One aspect of a great vocal sound that often gets overlooked is unpitched mouth noise. RePitch from Synchro Arts has useful tools to identify and correct these problem areas seamlessly and non-invasively. 

Many aspects contribute to a successful vocal production, from getting a good performance to using the right gear, tuning and pitch correction, and enhancing with effective processing. But one aspect of a great vocal sound often gets overlooked. And I'm sometimes surprised when I hear this problem in supposedly final "pro-level" vocal tracks. I'm talking about mouth noises. 

We all know the many ways and tools used to handle sibilance problems. But what about other noises? Hard, aggressive-sounding consonants are aggravated by saliva, unnatural breath sounds, and guttural throat nuances that detract and distract the listener. These are more challenging to deal with. They generally aren't related to a specific pitch, so tuning software ignores them.

RePitch from Synchro Arts has elegant tools and workflows to deal with unpitched audio artefacts. To begin with, immediately after the initial analysis, these unpitched sounds are identified visually in a contrasting grey colour. Identifying them is the first step in solving the problem. 

A simple press of the L key command toggles RePitch from its default tuning view to a level editing view. Once here, a couple of options are available. Grabbing the unpitched block and dragging it down with the Option key will reduce the level of these unpitched sounds in 3 dB increments. Dragging without the option key allows for free movement and obtaining any desired level reduction amount. 

At the top of each unpitched audio block is a modulation tool. This is normally used to reduce the amount of pitch wavering throughout each note's duration. In level editing mode, however, it adds another nuanced layer of reduction control that works in concert with the level editing reduction. It fine-tunes the quality of the unpitched sound. 

When combined with tuning and altering audio pitch, this makes RePitch a unique and valuable vocal editing environment. Hear it cleaning up an otherwise perfectly useable vocal in this short video clip.