Fixing Vocal Tracks

[Genetic_Junk]

Does any one have a tried and true method for removing saliva clicks from vocal tracks? I can reduce the clicks with windscreen and mic placement.

I have audition. This problem has been so time consuming I am willing to shell out for other software if would really help.

Thanks for your help.

[CinningBao]

have you tried using the noise reduction effect? if you have AA1.5 you can see the clicks on the spectral view, but IIRC AA1 was the direct upgrade from CEPro which included the noise reduction stuff.

you might achieve something more usable if you side-chain the signal with the click freq boosted back into a side-chainable compressor to duck the signal when the clicks appear, but I have no idea how you might implement multi-channel vst in's in Audition since I don't think it's possible.

for the saliva clicks to be extremely loud, is the singer very close to the mic, and you've increased the gain so the mic has become extremely sensitive to these normally quite noises? and you're compressing the signal so it doesn't peak when recording? or am I making huge assumptions?

tell us more

[Genetic_Junk]

thanks for the suggestions

I use the auto pop and click eliminator and the manual pop click eliminator. It works to some extent. I usually go through and find the clicks and select the waveform and then each of the plugins to hear which eliminates the unwanted frequency the best.

I think what I might do is try using a multiband compressor, experimenting with that for while might yield some results. This is similar to your side chain idea.

The singer (me) is about 6-8 inches from the mic with the pop filter about three inches. The main problem is that I think I just build up more saliva than most people.

Thanks very much for your ideas

[stefancrs]

Btw, never disregard the fact that you could remove them by hand in basicly any audio editor. If it's a take you want to keep, it should only occupy like 10mins of your time to dampen the clicks away by hand.

Granted, atleast I'm too lazy for such a thing. But I don't try to practice what I preach either...

[Genetic_Junk]

stefancrs or anyone else could you preach to me how to dampen the clicks?

would i just use a low pass filter on the selected parts?

thanks again

[C00kie]

You can dampen it in hosts that have automatable volume for each track. I think most hosts do, look up in the manual how to...

Zoom in so you have ~ 1 sec of the audio in the window including the click. Set the volume automation there so only at the click the volume is zero. Move volume down just before the click and move it back up just after the click.

I hope this helps (and that this is what Stephan meant)

[Genetic_Junk]

C00kie thanks for clarifying. This is actually a pretty elegant solution to the problem, except when the click is in the middle of word even if I muted the track for less than 1 second the result would be a semi-unintelligible word.

I haven't tried the multiband compressor yet but I have a feeling this will be the best solution for me.

Essentially I would select the waveform where the click is appearing and try out different setting on the compressor until I come up with some workable and go from there.

Thanks again to all who took time to help me out.

If anyone else has another suggestion please chime in.

[XDVarenkor]

I have audition.

There's your answer - have you tried editing out the clicks in the spectral view?

[Genetic_Junk]

Yeah I tried the spectral view but I can't get much of a difference there. That may require more learning exactly what frequencies correspond to which colors, I have a basic idea, but my knowledge is probably not fine tuned enough for this application.

I'm not positive what frequency range these clicks would cover.

Perhaps if I post a sample that would help others better help me.

Thanks very much for your suggestion. Pretty cool your first post is helping someone out.

[Reverend Rhythm]

What about trying some water as you get ready to sing. Some clicks are from a little dryness. If you just sip a little water before the take it might help. At least it is something cheap to try.

[Genetic_Junk]

Water defiantly does reduce the amount of clicks. This tip was also suggested on another forum.

Thanks for the input though because it is a very good idea which I wouldn't have of come up with myself.

[Timfonie]

(...) The main problem is that I think I just build up more saliva than most people.

Thanks very much for your ideas

Too much saliva ... that's a problem with me as well. I haven't found a way to completely eliminate those clicks without hard work (every one or two seconds an annoying click occurs when I'm singing).
So this thread is quite interesting to me.

[stefancrs]

Genetic_Junk: C00kie did not mean that you should mute the track for 1s, he just meant that you have about 1s worth of audio visible on the screen. Then you automate the volume of the track so that you pull down the volume just where the clicks occur.

[Genetic_Junk]

stefan: Thanks for the clarification once again.

Unfortunately this is the situation. Sometimes when I sing I will move my tongue up a little in the middle of that word. This creates a slight clicking noise because that moves the saliva, so click is appearing while a word is the progress of being sung.

Though if its possible to mute the track for just a couple of samples (as the click is very short) that might work.

Thanks for making me think about this in a different way again.

[Beardedone]

you might achieve something more usable if you side-chain the signal with the click freq boosted back into a side-chainable compressor to duck the signal when the clicks appear, but I have no idea how you might implement multi-channel vst in's in Audition since I don't think it's possible.

Please elaborate if you know of a plugin that can do this? I don't know of a sidechain capable VST or DXi compressor. I was not aware there is one in Audition either. Please correct me if I am wrong.