How do I remove pops after recording?

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 6:11 am

Hi,
I have a vocal recording which, unfortunatly, im stuck with (I cant get the singer back to re-record).

It has a couple of pops in it on the P's and B's. Im very new to recording and would like to remove these myself.

How would I best do this, should I try to find a PopFilter VST plugin, or is there a better way to do it?

I use Cubase SX3 currently but am happy to use other packages if people reccomend them (I dont think Cubase is really a vocal editing package as such more of a mastering one?).

Thanks!
AM.

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 10:49 am

AngryMonkey wrote:

I use Cubase SX3 currently but am happy to use other packages if people reccomend them (I dont think Cubase is really a vocal editing package as such more of a mastering one?).

I'm sorry but, what exactly do you know about Cubase then? Have you read the manual? Confused

Do you have the manual? Is the Dongle firmly seated in the usb port?

I think you will need to learn to live with the pop. You could probably try and draw it out in an editor but chances are you will make more of a mess of it than if you just leave it alone.

There are certain things that just need to be dealt with before they ever go to disc.

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 2:00 pm

You could try simply highlighting the offending syllable (it should be fairly easy to spot) and reduce either the gain or the low end for just that section and repeat as necessary. It should only take a minute for each edit and would be easier than hunting down and installing new software.

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:10 pm

I agree with MarkG,

In the past I have zoomed in far enough to see the low frequency "P" transient and the vowel sound that follows it, and used the volume curve to bring it down the about the same peak level as the vowel.

(Low frequency transient is sort of an oxymoron, but when you zoom in it will make sense.)

-Steve

Posted: Thu Jun 26, 2008 3:40 pm

I draw a notch at the transient with a volume envelope and use both "fast" and "slow" curves on either side of the center node where I do the cut. The resulting notch has a "U" shape. Experiment with how much to cut and how far apart the outer nodes are. After you get one right, it's like riding a bicycle. Explosives don't scare me anymore.

Posted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 7:52 am

The usual quick'n'dirty fix for pops is to zoom in (time axis) on the pop, select the length of it (say 100ms) and apply a high-pass filter of around 200Hz to the selected section. Leave the amplitude the same.

Best done on a copy of the track so you can experiment with different HP filter settings and length of the selection, always going back to a new copy of the original for each trial. You may need to go as high as 350Hz for the HP filter, but it's a matter of finding the balance between the unpleasantness of the original pop and the mangling due to HP filtering.

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 5:38 pm

Wow that High pass filter trick works great! This weekend I ended up with a couple of plosions. On the female vocal at about 200Hz it was perfect! I'm never doing my volume curve thing again! Thanks!

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