So glad these older videos are still here. Thanks for the Noise Gate tutorial. I used the same principles in Audition and got fabulous results :)

I watched this video some time ago when I didn't even knew what a DAW was. I just rewatched it to set up Reaper with my USB mic. Thank you twice.

Hey, just want to say almost a decade later. I finished writing and editing my book around the time you made this video series. I wish then that I had started working on setting up my voice recording environment and software setup as well nearer to then, instead of now. All that being said, it's fantastic to be able to have this resource now when I need it. Thank you.

THESE HAVE BEEN Unbelivably helpful. Mike, I'll be buying you more cups of coffee.

The breath demonstration at the end, though.. lol Mike, I can't tell you how much your audio tutorials blessed me today. You can imagine there's a lot of talking heads on this topic online and I've found they're either too technical for my level of knowledge or... how can I put this delicately? FULL OF BAD ADVICE! So I thank you for being neither. I learned a lot and wish you'd continued your audio production videos.

Another great video. Thanks, Mike!

Thanks, those tutorials are sooo good and high quality.

Mike thank you so much for your tutorials, you have helped me so much!

Thank you for giving a layman's description of the gates and what they do. It is incredibly helpful. I will be recommending this to my friend who are just getting into editing.

Thanks for another great video! I have been binge watching these and it has really help me improve my audio quality. You explain everything so clear and concise. So again you have a huge thanks for me.

Great video. Exactly what I was looking for. This should be the top recommended video for noise gate tutorials

Just wanted to pop in and say thank you for the clear walk-through. I started doing audiobooks a couple of years ago using other software & am just now moving to Reaper. Your tutorials are awesome! Much appreciated!

Dude!!! So dope thank you soo much for all of your work.

This is extremely helpful, thank you for making this channel!!

Thanks so much for explaining quite complicated things with such great clarity, including very good examples of the effects of quite cryptic settings! I'm a total newbie on the technicalities, doing streaming lectures quite a lot and want to improve the vocal quality as far as I can (we have no sound technicians, got to manage this on your own when going live... ). Keep up the good work!

This was a huge help; thank you for explaining all that. Up to now, I've been tediously selecting and lowering the volume on my breaths one by one!

Amazing, never knew oar of this. Thanks.

Omg this is amazingly helpful. Thank you very much!

Mike RULES! Listen to MIKE. I love this guy! He is my Go-To-guy. Great personality! I've watched these vids so many times and I'm not bored. Go Mike!

Huge thanks, not only for this video but also for all the many others I have learnt from in the last several days.

If it wasn't for the shotgun mic, would have never recognized you! By the way, great channel! Thanks for sharing your knowledge 👍

I was struggling with the ambiant noise , your videos just made my day .thanks a whole bunch

Your beard takes some sound reflection off, keep it

Thanks Mike, this has saved me so much time. Cheers

This video and content that you deliver is simply amazing. Sorry for the bad english and greetings from Brazil!!!

Thanks Mike!

Your videos are great. I am new to streaming. In most cases people in a Facebook Live setting aren’t that particular about audio. As an audiophile I am. So I am admitting I am motivated to improve the sound for selfish reasons. I am a veterinarian. I know nothing about sound engineering other than a deep appreciation for those that are good at it when I am listening. Your videos have taught me a lot. As a result I am starting to play with OBS plugins to improve my sound. I just ordered an SM7B and a Cloudlifter. Can’t wait to take it to the next level. I can only do that with the help you are providing.

Thank you for another informative video

Awesome advice!

very clear, thanks

Thank you for the help!

Great insight~! Thank you!

very helpful, thank you

You are Maestro. Thanks a lot.

I use waves Debreath in my chain. Its amazing. Well worth getting this plugin for anyone who does VO editing. With this and a low noise floor in the booth you really dont need to use a gate but I usually still do but only very mildly. Most gates have an amount setting that lets you set how much attenuation is used for the gate. Its best to be subtle and only use a little. Hard silence actually is as distracting to the listener as much as breaths and other noise is because its unnatural.

Thanks! This helps a lot!

I simply cannot take you seriously without the facial hair... Seriously though. Thank you! I'm absolutely new to the "audio world" and this was thorough yet to the point. And... wow!... so much better than what I've otherwise seen suggested to address breaths (copy and paste in room noise - talk about time consuming!!). Thanks so much for everything you do on this channel!

great videos Mike and thanks for all your hard work and excellent insights. Imho, there's no need for noise gating in voiceover audio, as the gate itself makes a pumping sound. Use Strip Silence in LPX or the Split Dynamic tool in REAPER, and add fades to the ends of regions or "media items" as REAPER likes to call them. Done. No pumping. Last, record in a quiet booth to begin with, with a high quality mic.

this is gold.

you look awesome without the beard ! and thanks for the video ! I really need to step up my audio game !

I use a microphone preamp and an external filter for a special sauce and since two months the plugin of izotope RX on mouth de-click during recording, so that every mouth sound and breath is automatically removed. and that works perfect for me

Thanks so much.

Belated thanks, Mike for this absolutely great walk-through and explanation. I've tried a couple of dedicated de-breath plugins, but this works better by far, and the results sound more natural.

Never thought of using a noise gate this way (which is probably how it's meant to be used) I guess I need a vocal booth now.

super!!! mike, you are such a huge help to VO community... have tried Gate, and Wow!!! Thanks!!! :) one more help if you can provide. have downloaded a few FX chains from forum, but they are more of related to music. would be grateful to you if you can share a few related specifically to VO work. thanks..

THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you've never tried this before, if you're still using Reaper, try using ReaFir. It's an all in one noise processor that can do wonders. If you have a noisy, hissy mic, use the subtract function, create a noise profile and it will invert phase the noise and eliminate it without losing dynamics which can sometimes happen with a gate.

Nooo, nearly a perfect video, Great video, I learned how to fix my KZfaq audio, only thing missing for me (as I just downloaded reaper), I can't see how to export to mp3 so I can import into filmora, I was hoping to see how you outputted the file, all I see is midi exports. Thanks for sharing, this video helped me allot.

Thank you for this. I was about to give up on narration because of clicking sounds. This has eliminated most of them.

Mike, thank you for all of your videos! Thank you for not trying to sell a service and for providing excellent advice and helpful tips. That said, I'm hoping you can help me diagnose an issue. I have a hiss in my recordings. Using ReaFir I have gotten rid of most of it but it is just ever so slightly there. I have used a gate and the EQ to bring it down even more. However, im getting into the tradeoff between high end quality and the hiss that is occurring. Is the hiss possibly simply my mic? I'm using an AT2020 USB mic (very entry level, I know, but it's all I can afford right now). Is there anything I can do to eliminate the hiss while not diminishing the quality from 9,000khz and up?

You could also put the gate right on your input instead of on your fx rack :)

super helpful for gate setup. Prank phone call at 13:00...

Hi Mike, Do you have a tutorial on pre-mastering a recording? Is that the same thing as setting up EQ? Thanks.

Thanks Mike, this video helps a lot. I can get rid of all my chair creaks, breaths and bumping noises this way. Now if I could just take care of the angle grinder, jackhammer and reticulating saw noises from the building site one block over I might really start getting somewhere. Any advice on this? Can I actually filter these out of recordings by identifying their frequencies and EQ'ing it? Or just record at night? (Still, I gotta sleep too. Hmm.) They are sharp and sudden sounds for the most part and I can get it quiet in-between talking, but unfortunately they underlie all the speaking parts of my track.

Great Video Mike what are your recording levels?

I really need help with my voice over recording. Hopefully this helps. The room noise drives me nuts.

Just a funny observation on my reaction to this video (but first a little background info): I have watched a few of your recording technique videos (I found *your* videos only recently) and consequently my brain has filed you under "Tech Guys" as in "This Reaper, Soundproofing & Mic Tech Guy". So then I watch this gate video, where you start to read (=voice act) a script, and I thought to myself "Wow, this 'Tech Guy' has a great voice, and he can act, play different characters "prima vista" like a pro! And then came the realization "Eh, he is actually a voice actor who *also* knows about sound tech things, especially from a VO POV. As he's an voice actor he kinda needs to know how to act.. :) Anyways,I listen a lot of audio books and have had to reject several books due to an annoying voice acting voice, or subpar acting. To my ear your voice is an untiring, welcoming and lively one, and your acting seems to come about very naturally. If you put in a comment some pointers to audiobooks you have read, I'd love to get them. I am new to reaper (or actually vice versa), never used it before, and your Reaper howto-videos are a treasure trove to me. Ditto the mic, soundproofing etc. videos. Keep up the good work! - A grateful comedy scriptwriter, old school radio & tv feller from Finland.

While this is an incredibly useful video for explaining how to use a noise gate, I have to say -- please exercise caution when using gates on narration. In my years of experience in audiobook production, I have attempted to use gates on many occasions, even multi-band gating, and honestly have never found a setting that covers all eventualities. Some of the pitfalls are -unwanted removal of "plosives", fluttering audio as the gate opens and closes when a breath breaks above the threshold, inexplicable clicks and pops, again as audio breaks through the threshold. In my opinion it is better to manually edit out unwanted noises, use FFT/noise-print based noise reduction and use a mouth click removal plugin such as iZotope RX9.

Another great tutorial - thanks! I used to edit in Audacity and I'm just learning Reaper. I find that you can't expand the wave form enough to see breaths that you want to edit out. Any tips?

Hey Mike! First, thank you for doing what you do. Your tutorials have been invaluable. So, I've been using the gating method to lower my breaths, with decent results. I basically just have to find the errant louder breaths, which are pretty easy to see, and lower them to under the threshold (using your Reaper custom action.) I was recently chatting with James Romick and he said you no longer use gating. So, I was wondering how you manage breaths now. I have not found any of the de-breath plugins to be as consistent or easy as gating and I certainly don't want to have to individually reduce every breath. Love to know your updated technique.

PLEASE make sure you put out a video about subscription. KZfaqs unsubscribing people again >> I know for a fact I've been subscribed to you and it has me as if I'm brand spanking new

Thanks. It was very helpful dear friend. I edit someone else's recorded voice in Adobe Audition and I am not present when the voice is recorded. Is there a way to repair these extra sounds and noises after recording in the Adobe Audition that you introduce to me. I am very grateful.

Hi there booth junkie, really enjoying your content! I'm encountering conflicting information regarding cleaning my audio, I've been using ReaFIR to clean up hiss but I'm finding I'm still getting a little line signal hiss, should I gate in conjunction with noise subtraction or stick to one or the other and if I should use both which comes first?

You're all blurry - but the chair in the background is in lovely sharp focus - nice chair! ;-)

First time ive seen him without the beard. Almost thought this wasnt him for a second.

Hi MIke, I revisited this video today as I'm having a crisis in improving my sound. I use a USB mixer but the audio signal is low and needs a lot of mastering to clean up. So I bought an old DBX 266XL limiter to clean things up. The issue is that the unit doesn't have phantom power for my condenser mike, so to send signal to the DBX input I wondered what would happen if I used an intermediate power supply to power the mike then send the output into the input channel on the DBX and then output that cleaned up signal via a Y cable to the mixer and into my macbook and Garageband. Any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Could you use a sidechain with a gate to replace silence with room tone?

I was using reafir to take out background sounds, but this gate would take out all sounds, so I suppose this is the better option. Do you also use an eq to take out sounds as well? PS you look so much younger without the beard.

I'm having the following issue with the noise gate: When I normalize my audio the noise gate needs to be adjusted again because mouth clicks and noises get louder. Is this normal or am I doing something wrong here?

Time is money, getting a noise gate hardware could save time in post production.

wow you look so friggin young

hey junkie i loved that video gj ;) i think this will help me alot im trying to make videos But i can't record my voice over in the apartment without hearing lots of noises and dogs parking even late at night, so do u think that noise gate will help with that? it's not too loud but it bothers the hell out of me..

So noise gate is like noise mutter in handy talkie, right?

Great video, just curious as I've not had a chance to test. What's the difference between release and hold in realtion to Noise Gate? Thanks :D

What concerns me about the use of a gate is the room tone that is present when you are talking. Isn't the difference between the silence and the room tone "under" the dialog pretty evident?

I use Reafir to take out background noise.Would you use this instead of using Reafir, or can you use both?

I need a noise gate for my Naibour’s

I use the new Izotope Ozone 9 Elements for cleaning

Do I need to use a noise gate if I use the McDSP NR800? It seems to do the same thing as it a downward expander. It is acting similar to a noise gate. It seems like choosing a compressor compare to a limiter. Both do mostly the same thing just a less harsher.

other than for errors does the clicker help with producing the final ?

Noise Gate or Noise Suppression. Which will you go for

So are you using that clicker to let yourself know when you had to start a sentence over or when a new one begins?

Bro, how did you hear that thump at 2:20 ? You must have your headphones so loud that you probably have hearing damage.

Great stuff! I've been using the free version of reaper and I can't seem to use the noise gate. I see the option but it won't let me complete the steps. Am I right or just missing something? Loved your other videos too!

Hi Mike! If i set the gate level like you said, the gate opens an closes all the time. Maybe because the fan of my laptop switches on more often. My recording is also kind of clipped. What can i do? Is it a setting problem on my pc?

Hi, is it better to gate at the input (right on the mic preamp, my dbx 286A has a gate function) or in post (software)? Can gating eliminate inter-phrase noise completely when used at the input?

Very interesting. I have a problem not between the moment I talk but when I finish the sentence I can hear a kind of “ffft” that’ really hard to eliminate. Whay can I do?

Any noise gates for Logic Users?

That's why I always use a hardware "expander" and not a "gate", especially for "live" recordings. For most of my use cases, I'm allowed to make small mistakes. The effect is similar to the dry/wet mix. Could anyone please introduce this concept to FM radio? Many breaths on readio are so over-exagerated because of the very high gain "compression-to-death" loudness-wars on radio that it becomes unlistenable for me.

I clicked the FX button and a box popped up, but it was blank. There were no effects to choose from. Can anyone assist?

Are you the PIMMSLEUR actor?

Wait...you weren't born with a beard?

Beard has to come back...

the VO is very Sandlot

Who’s this young dude? 🤣

do not do nonsense, but just press the "D" key in Riper - dynamic separation))

I dont think many voice over professionals use gating because they just dont work very well overall. I use them for mixing drums to handle mic bleed and in live sound work a lot but voice over work ive never had good results. What sounds good in one situation like your example here doesnt work in other situations. For short radio or tv commecials it can be done ok but I wouldn't dream of applying one gate preset to an entire audio book. just wont work well.

This is so wrong. You don't look alcoholic at all without the beard...

Dead silence is unnatural, also unacceptable by ACX standards. I find inserting pre-recorded room tone in between words is much better.

It is REALLY disconcerting to see you without the beard!