Avoiding Plosives, Removing Plosives

The definition of plosive from Uncle Google is:

adjective
1.
denoting a consonant that is produced by stopping the airflow using the lips, teeth, or palate, followed by a sudden release of air.

noun
1.
a plosive speech sound. The basic plosives in English are t, k, and p (voiceless) and d, g, and b (voiced).

As far as how they sound, it’s a huge spike in low frequencies (usually from 120 Hz and below) which can be jarring and annoying, especially if you have the bass cranked up.

Amateurs don’t prevent or remove plosives, because usually they don’t even know what they are and/or how annoying they are.

Avoiding plosives: When recording use a pop filter or windscreen between the microphone and your mouth. And/or angle your microphone so that the plosive air from your mouth doesn’t hit the microphone directly.

Removing plosives in post-production: Use specific plugins made to “de-plosive” the recording (I use iZotope RX), or use a multiband compressor to specifically crush the plosive frequencies.

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