Either on a conscious or unconscious level, mouth noises can be annoying to a listener, both with audio-video content and audio-only content. This is true whether the problem is saliva crackle, lip smacks or mouth clicks. Accusonus is an audio software company born in 2013 in Greece, although I discovered the company in 2021, after their addition of its new Mouth De-Clicker plugin this year. Accusonus is now incorporated in Massachusetts (US) and has two offices in Greece (Athens and Patras). Today I am going to share with you my first Accusonus review. This one is about the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin, which comes as part of the ERA Standard and Pro Bundles. Ahead I’ll cover compatibility and usage of the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin, together with before and after audio clips from my testing at our standard 48 kHz sampling rate.

Compatibility

The ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin, which comes as part of the ERA Standard and Pro Bundles, is compatible with macOS and Windows, as long as your host audio or video app accepts plugins of the appropriate type. More specifically:

macOS

OS Versions: 10.13 or later

Plugin formats: AU, VST, AAX Native (64-bit)

Windows

Versions: 10 or later

Plugin formats: VST, AAX Native (64-bit)

Specific audio and video apps which are compatible:

All of the below were tested by the developer —Accusonus— except for Hindenburg Journalist Pro, which was tested by me personally. (Hindenburg Journalist Pro is still my favorite multitrack audio recorder/editor and I have covered it many articles.)

• Ableton Live
• Adobe Audition Pro
• Adobe Premiere Pro
• Apple Final Cut Pro
• Apple Logic Pro
• Apple Garageband (Warning! See my 2015 article, 48 reasons why GarageBand is kryptonite for video production)
• Audacity
• Avid Media Composer
• Avid Pro Tools
• Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve
• Cockos Reaper
• FL Studio
• Hindenburg Journalist Pro (tested by me for several projects including the example I’ll share ahead)
• Others: The plug-ins in ERA Bundle are designed to be compatible with every audio and video editor that supports audio plugins, but there are too many combinations of editors, operating systems, and plugin formats and Accusonus can’t extensively test every ERA plugin version in all of them. That’s why you should get the free trial to verify compatibility if your app is no listed above.

Installation

For both macOS and Windows, Accusonus offers a specific downloadable installer. In my experience, after you run it (with your audio/video editor not running), the next time you open the audio or video editing app, the included Accusonus plugins will be visible wherever you find audio plugins within the app.

Usage

How you pick among a particular audio plugin varies from the particular editor you are using. In Hindenburg Journalist Pro, you click on the Effects (Efectos) button on the particular track where you like to apply the plugin. Then you get a floating window where you can activate/deactivate and select the one that you want.

For the purpose of this review, I selected the accusonus > ERA 5 Mouth De-Clicker option from the accunous list. (They display their brand name with a lower case a in the menu and in most of their own website.) After that, we are presented with the following:

Main dial

This controls how much De-Clicking is applied to the track. The further you turn it, the more the effect is applied.

Processing mode

Mouth De-Clicker has two modes:

• Normal – for continuous, repeated mouth noise and saliva crackle that occurs throughout your track.
• Broad – for audio tracks that feature big, individual mouth noises – such as lip smacks or tongue smacks.

DIFF button

With the DIFF, or ‘difference’ button, you can toggle it to hear the exact clicks, saliva sounds and mouth noises that the plugin is removing from your audio.

ON/OFF button

When ON, the plugin works as adjusted. When OFF, the plugin’s window displays the word BYPASSED. This can also be done with Hindenburg Journalist Pro’s On/Off for each plugin, but this ON/OFF in the plugin’s window may be easier to use in some cases, or even more useful if your editor doesn’t offer that facility to activate or deactivate a plugin.

Sample recordings, before and after.

Here is a five-second clip, before and after.

Before (above), there is an annoying click just after the 3-second mark. After (below), there is no longer any mouth click.

With this particular example, everything just worked perfectly with the default adjustments. For some other projects, I had to move the knob a bit.

ERA Audio-Clean-Up-Assistant

Although today’s review is about the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin from Accusonus, which is available with the ERA Standard and Pro Bundles, I must clarify that those Bundles include other many plugins too, some of which I’ll likely review in the near future. One of those is actually a container of up to five stackable plugins and is called the ERA Audio-Clean-Up-Assistant.

If you choose the ERA Audio-Clean-Up-Assistant as the main plugin, within this container, you can stack (in the proper order) up to five “regular” plugins from the ERA bundle you have installed, while occupying a single plugin slot in your audio or audio/video editing app. In some cases, when you choose a particular plugin, a suggestion comes up regarding the ideal order with that plugin with regard to other ones.

Conclusions and how to get your trial

I love the ease of use and effectiveness of the ERA Mouth De-Clicker plugin from Accusonus. Specifically, I love the simplicity of selecting from just a couple of click options and a single knob to accomplish the task. I also like how the ERA Audio-Clean-Up Assistant works if and when it is necessary to stack more than one plugin. For more information, visit the Accusonus website here. It’s in English.

I’ll very likely be reviewing other plugins from Accusonus in the near future. Be sure to be on my mail list to be notified when I do.

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Some of the other manufacturers listed above have contracted Tépper and/or TecnoTur LLC to carry out consulting and/or translations/localizations/transcreations. Many of the manufacturers listed above have sent Allan Tépper review units and/or NFR software for review, including Accusonus and Hindenburg. So far, none of the manufacturers listed above is/are sponsors of the TecnoTur, BeyondPodcasting, CapicúaFM or TuSaludSecreta programs, although they are welcome to do so, and some are, may be (or may have been) sponsors of ProVideo Coalition magazine. Some links to third parties listed in this article and/or on this web page may indirectly benefit TecnoTur LLC via affiliate programs. Allan Tépper’s opinions are his own. Allan Tépper is not liable for misuse or misunderstanding of information he shares.