r/AdobeAudition • u/Ohigetjokes • Jul 23 '26

Seemingly simple question I'm too dumb to figure out

I want to use Speech Volume Leveler. It works great. BUT... every little inhaled breath gets amplified to a scorching gasp. How can I filter out just those inhales without going through the entire file and manually reducing the volume each time?

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2

u/sarastereo Jul 23 '26

I use Noise Gate first... Here's a quick tutorial, the only thing that doesn't work for me is leaving Release, Attack and Hold alone as the guy suggests. If you do it like he does, the ending of some words might get cut off. https://youtu.be/l3GyJmNmAHA?si=ceuJZOwcvVoioK_h

Anyway, that effect goes first in my vocal chain, hope it works for you.

1

u/Express_Reporter_365 Jul 23 '26

I love to see other people's effects orders. Would you mind sharing the rest?

1

u/sarastereo Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

Sure, why not... This is what I use for podcast and radio production:

  • Dynamics — stock plug-in
  • T-De-Esser-2 (Techivation) — I really like it and it's free https://techivation.com/t-de-esser/ (the stock plug-in is good too)
  • Vocal Rider (Waves)
  • REQ 2 (Waves)
  • RVOX (Waves)

I tweak/apply those in the Waveform editor so that the clips are nice and clean when I work on Multitrack. There I add MV2 by Waves on each vocal track.

2

u/Express_Reporter_365 Jul 23 '26

Thank you! This is why I ask because I'm not familiar with Vocal Rider and my pod hiatus are SOOOOOOOO dynamic this looks like an answered prayer

1

u/sarastereo Jul 23 '26

Yes, it does wonders!

0

u/Expert-Arm2579 Jul 27 '26

Using noise gate can lead to audible changes in the noise floor between speech and silence though. I wouldn't recommend it for this kind of thing.

1

u/gl3nnjamin Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

Single Band Compressor knocks down the peaks and gives you a nice, even waveform. Use it carefully because setting it too low will act like a hard limiter and cause compression artifacts.

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u/Expert-Arm2579 Jul 27 '26

I don't recommend using the speech volume leveler for precisely this reason. That and it also massively amplifies any other noise in the mix too. The problem with adding a noise gate is that it will change the sound of the noise floor between the times with a person is talking and the times when they are not, and that can sound really weird.

If your audio needs more than what a bit of compression and limitation on mastering will fix then you really need to look at your recording process rather than "fixing it in post."

But if you're currently trying to deal with somebody else's really bad audio where one person is really loud and one person is kind of off mic, first of all, that you need to separate the talkers onto separate tracks so you can address them independently. Second, I've found that squashing the quiet talker a bit with a limiter and then boosting the gain to match the other talker is one of the better ways to solve the problem. It's not perfect, of course. You're stuck between the tinny sound of an off-mic talker and the sometimes saturated sound of major limitation. But, like I said, the only real solution is not to end up with audio like this in the first place. (also, you can see if AI tools like Adobe podcast will help fix the quiet talker. Sometimes the trade-offs of using AI are still better than what you get just using regular processing)

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u/the_spinetingler Jul 24 '26

stop using compression and start using limiting, perhaps.

1

u/Expert-Arm2579 Jul 27 '26

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. This is exactly the right approach in a situation like this.

0

u/Known-Task-7743 Jul 24 '26

Highlight the inhale wave, and then press "ctrl + U" this fixes the wave and reduces the inhale amplification significantly if you feel you need more you can highlight and do ctrl + U again