Plug the microphone into a noise gate unit. Connect the female end of an XLR cable into the "Input" socket on the noise gate. Connect the male end of the socket to the bottom of the microphone.
Connect the noise gate to the mixing console. Attach a patch lead to the "Output" jack on the rear of the compressor and connect the other end to the "Input" socket on the mixing desk channel strip. Turn on the noise gate. If using a computer-based recording interface, click "Tools" and select "Gates and Limiters." Select a noise gate plug-in from the menu.
Adjust the threshold dial. The noise gate cuts all signal below a certain level. The noise gate "opens" only when it receives above a certain level threshold. The threshold dial dictates that level. Have the singer sing into the microphone and turn the "Threshold" dial up until it mutes the breaths between passages and only singing volume audio reaches the mixer. Don't turn it up so high that the noise gate "clips" the beginning of each word. You may need to sacrifice a small amount of breath on the recording to capture the start of each line.
Double-click the vocal track. This brings up a graphical representation of the sound waves. Tall peaks represent the loud sounds and smaller peaks represent quiet sounds.
Solo the vocal. Click the "S" icon on the channel strip. This mutes all audio but the vocal track.
Play the audio. Each time you hear a rogue breath, pause the track. Identify the peak on the sound wave graph that represents the breath. You may need to rewind a couple of times to make sure.
Click "View" and select "Zoom In."
Click "Tools" and select "Scissors." Click the scissor tool each side of the breath. Be careful not to snip off the beginning of the next line. Once you've snipped each side of the breath, the breath section is separated from the rest of the track. Click on the breath section and hit "Delete" on your keyboard. Hit play and roll the track until you hear the next breath. Use the scissor tool again to snip out any breaths that you don't want.