Thank you. I would like to start with that because this forum has been a big help. I’ve been lurking, practicing and learning for a little while now and so many people here have been so generous with their time and talent. This is my first post. Again, thank you.
Equipment info:
Windows 10
Audacity 2.3.2
Rode NT1-A mic with pop shield
Icicle XLR to USB converter/preamp
Please pardon and correct me if I make a mistake with terms, info, etc, this is a fairly new world for me.
My issue:
I have what I believe is called a plosive in what is to be my first job narrating. The same or similar words are fine in the other parts of the work that I’ve listened to so far. My guess is that I may have turned my head slightly up for a few moments, thus pointing my mouth more directly at the mic creating the plosive. I may rerecord the sentence but I am trying to learn as much as possible so I would like to know if it is possible to eliminate the plosive sound with audacity.
There are two types of pop filter. The one shown above is the fabric one with stiff but stretchy nylon over it. That one works by refusing to stretch past a certain point P-Popps have long wind excursions.
There’s a second version with rigid screening and carefully tuned holes.
That one works by refusing to pass any more air than a set amount. P-Popps try to move a lot of air. That one comes with a caution. If you tap it with a pencil, it can’t make any bell, ting or chime noises. Any noise it makes will be added to your voice.
Having said that I don’t think you have a plosive thud on the “p” of “picture”,
It’s the “a” immediately before which has a high-pitched (~9.5kHz) rattle.
That can be treated with De-Clicker’s sister plugin De-esser* …
[ * although it’s not a sibilance problem, something is rattling with a resonant frequency of ~9.5kHz ]
If you’re recording with the microphone on your table or desk, that may be where some of the noises are coming from. That zig-zag spider thing on the back of the mic prevents that, but it doesn’t prevent sound reflections from a bare desk.
Note in the picture, there’s a heavy furniture moving pad on the desk and one on the wall.
You can also inspect your environment and see if there’s anything that you can tap with a pencil and make ringing noises. Wine glasses are famous for this. You can have lampshades of glass or ceramic and they can ring. Do you have the microphone propped up on a coffee mug? Don’t do that.
If you do find a software solution, you will need to remember to apply it to every recording, forever. That’s why making a studio is important.
Koz, I finally have some pictures of my home setup. My mic ‘stand’ is the type that came with my original mic, a blue snowball ice [which I probably didn’t do enough research on before I bought it and didn’t care for the sound so I switched to the rode pretty quickly]. The pic with the mic stand is shown exposed and with a towel behind it just for contrast. I record on my desk top [and cover part of the screen with a towel for what I hope is some sound proofing]. Not very good pics but it is tough to inside for pictures, so the outside view is for perspective. I basically hang heavy blankets from rope on hooks attached to the ceiling.
Using “Bass and Treble” to remove plosives will have the undesirable side effect of remove lower tones from the voice, making the voice sound rather “thin”. Better to use the “Low Roll-off for speech” setting in the “Filter Curve EQ” effect.
Hi. I totally agree, if the bass removal is applied to the entire voice recording, the voice will sound very thin.
With this technique, just each tiny segment of plosive has the effect applied. This is useful if there are just a few instances of ‘popping,’ which ruin an otherwise excellent or valuable recording.
Thanks for the heads up about the low roll off effect.
?] [https://forum.audacityteam.org/t/sound-like-a-click-in-my-voice-recordings-solved/39264/7]. The problem here is that there is a setting [user presets > dethud] which I am unable to access - “user presets” is grayed out. Please see image
