For about a year, I lived with the pops, smacks, and clicks that emanated from my mouth while recording episodes for my podcast. I just assumed there was nothing I could do about it… until I realized that I could remove any noise above a certain frequency in Adobe Audition. What this means is that any sound above the frequency of my choosing will be eliminated.
Since my voice typically hovers below 8000 Hz, and those smacking, popping noises are usually present at higher ranges, I can essentially remove all data above 8KHz.
The “Spectral Frequency Display” above shows the most common areas of concentration of my voice. When I hear a smack or a pop during the post-production editing process (typically the result from saliva on the tongue or lips), I can either remove that noise by itself, or simply wipe out the entire frequency range.
Here’s how I do it (screens from the PC version of Adobe Audition ver 3. Your version may be slightly different):
1. When you first load the audio file into Audition, you will see the Waveform Display:
2. Click on View…Spectral Frequency Display (or Shift+F) to see a “heat map” display:
3. With your mouse, highlight the area above the range where most of your voice resides. If it’s hard to tell, just highlight 12000 and up, or 10000 and up. Start somewhere because you can always Undo anything you “do”.
4. Press Delete to remove that range. Play the file, how does it sound? If the pops are gone but the audio sounds too weird, you may need to remove a range slightly higher. Just Undo, and try again. 
5. When all else fails, you can tackle each snap, crackle and pop one at a time. Simply highlight the area you want to correct, then delete the sound from that area.
That’s it! If this doesn’t work for you, it’s possible your voice or the sound you are trying to alter has similar frequencies as the pops and clicks. If this is the case, you may need to just cut that tiny piece of audio out altogether, or re-record it. Otherwise, best of luck in your editing adventures.
What a great idea. I use Audacity, but think this can still be accomplished, if needed.
I think the Plot Spectrum view in Audacity MAY work (not sure). I’ve not used Audacity much, but I think you’re right.
The Advantages of spending a little money on Audition. I love that program!!!!!!
Ha ha, no kidding!
Bad idea. Clicks aren’t necessarily high frequencies. They are spikes on the spectrogram like this. You can whether manually delete them or use any advanced click removal tool like Izotope Audio Editor RX.
Thanks for the share. Clicks and pops do have a frequency, but you’re right – they aren’t necessarily always high. I also suggest to zoom in on the actually click or pop and remove manually like you stated here. As sometimes, especially in music, you’ll lose a whole range of sounds doing it the way I suggest above.
Great value add! Thanks Mikhail.