Voice Editing - How to take out breathes and other noises

Hi,

I'm editing a voice over and wish to take out the breaths (inhales) before speaking and other popping sounds. Now, I'm using the blade tool to cut them out. Is there a faster or better way to clean up audio?

Many, many thanks,
Elaine

Or cut in the parts you want with it loaded into the VIEWER...leave out the breaths. This is what you do...editing isn't fast.


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Hey Elaine

There are multiple other workflows inside FCP that you may (or may not) find slightly more efficient, but whether they are better or not is really just personal choice. For example:
Rather than using the blade tool, you could just use the In and Out markers, together with Delete, to target and remove an area of your voice track ... target the track(s) to act on by using it's Auto Select assignment.
Or you could use the "Add Edit" function (Ctrl- v) to razor the voice track at the playhead, instead of using the blade tool. With Add Edit you can target a specific clip to cut by simply selecting it first, or you can target a specific track as above, by using the track's Auto Select assignment.
Or maybe consider taking this job out of FCP altogether and roundtripping into Soundtrack Pro ...
Don't sweat it tho, just use whatever method works best for you.

Cheers
Andy

Wow. These are great tips from both of you! I'll experiment today. Thank you so much!

When the space is blank from deleting, do I leave it as a space or move the clips together?

How come when I record a new VO it puts it on a new track, rather than keeping it on the first track? Anything I can do to make it stay on the first track?

You know how CDs have tracks? How do I make track selections for my audio so it's not one long audio?

Beyond thank you!!!!
Elaine

> When the space is blank from deleting, do I leave it as a space or move the
> clips together?

???
Why would you want to move the clips together? You'll still need to pace out the phrases of the voice-over like a real conversation.

Don't over-intellectualize this. Just do it. Editing is about translating what's in your brain -- pacing, rhythm, sequence of shots, emotion, tone etc. -- to your hands.

A few physical tips that can help:

Learn when to use the razor, when to use In/Out points, when to use the Roll tool, when to use the Extend Edit command, when to open a clip into the Viewer or just leave it in the Timeline.

For example, when I have voice-overs, they tend to come in long chunks. If there are a lot of multiple takes of the same thing, I'd usually put a marker close to the beginning of each take and type in the take number in the marker name so that I can tell the director right away which take we're listening to. It also facilitates re-listening -- press SHIFT-Up Arrow and you' can fly right back to the beginning of each take, and your typed marker name will tell you which take it is.

It's easier to see the physical properties of a clip when it's already in the timeline. So sometimes I put the entire voice-over in the timeline before chopping it up. When one piece ends, you can razor. Then double-click the second piece and use the Viewer's In point to edit out the dead space before the next phrase. You can then stay in the Viewer, use the waveform to locate the third phrase. Then reverse Match Frame in the Viewer to find where the next razor point is. Razor, do the next piece, repeat.

Don't do fine edits when you first cut it in. Do broad strokes, leave the imperfections for now; fine-tune only when you've locked onto a choice. If you fine-cut the piece too early, it slows you way down, and it's all wasted work if you decide to go with a different take.

Leave Waveform Display off in the timeline if possible. Drawing the waveform is about 10 times faster in the Viewer than in the Timeline. If you need waveforms, open the clip into the Viewer. The Viewer is best for a visual read on where the lines are; the timeline is best for chopping and smoothing (eg. short fades to smooth out transition points), as well as lining up with the image.

When you just have a bit of noise in the beginning, it can be faster to just select the edge of the clip in the timeline with the Roll tool and then use OPTION-Left/Right Arrow to nudge it. (The [ and ] keys do the same thing, but I've always found that area close to the Delete key very unergonomic). And if you're using Audio Scrubbing in the timeline to find the end of some noise or the beginning of a phrase (or, say, a sync mark), then you may want to just use Extend Edit -- select the edge of a clip and press E.

It's intuitive. Find out which tool is most comfortable for your brain and just do it. I always say, if you can do five operations in three seconds to achieve what another editor takes two operations in five seconds, you're still the faster editor, even though you took more steps. And the biggest part of that is to eliminate the hesitation.

Don't overthink about "what's the best way". The best way is the way that allows you to execute the idea without thinking too hard.


www.derekmok.com

> How come when I record a new VO it puts it on a new track, rather than keeping it
> on the first track? Anything I can do to make it stay on the first track?

If you're using the Voice-Over tool in FCP, it puts the recorded audio onto whatever track has the Source/Destination button on it. Use that to control where the recorded audio goes.

> You know how CDs have tracks? How do I make track selections for my audio
> so it's not one long audio?

Subclip them if you have to. I find that to be a big waste of time for very little payoff, though, unless you have a tremendous amount of voice-over.

That's really more a problem for when you record. You really should separate out the takes when you first do the recording. For example, don't mix Takes 1-31 of the first sentence with Takes 1-52 of the next sentence. Stop the recording and re-start every three to five takes. It makes the files more manageable, easier to distinguish, and also lowers the risk of a power outage, crash or corruption. If you do 50 takes in one go and something goes wrong at Take 49, you may not have saved anything and it's all wasted.


www.derekmok.com

>When the space is blank from deleting, do I leave it as a space or move the clips together?

If you are taking out the sound of a breath then you probably just want to leave the space there ... but there is no hard and fast rule, just pace the audio so that it feels natural, not too fast not too slow, or as needed for your edit.

>How come when I record a new VO it puts it on a new track, rather than keeping it on the first track? Anything I can do to make it stay on the first track?

I'd suggest you read this part of the manual Elaine, the rules of how the VO tool work are explained in there. But basically, the VO tool targets its recording track according to the (source) a2 track patching, and if something already exists on that track within the recording range then it will insert a new track rather than recording over something else.

>You know how CDs have tracks? How do I make track selections for my audio so it's not one long audio?

Sorry, have no idea what you mean.

Cheers
Andy

>You know how CDs have tracks? How do I make track selections for my audio so it's not one long audio?

there are two ways to do this in FCP, or other NLEs.

one would be to add MARKERS to your clips in the viewer,
the other would be to break the larger clips into SUB-CLIPS.


nick

All good stuff, but don't overlook the importance of fine-editing voice while monitoring with studio-type isolating HEADPHONES- especially if you have machine noise and other distractions in the room. You'll hear every breath (or lack of it) plus room tone (or lack of it after excising undesirables).

- Loren
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Jeez...info overload for such a simple task. There's no "Auto Breath Removal" plug-in so just whip out the razor and cut out the dead spots (look at the clip in the Viewer to see the waveform and zoom in & scrub. DO NOT SLIDE EVERYTHING TOGETHER as this will sound like the VO talent doesn't breathe at all and will be very unnatural. Keep the spaces...adjust them slightly by sliding the VO one way or the other in the timeline.

A little trick I like to do is at the end of each cut add a 2 or 3 (max) frame 0db audio dissolve (fade out) to eliminate and hard cut / pop sound (even if it's room tone).

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

not much of a blade user myself,
i prefer CONTROL+V.

as andy mentions it'll "blade" any selected clip/s.
when you do this in FCP, the front portion of the clip remains selected.

for removing breaths, or pops, or other small portions of audio,
i get in the habit of working backwards:
select the clip, control v after the breath,
the head of the clip is still selected, so then control v before the breath.

if i think a drop to no-sound at all will be bad,
i double click the "breath" section into the viewer.
holing SHIFT you can grab and drag the in or out points there, and SLIP the content.

this is better then slipping in the timeline for two reasons:
you can SEE the useful portions of atmos, or room tone,
and as you drag the in or out point, you can SCRUB the audio.

sometimes after i've shifted to the clean-looking room-tone,
i'll do a quick audition in the viewer by hitting SHIFT+\ which is "Play in-to-out"


nick

That's the really big liberating change in audio editing these days. In old school film, you used a razor blade to create a gentle ramp into each cut to avoid "hits.". You actually scraped away magnetic emulsion on the fullcoat track. Or, to create long ramp-ins, you taped down the length of mag you wanted ramped and protected it with low tack masking tape ver 2,3 feet, whatever... and ran acetone over it. Peel away the tape to reveal the protected mag... that's a ramp your mixer wouldn;t have to dally with.

Today you just slip or clip and add a 2-frame dissolve to hide hits. And the best room tone occurs right there in the speech track, not the stuff recorded afterward- always held as a backup. The clear tone pauses in the speech track are the perfect stuff.

- Loren

Today's FCP 7 keytip:
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