[KEROUAC1957]

What are your views on editing breathing out of a recording? I've always tended to do this to clean up a vocal take. But I noticed as an example on Emile Sande's Clown that the breaths between vocal phrasings are very pronounced. To me it sounds too obvious but perhaps keeping some in is acceptable. I'm undecided.

[habiTat]

I'd say leave them in, keep it real, the more personal the better, we are not robots, we need to breathe, it's more a performance that way, like the singer is in the room when you listen.

[seriousfun]

It is certainly best to leave some breathing in or the vocal can get to sound a bit unnatural. IMHO there is nothing wrong with removing some especially if it is between lines and not associated with the start of a line. I usually blank out those areas completely and some of the breaths leading into lines are removed as well depending on how they sound. ( case by case basis) . When I leave breaths in I evaluate each one and often reduce the volume so that it is not too noticible. I never play with breathing embedded within a vocal line.

What do others do??

[Oli Dickinson]

I've totally removed the breathing from tracks before, and I agree with the above. It sounds unnatural. I actually recall that it made me feel out of breath to listen to it!

Be leaving the breathing, bro.

Oli x

[Stephen Palmer]

This varies enormously, I've found. If you're multi-tracking vocals (I have some songs with 4+ tracks singing "exactly the same thing") then the breath sounds can be distracting. But for a single vocal take, I say leave the breaths in - especially if you are looking for a vocal "performance," ie not just clean sound.

[Neil C]

I agree its horses for courses, but also see how you intend to processes it, eg heavy compression may make it more noticeable which may or may not be a good thing.

Neil 

[kiltimaghlad]

Leave the breathing in.

Have you ever heard Thom Yorke on his Radiohead tracks....you can hear the big breaths in between the lines.

Human quality so leave them in.

[Saeed AlSuri]

I found in my 37 years of recording .. I found that breathing is phrasing like the bowing of the string instrument ..

if you a going to play a soft melody the attack of the bow must be very soft ..

if you are singing with few instruments .. it's cool .. but with a lot of instrument it become noise ..

IMHO .. try to keep the breathing low as possible during the recording .. diaphragm control .. helps the vibrato of the singer too ..

but with backing vocals and harmony ..the breathing becomes noise man .. noise ..

Cheers ..

[KEROUAC1957]

Sorry I've been away for a while. Thanks for all the replies. That's an interesting analogy Saeed and makes sense.

I've come around to the idea of leaving the breathing in. I guess it is less important on a loud rock type song where it gets submerged anyway but for quieter ballads I can see where it can add something.

[NicBDA]

The thread made me think of the "Chocolate Rain" video, where he leans away from the mic to stop the breathing being recorded.

I agree that with a stripped back track the breathing can be an element all it's own. Where as with  overdrive/distortion and a band it can get lost anyway, or become a 'noise' in the track.

I think a lot is feel as has been said, if it doesn't take away from the track, it can probably be left in.

The song "The Kill" by 30 Seconds to Mars has the breathing left in both inhale and exhale, and I feel it adds something to the performance.

I'm sure for every example of one there will be a counterpoint of the other.