removing breaths from reading text?

Special Interest Groups Audio Processing
1

Working in audacity 2.04 for now, windows 7, but i don’t think that affects my question.

I’m recording audiobooks, and I would love to find some simple way to remove or auto-find the sound of my breathing, which ends up really loud and raspy after compression.

i was thinking, is there some threshold i could set to remove anything below it, or a search and replace type feature (hah! but I can dream)?

Anything that can speed up my editing process, since i seem to spend hours taking out breaths, and unfortunately, I cannot simply ‘not breathe’ - or even move on and off mike, etc. it’s just as much work.

Thanx!
–Julie

2

Your dream has been realised: it’s called a “noise gate”.

You can get one (a plugin) for Audacity here … http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#[b]Noise_Gate[/b]

[ That noise gate allows degrees of attenuation up to complete removal of sounds below a threshold.
Complete removal of breaths can make speech sound jarring / staccato ].

3

If compression is making your breathing louder, then you may need to set the “noise floor” setting of the compressor a bit higher.

4

thanx a bunch! that helps!