Lowering pick noise?

I've recorded a guitar track and every once in a while I make a little noise when my pick hits a string to mute it at the end of a passage.  I DO NOT want to surgically cut the pick noise out or apply EQ, but, I want to lower their volume significantly.  How do I select just the pick noise and lower it's volume?

Try ducking or compressing it.

mike_mccue


level envelope

OK, looks like that's exactly what the doc ordered.  I don't want to totally eliminate the pick noise...just lower it so that it doesn't "pop" out so much.  Thanks!!!

When I have those little audio events I need to eliminate here's my solution.

First, depending on the noise, you have to be careful with exactly how you remove it. If you have something else in the background or there is a reverb tail, if you remove the noise you also remove the background and that can sound as bad or worse than the noise you are trying to remove.

Melodyne editor in poly can let you pick a specific note event and delete it leaving the rest intact. In all fairness, I have not used MD to do this but it certainly seems possible.

Sometimes however, the removal of the note and the background does not matter to much IF there are other instruments playing to cover the silence.

SO... I will move the track I'm working on to the top of the track view. I then zoom in far enough so I can be a bit surgical. Next, I highlight the track I am working on. Then ON THE TIME LINE above the tracks I will click and drag my mouse on the approximate area I want to edit. The area (IIRC) in the track also highlights a darker color... if the mouse drag area is not precise I simply reclick and drag the new area until I get it exactly where I want..... that's why it really helps to be zoomed in to the right zoom level.

The time line turns a darker gray. I can then select PROCESS> AUDIO and choose to do one of several things. I can reduce the GAIN by a set number of db's, I can increase the gain (for lower parts...if I kinda hit the note but not hard enough) and I can also MUTE that small snippit.  After I apply the audio edit, I play it back and check it. I have the option to roll it back to normal or to apply more gain reduction or to save it and move to the next event.

I use this on Vocals to remove breath and lip smacks, and pick noise and other misc guitar noises. As long as there are other things happening in the other  tracks in the project, you can not hear the dead silence that occurs in the track on a mute event of short duration. And it really cleans up the track.

I have even used this mute method to the utmost extreme. I had a click in a track from something.... I zoomed way in to where I was looking at the actual cycles in the wave. I found the glitched cycle and used the mute on that ONE cycle. I thought I would hear a pop or something when I played it back because I was muting in the middle of a "held note" . So expecting to have to record it again, I did the mute, and played it back. The mute happened so fast and so smoothly that the track was flawless. I even soloed it and listened several times trying to hear the mute...... the click was gone and the track was perfect to the ear.

Excellent Ideas!!!  Thanks so much for all of the "input."  I now have several possible solutions to chose from...great!!!

A few more options in order from easiest settings to doing the most work:

1. Find a transient designer plugin and pull back on the attack
2. Find a good de-esser and tune it to the pick's sound
3. Find the frequency where the pick sound is strongest and try adding warmth to it with some sort of analog modeled plugin (like Ozone)
4. For those desperate for perfection, manually back off on the snare sound with iZotope RX

I'm a big UAD fan so I'm not as sure what to recommend natively for transient designer and de-esser. I think BitterSweet and Spitfish are good free ones but haven't used them much in a long time.

Peace,

Tunes