How to stop Blue Yeti from picking up the sound of air inhalation?

[TownCape]

I record with audacity.

When I speak for a very long period of time, I just naturally inhale in some air with my mouth. That has me ending some of my sentences with a sudden 'huh' sound. It gets annoying to remove these all manually. Noise removal doesn't remove them either. Does anyone know if there's a way to stop Blue Yeti from picking them up or a way for audacity to eliminate them quickly?

 

[Conso1727]

How close are you to the microphone? The distance might play an important factor

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

Nope. Either manual removal, or start carefully talking in such a way that you don't have to inhale air at the end of a clause. The latter is hard, I sometimes too have trouble with it, especially the more I'm not following a guide and just freestyling.

I don't use a Blue Yeti but the mic doesn't really matter for this problem.

 

[iBreakMatter]

breath away from the mic, just look downwards for a second

 

[XXLRay]

Position the mic out of your breath direction. Do you use a pop filter? It might help es well. You can borrow your mom's nylons for a test if you don't have one. Put them over the mic - not on your legs.

 

[Switchbox]

Don't inhale.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

People can correct me if I'm wrong, but the Blue Yeti is not so directional that breathing in a different direction would prevent noise-pickup, is it? I was under the impression that like many mics, it tends to pick up noise in the immediate area regardless of direction.

It doesn't sound like it's the wind pressure getting recorded, but rather the actual audible sound inhaling makes if done fast enough.

 

[XXLRay]

People can correct me if I'm wrong, but the Blue Yeti is not so directional that breathing in a different direction would prevent noise-pickup, is it?

You can set it to cardioid mode. That way it should work sufficiently directional.

 

[SomeGuyDude]

Mic technique, mic technique, mic technique.

Like I've said elsewhere, don't try and find ugly band-aids for issues that can be more simply fixed at the source. That goes for everything of that sort. Lip smacking, loud swallowing, overly hard puffs of air, audible inhalations, whatever.

If you're sure the problem isn't on your end, chances are you're either way too close or the gain is turned up way too high. Stretch your hand out like you're gonna try and palm a basketball, put your thumb against your lips. Your pinkie is roughly how far the mic should be from your mouth.

 

[Tarmack]

I'll second SGD's mic technique comment. You are close to a mic as you should be, and it's gonna pick up the sound. What I would suggest is to focus on breathing in more softly. Take a second longer to get that breath into your lungs rather than heaving quickly so you can keep talking fast.

I would also point out a minor detail as well. You may be oversensitive to it because you are listening for it. One of the things about vocal audio is that breathing is a natural part of life. Everyone does it, and everyone hears it when others speak but it doesn't register with them because its' normal. So if you go in and manually remove the breaths every time, you're essentially making your voice sound unnatural which can be more jarring to the listener than the breathing would have been. Obviously, reducing how overt the sound is will be the best course of action, but I'd avoid actually removing it. Your viewers are listening to a person with lungs, not a robot.

If you sound like a smoker that just finished a marathon, then I can see really wanting to tone it back, but just make sure you're not overvaluing removing breathing noise.