Why I Rarely Use De-breath Plugins

De-breath plugins intelligently lower the volume of a person’s breath sounds. (iZotope RX Breath Control, Waves DeBreath, etc.)

Some podcasters, producers and editors really can’t stand the sound of breaths; some try to lower their volume, others cut them out altogether! It’s a matter of taste; though I will remind you that breaths are completely natural and listeners are used to hearing other humans take breaths when they’re speaking. Plus, 99.9% of all podcasts you hear DON’T remove or lower the volume of breaths.

I rarely use de-breath plugins because:

1. It’s extremely rare that a person’s breaths are obnoxiously loud and distracting.
2. It’s extremely difficult to dial-in the settings of a de-breath plugin perfectly so that it reduces ALL the breaths AND simultaneously leaves everything else alone. Most times the plugin will miss certain breaths and NOT reduce their volume, which can result in a weird, erratic sounding track which can sound MORE distracting than the original. Also, plugins can mistake a word or part of a word for a breath and then reduce its volume, ruining the intelligibility of certain words.
3. Usually a better overall technique is the “Emily Prokop” technique where she clips and moves all the loud breaths onto a separate dedicated track in her DAW. Then she lowers the volume of that track so all the breaths are at a lower, more tasteful volume.

Unless someone’s breaths are super loud and distracting, I wouldn’t even worry about breaths – they’re natural.

Do you pay any special attention to breaths in your podcast production?

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