removing breathiness?

[Wobby]

hey all,

working with some vocals sent to me. Majority of it is great, but there are some parts with some "breathy" sounding vocals (i don't think she used a pop filter) so you can make out the word, but it sounds airy. Any tips for removing/minimizing this without re-recording the vocals?

[mowgliMusic]

Could you upload the section of the audio you're having a problem with? Your description of the problem is pretty vague, if it's what I think it is then you should be able to equalize the offending frequencies to amplify the bit of the sound you want.

[Mister Natural]

don't know why you'd want to remove the "breathiness" as all the latest, greatest female vocalists have this quality in their recordings
it's very trendy . . .

[Aloysius]

Waves DeBreath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyLHK7vBk8c

[Firebird]

Waves DeBreath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyLHK7vBk8c

Also the Waves (and others), DeEssers can be helpful for vocals, not just in the high range but also the lower ranges as well.

[enroe]

The best way to remove breaths (or any unwanted
noise) is:

The Audio-Editor!

[simon.a.billington]

Waves DeBreath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyLHK7vBk8c

Yeah DeBreath can work well for this task. Otherwise Nectar comes with a Breath Control plugin as well.

[xoxos]

freebie voiceofsnow from last DC

ftr - i've read that physiologically, the female glottis doesn't "close" as much as the male .. this seems reasonable as now and then one encounters women who have extremely breathy voices per physiology not manner. apparently.

[zethus909]

breathiness is a characteristic of the person's voice. but untrained voices can be overly breathy. breathiness is like distortion, you choose to add it wher eyou want, it's like an effect. if the whole vocal is breathy, then that's lack of training, or if it's just in some parts, well, maybe th evocalist chose to add it at those places.

[manirios]

In the past I've just manually edited the audio to remove breaths (usually before and at the end of lines) where it may be too much for my liking.

[kokotte]

you could automate the volume, let s the breath here, just decrease the level, control it before and after your compression, it will sound more natural.

[simon.a.billington]

It is indeed best not to remove all breaths, it could make the person sound like they are not breathing otherwise.

The start of every phrase or two can be good enough to leave a little breath in, you're probably better off taming those instead of removing them in that instance.

[kelvyn]

It's a little unclear as to what you mean by breathiness.
Do you mean the breaths taken between lines/words or do you mean the singer is singing lines/words with a lot of breathiness.
If it's the first then just reduce the breaths in the audio editor - time consuming - or use something like Izotopes RX6 debreath or Nectar, both are really good at reducing breaths between lines/words much like a de-esser. It's not advisable to take all the breaths out as this can make the vocals sound unnatural. Having said that... I tend to re- time breaths that are not in time or just delete them.
If it's the latter then it might be an idea to use a dynamic eq to take a little air out of the vocal as this is where the frequencies tend to be when a female singer sings with a lot of breath. If the performance is uneven then she's going to have to take another shot at it.
I personally love when singers sing with a lot of breath:)