To edit out breaths or not to edit out breaths, that is the question. Actually, the way I prefer to work is a hybrid approach. By trimming and ramping up certain breaths while leaving in other breaths entirely I get a controlled, yet natural vocal performance that holds up well even under heavy compression.
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My name is Graham Cochrane and I'm the founder of The Recording Revolution, one of the world's most loved audio recording and mixing blogs with over 200,000 readers each month. 
great video again, man.
And great relief listening to vocals with a proper intonation.
Humble request: No more guest vocals with horrible intonation.
Yours bro in fear of the most faithful cough ever
Mike
I once read in a studio magazine that if you do a lot of processing on a vocal you can cut out the breaths and put them on a separate track and process them however you like, I’ve tried it a couple of times and it works fine, I don’t really know if it’s a faster way to tame the breaths but it’s definitely a good alternative for those extreme situations when you have a lot of compression and other effects on a vocal.
Great tutorial as always, Graham. Hope you get well soon.
If you listen to the band Flyleaf, you’ll hear they actually turn *up* Lacey’s breaths (particularly on the self-titled ablum, but some on Momento Mori too). As an engineer, it drove me nuts until I realized the average listener doesn’t notice, and it actually adds an energy to her vocal that may not have been there otherwise.
On the other hand, if they’re distracting, consider using clip gain or automation to turn them down. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to completely cut them out. Vocalists are humans, they breathe, and that should come across in recording.
Ultimately, it’s all about what serves the song best.
File under “Geekiest Observation Ever”: when comping vocals, in which I keep (though may adjust the volume of) the breaths, I’ve found it seems more natural to treat the breath as being a reaction to the line that’s just been sung, as opposed to an anticipation of the line that’s about to be sung: or, in otherwords, if I have a phrase in Take 1, the a breath, then a phrase from Take 2, I’ll always (always) keep the breath from Take 1 and THEN switch takes. Nice to know other people are geeking out about this, too.]
Owen
Nice!
Graham, awesome video. I’m curious as to what video/software you use to record your computer screen and what you’re doing with good audio playback? Thanks for all the tips!
Scott
Screenflow along with Soundflower to help route audio as needed.
Hi Graham. Thanks for sharing the way you approach this ‘problem’. Do you have a preference for editing before or after compression? My workflow is very similar to what you’ve outlined. However I do wait until after I’ve compressed and have progressed the mix to a reasonably final state. That way I focus only on edits that stick out in the mix and need to be tamed. Cheers …
I also make a point to treat editing as in between recording and mixing, so before compression on the mixing stage.
I don’t mind lots of breaths in music. That’s just human unless you want to make it sound like a robot with a naturally-speaking human-like voice that does not breathe. 🙂
I mean, who cares about turning down breaths? I don’t. 🙂
Watching the video I instinctively associated breaths to ghost notes, in some way. Something to control but definitelly not to cut out.
Thanks Graham.
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