doing the oil thing on top of it (if you can get past the taste/feel).
 
Water is good. I've tried orange juice, and apple juice, which sticks around a bit longer.
I think the answer is not software plugins, just singing style.
Or, you could just embrace the noises, and bring them into the act.
gecko zzed is on the money. Move the mic feet away, and don't sing directly at it.
 
Mangangan said:
I am 18M and struggling with mouth sounds. Clicking, lip smacking, you name it, it's a problem for me. I've been trying to find a solution for some time now, and I've read about as much advice as you can possibly read; to no avail. I've tried different pronunciation, microphones, microphone positions, changing gain level, hydrating, and de-clicking programs like RX by IZotope. None of these things seem to help dramatically.

The best help has been IZotope, but even that has its problems. If I set the settings too high, then my voice sounds robotic and certain letters like K's, B's and D's are barely audible when I'm speaking. This is also a problem no matter where I place the frequency skew. On the contrary, if I set the settings too low, then my voice is super clicky and it seems like the software does nothing. Plus no matter the settings, IZotope doesn't seem to fix all the mouth sounds, only the clicks in particular. I have yet to find a middle ground with the settings that work. It seems like I have no choice but to either eviscerate my audio quality to remove clicks, or just live with the clicks. Seems like my voice is just the right frequency that the software has to cut out my voice to get rid of the clicks.

My mouth sounds range in frequency, so it's hard for the program to pick up on all of them. Sometimes they're high pitched, other times low pitched. It feels like no matter what I do, I have bad audio, and it's getting frustrating since if I didn't have these mouth sounds, I'd be perfectly happy with my audio. They aren't that bad, but I just feel like mine are worse than most people's and I'm not sure why. Do some people just have naturally noisier mouths? Or is there just some secret I'm not being told about?
So is there anyway to fix these clicks? Or a certain way to make IZotope actually work properly with my voice? Thanks in advance everyone!
Click to expand...
Are you talking about singing - or voice-over/spoken-word/lecture recording?
 
I run into this problem always, with my vocals.

Most clicks / pops / mouth noises happen after or at the beginning of a 'word'.

I wouldn't use 'de-clicking' software to deal with this. I'd zoom in on the waveform and crop the waveform to remove the offending section.

Sometimes, an offending section might occur while you are singing / speaking, i.e. not at the beginning or end of a word.. In that case, you can zoom in on the waveform, and reduce the volume of that section so it is not as obvious, or the problem is solved completely.

This can get quite time consuming. But you can get the result with patience.

I would not uses software / plugin to deal with these problems. Manually edit it. Otherwise the software / plugin will subject your entire audio file to a 'global' treatment, which will probably reduce its fidelity.

Please post a sample as others have said, that would help the advice given here immensely.

EL
 
Ive had a tooth missing for 15 months, and i can hear it in my videos. I am due to have an implant soon, as they wouldn’t do it last year. While I can hear it it seems nobody else every commented. On Youtube they comment on everything. Coffee cups, the colour of my socks, my hair, telling me i should have shaved but nobody mentioned the hissy lisp or the visual gap. Maybe the OP has a troublesome, destructive sound, or not? Hopefully he will return.
 
NO dairy for at least 12 hours prior to singing. Avoid sugar on the same day. Vicks vapor inhaler helps many (not the lozenges!) as well as Mucinex or equivalent can work for others.

Depending on the mic itself, singing off axis approx 45 degrees is helpful as is the old 'pencil attached to the mic basket with a rubber band' trick
 
Slouching Raymond said:
Water is good. I've tried orange juice, and apple juice, which sticks around a bit longer.
I think the answer is not software plugins, just singing style.
Or, you could just embrace the noises, and bring them into the act.
gecko zzed is on the money. Move the mic feet away, and don't sing directly at it.
Click to expand...
I haven't tried orange juice, but I've tried apple juice and green apples. Haven't helped for me. It's possibly the vocal style, but I'm not particularly sure how to fix that, since I've tried a bunch of different enunciations, which doesn't seem to help. Plus this issue has seemingly only started happening to me as of the last few years, as it wasn't nearly as present a couple of years ago, despite my diet and vocal style not changing at all.
gecko zzed said:
Try drinking water before you sing. Trying sing a little bit further away from the mike. Try singing slightly to one side of the mike.
Click to expand...
I drink around 40 oz of water daily and drink some before recording too. I have tried distancing myself from the microphone which doesn't help, and I've tried adjusting the microphone position away from my mouth, including turning the mic to the side.
PorterhouseMusic said:
Are you talking about singing - or voice-over/spoken-word/lecture recording?
Click to expand...
Seems to happen no matter what I do. I do a bit of singing, and it's definitely pretty bad while singing, though not as noticeable. But it's really noticeable when I do voice overs, which is mainly what I'm looking to solve; I usually record voice-overs for up to 3 hours and it's really hard for me to go through it all and manually edit out the clicks since I don't have a lot of time. Plus I use the voice overs for videos I make, which the video editing process already takes me hours, so it'd add so much extra time to also edit the audio. Singing is more manageable since I can edit out the clicks manually pretty quickly since there's less audio to go through.
Eric Malone said:
I run into this problem always, with my vocals.

Most clicks / pops / mouth noises happen after or at the beginning of a 'word'.

I wouldn't use 'de-clicking' software to deal with this. I'd zoom in on the waveform and crop the waveform to remove the offending section.

Sometimes, an offending section might occur while you are singing / speaking, i.e. not at the beginning or end of a word.. In that case, you can zoom in on the waveform, and reduce the volume of that section so it is not as obvious, or the problem is solved completely.

This can get quite time consuming. But you can get the result with patience.

I would not uses software / plugin to deal with these problems. Manually edit it. Otherwise the software / plugin will subject your entire audio file to a 'global' treatment, which will probably reduce its fidelity.

Please post a sample as others have said, that would help the advice given here immensely.

EL
Click to expand...
As I said above, while I would love to have all the time to manually edit everything; I don't do this for work. I do voiceovers and singing as a hobby, so I don't have a lot of time to spend editing 3-hours worth of clicks out manually. Especially when I have to focus on editing the videos I use voice overs for/producing the music I make. I've tried doing it, but it takes way too much time, and while the result is cleaner, there's still some sections where the clicks are really difficult to fully remove.
rob aylestone said:
Ive had a tooth missing for 15 months, and i can hear it in my videos. I am due to have an implant soon, as they wouldn’t do it last year. While I can hear it it seems nobody else every commented. On Youtube they comment on everything. Coffee cups, the colour of my socks, my hair, telling me i should have shaved but nobody mentioned the hissy lisp or the visual gap. Maybe the OP has a troublesome, destructive sound, or not? Hopefully he will return.
Click to expand...
I'm sure it's definitely more noticeable for me specifically, since I am more critical of my own stuff. But I've tried paying attention to other people's voiceovers specifically to see if they have clicks too, and they usually don't; or at least very miniscule amounts. I've tried ignoring the clicks in my recordings, but it just disappoints me so much that I'm one step away from having audio I'm perfectly happy with, yet I just can't find a solution for this problem.
Gtoboy said:
NO dairy for at least 12 hours prior to singing. Avoid sugar on the same day. Vicks vapor inhaler helps many (not the lozenges!) as well as Mucinex or equivalent can work for others.

Depending on the mic itself, singing off axis approx 45 degrees is helpful as is the old 'pencil attached to the mic basket with a rubber band' trick
Click to expand...
I have dairy very rarely anyways due to intolerances I have, and I also don't have a whole lot of sugar. Haven't tried Vicks vapor inhaler or Mucinex, but if things get dire I may try them as a last resort. I have tried recording off axis around 45 degrees, but doesn't seem to help.

Oh yeah and for everyone asking, I am not able to provide recordings right now since I'm not home for a little while. I'm making this post to see if I can find a solution by the time I'm back home and able to record. But maybe I'll be able to provide recordings when I'm back. Thank you all for the interesting responses!
 
Things you can do that don’t cost money:

Hydate: If a person is dehydrated, there is less saliva and more viscosity (stickiness) in the saliva. A mouth with less moisture creates more click.
Plosives: The ‘P’ type noise - Using a pop filter helps get rid of this kind of mouth noise.
Vocal Warm Up: Doing Vocal warm ups with reduce mouth noise as well - get your voice to maximum by getting it warm.
Software: I know you said you used RX software - but doing more passes at a reduced level helps more that one pass as a high level. I have RX11 Advanced -
I can get rid of any kind mouth noise /breathing sound/clicks/pops/plosives etc… with the software - Spectral Repair is particularly effective with difficult sounds -

Using all those methods will help you out immensely - but like everything if you don’t put in the work you won’t get the rewards.
 
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You best believe that when I’m recording cottonmouth stoners reaper’s “s” key gets a hell of a lot of exercise. Mind blowing just how percussively loud dry lips can be compared to the actual vocal sounds.
 
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