Why does a plosive need a special tool rather than a highpass filter?

Because a highpass removes low end from the entire recording, while a plosive is a short event. This tool acts only on the windows that are both low-heavy and much louder than their surroundings, so the voice keeps its weight everywhere else. A highpass would dull the whole performance to fix a handful of syllables.

Will it damage bass instruments in the same recording?

It is designed not to. A bass line is low-frequency dominant but not a sudden burst, so the second condition fails and no cut is applied; verified behaviour is that steady low-frequency content passes sample-identical. The risk only appears if you make the trigger so sensitive that ordinary low notes start counting as bursts.

What do the two sliders really change?

The sensitivity sets how far above the surrounding level a window's low band must sit before the gate opens, so a lower figure makes it trigger more readily. The maximum reduction caps the cut, so it controls how much of the blast is removed. Together they decide how aggressive the pass is.

Can it fix a plosive that already distorted?

No. When a blast clips the capsule, the distortion appears well above the low band, and this tool only reduces low-frequency energy. A mild case can be helped by a declipper, but a hard clip is permanent, which is why microphone distance and a pop filter matter more than any repair step.

How many events should I expect it to find?

It depends entirely on how the recording was made. A narration recorded with good technique may show very few, while a close-miked take with no filter can fire on most sentences. The count is a rough indication of how much the tool acted, not a quality measure, so judge the result by listening to the affected phrases.

Plosive Remover

You Might Also Need

Wind Noise Remover

Reduce wind noise in recordings

Sibilance Reducer

Soften harsh sibilant sounds

Audio Gate

Noise gate to silence quiet parts

Voice Recorder

Record your voice in browser

Plosive Remover tames the low-frequency thumps that p and b sounds make when they are spoken too close to a microphone. A gate fires only when a passage is both low-heavy and much louder than its surroundings, so steady bass never gets touched.

What is Plosive Remover?

Load a voice recording, set how much reduction you want available and how strict the trigger should be, then run the pass. The tool is aimed at plosives from the letters p and b, which are the commonest cause of a low frequency thump in a close-miked voice take. The output is the same performance with the breath blasts softened, and the report tells you how many events the gate acted on.

The two controls and what they do:

A sensitivity slider from 4 to 20 dB, defaulting to 10, which sets how far a window's low band must stand above the surrounding level before the gate opens.
A maximum reduction slider from 3 to 24 dB, defaulting to 12, which caps how hard the low band can be pulled down.
A report line giving the number of plosive events gated and the maximum reduction applied to the low band.
A WAV download named after the source with a deplosived suffix.

The processor splits the signal into a low band and the rest, tracks the local level of each and only reduces the low band when both conditions are met at once: the window is low-frequency dominant and it is significantly louder than the audio around it. Requiring both is what makes the tool usable on music. A steady bass line is low-frequency dominant but is not a sudden burst, and a loud cymbal is a sudden burst but is not low-heavy, so neither triggers a cut. When the two line up, which is precisely the signature of a breath blast, the low band is attenuated by up to the maximum reduction you allowed. The verified behaviour is that steady bass and quiet low-frequency content pass sample-identical, and that the cut itself is monotone and component exact rather than a filter that rings.

What it will not do:

It cannot repair a plosive that already distorted the capsule, because the clipping is baked in above the low band.
A very deep or very close blast needs a high maximum reduction, and at that point the voice can lose some body on the affected syllable.
If the sensitivity is set too generously the gate can catch genuine low notes from a male voice or a bass instrument.
Detection is per channel and per window, so a plosive that was only ever recorded on one channel is treated as one event.
It removes the symptom in post rather than the cause, and the same microphone technique will produce the same blasts next time.
There is no visual map of where the events occurred, only the count in the report.

Use it whenever a spoken take is punctuated by thumps that make the whole mix duck, which is the usual consequence of a pop filter being too far from the capsule. Start with the defaults, listen to a couple of the worst sentences, and raise the maximum reduction only until the thumps stop poking out; beyond that the trade is voice weight for nothing.

How to use Plosive Remover

Load a spoken recording and leave the sensitivity at its default of 10 dB to begin with.
Set the maximum reduction, starting at 12 dB and raising it only if blasts still break through.
Run the pass and read the report to see how many plosive events were gated.
Compare the worst sentences against the original, checking the voice has not lost its low end, then download the WAV.

When to use Plosive Remover vs related tools

Plosive Remover is the specific fix for p and b blasts in a spoken recording, which makes it first choice for narration, podcast interviews and voiceover. Wind Noise Remover covers the different case where the whole take is thick with low-frequency rumble rather than punctuated by blasts, and Sibilance Reducer handles the problem at the other end of the spectrum. When the issue is breaths and gaps rather than thumps, Audio Gate is the tool, and Voice Recorder is where a take with better microphone discipline starts.

Privacy & Security

This tool runs entirely in your browser — no data ever leaves your device. There is no server round-trip, no upload, no logging, and no account required. Your input is processed locally using client-side JavaScript and is never stored, transmitted, or accessible to anyone else. When you close the tab, everything disappears.