Sibilance on the vocals...what's the deal?

T

Trippalot

New member
Hey. I'm using an AT4033 to record vocals on my Roland VS880. I'm using a de-esser while recording to cut down on some of the consonant hisses. But when I go back to do a final mixdown with a touch of compression on the vocals, the hiss comes back. When I use the de-esser and the compressor together during playback, there's always hiss. But if I take the compression out, the hiss is gone. And I hate that sound; it's so unpleasant. But I have to add a little compression to the track. Why does it seem that the compressor make the de-esser inaffective? Any tips and suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanx.

Tripp
 
Would it be possible to apply the compression that you want destructively, and then de-ess the compressed signal? Since compression raises levels on whatever quiet vocal noises you might make, the compressor and de-esser might be working against each other.
 
You are probably not setting the compressor or/and the de esser corectly.

* Make sure you have the right freq chosen on the de esser
* Dont over compress ! or you will exagarate the problem
* Check your attack settings and see if it isnt set to slow.
* Rerecord and set the mic position on an angle untill you get a better result.
* Try a different mic
* Use a DAW and highlight the problematic areas only and work on them
 
I have the AT4033 and use a Roland 1680. I have to work on mic placement a bit to make sure I don't have a sibilance problem. That's the best place to solve the problem if possible.
 
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm closing in fast on the problem. I also just downloaded some Direct X effects with a de-esser included. They help out a lot.

Nyaben: Off the subject, you're from Columbus? I'm in Thomson, just west of Augusta. Coincidental.

Anyways, thanx.

Tripp
 
Dude, I have an At 4033 too! If you wanna hear a clip of the vocals, go to:

www.members.aol.com/racorndog/racorndog

and download "pearly gates". This is a fine example where I took care of some sylibance issues and I'm gonna tell you exactly how I got that clean of a sound with that mic.

First, I'm using a popper-stopper on it. I'm also using the roll-off switch on the mic. Why? This kinda sounds like a bad idea, but let me explain. I'm running the mic through a dbx 160a compressor at a 2:1 ratio and about 8-10 db of compression at the most. The reason why I'm using the roll-off switch is because despite the popper-stopper, if a singer goes into a loud "p" sound, this will cause the compressor to compress the whole signal, not just the "p" sound-so it will bring the level of the whole sound down because of that vicious, loud "p" pop. The less frequencies you are compressing, the easier it is on the compressor and better it sounds. After recording, i'll add that loss of bottom end.
At mixdown, i'm running the vox through a 31-band. In my experience, these have been more reliable than de-essers. I boosted frequencies from 12-20khz, because that At4033 has a good drop-off around there and the mic has a good increase right about where the silibance occurs. This is right around 6-8khz. I'll put a slight cut on these frequencies.

Also, i'm not a huge advocate on using different micing angles on vocals for home recordings. The reason is that most of these condensers are relatively loud with respect to the noise of the mic, so I always get that popper-stopper close as possible to the mic and the singer close as possible to the popper-stopper.
 
fenix said:

Also, i'm not a huge advocate on using different micing angles on vocals for home recordings. The reason is that most of these condensers are relatively loud with respect to the noise of the mic, so I always get that popper-stopper close as possible to the mic and the singer close as possible to the popper-stopper.
Click to expand...
And this is exactly why you get loud p's (I said piss ;)) in your vocals.
Micing angles are the only thing you can rid of the p and s without using EQ's or de essers.
And imo it's not very smart to put a LD mic so close to the singer thet a loud P bottoms it out.
And if the P is making your whole signal quieter you are using wrong release time on your compressor.

Well IMO anyway.
Keijo
 
warlock said:

And this is exactly why you get loud p's (I said piss ;)) in your vocals.
Micing angles are the only thing you can rid of the p and s without using EQ's or de essers.
And imo it's not very smart to put a LD mic so close to the singer thet a loud P bottoms it out.
And if the P is making your whole signal quieter you are using wrong release time on your compressor.

Well IMO anyway.
Keijo
Click to expand...

And If I may add.......a "P" sound has nothing to do with sibilance.
It sits in a total different freq far far away from a "S" "SH" etc...sound.
 
Yes, it is quite obvious that a "p" sound has nothing to do with an "s" sound. I was just giving the complete description of how i got a good sound with that mic. Download any of those clips; the vocals are all done with that mic, and might I add the farther away from the mic you are, the less bass proximaty you have, so you have to end up adding some low end anyway.
The dbx 160a has fixed (well, they're not fixed, but they are not user dependent) attack and release times. And I'm not really talking about a huge decrease in volume when a "p" comes along, i'm talking about an increase in compression where you might not want it, this is where the roll-off comes in handy.
 
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