Mouth-noise removal

Okay, first: if you work with vocals, you need a mouth-noise remover.

On a fundamental level, mouth noises in a recording are gross. Ew! But also, and I think this is even more important: mouth noises, like many other unintended momentary artifacts, are disruptive. They take the listener out of the narrative!

I use iZotope Mouth De-click. It comes as part of a larger noise-reduction suite called iZotope RX, and it isn’t inexpensive; iZotope has long been the gold standard for noise-removal software, and it’s priced accordingly.

I obtained RX incrementally; first I got RX Elements on sale, I think for $49, and then I got on the email list and waited until they announced a sale on upgrades. I think overall I paid $150 for a $400 software package! So there’s a strategy for you.

I also recently got the Acon Digital Restoration Suite, and my early experiments indicate that it’s super useful too! And it’s $99 without any sale for the full four-plugin suite; I think I got it for $49 on sale.

If you just have one vocal, you can put the mouth-denoiser right on the vocal track and it’ll work great.

And for optimal efficiency, check this out: if you have more than one vocal, then you should have a vocal master — and you can just put the mouth de-noiser on the vocal master, and it’ll get all the mouth noises from all the vocal tracks! SO much easier than adjusting the settings on ten separate vocal tracks.

Maintaining the suspension of disbelief — jamie