Rode NTK or?

[cominginsecond]

I personally believe that people overreact about essiness. To me it's not a big deal if a few esses pop out every now and again. If you're really bothered by it, rather than running your entire track through a de-esser, destructively apply it (after saving a backup copy of your track, of course) to just the esses. That way the rest of your track is unburdened by the deadening effect that most dessers cause to some extent.

 

[ambi]

I've heard the Neumann tlm103 compared to the NTK, would the TLM103 suffer the same sibilance problems? So what would you classify these two mics as? Bright? So you're saying a neutral mic would be a little better because it wouldn't have as much of a high frequency boost as the bright mics, and a dark one would be even better because it has even less high frequency information?

 

[dobro]

Yeah, different mics have different boosts (usually) at different places in the frequency spectrum, which is one of the things that makes mics sound different. But a big part of the equation is the voice that sings through the mic, too. The Rode NTK is a great sounding mic - I really, really like the sound - but I'm having this sibilance problem with it. Which means the NTK's boost must coincide with or accentuate the natural sibilance in my voice. So, yeah, a flatter mic wouldn't do that, but you'd still have to try out the flatter mic to see if it sounded any good with your voice.

Anyway, since not everybody has this sibilance problem with the NTK, in my case it must have something to do with:

1 my voice

2 the way I enunciate esses

3 mic position

4 my preamp


I can't do anything about #1 or #4 for the moment, so I'm going to continue to work on #2 and #3. I worked at it yesterday and found that if I'm conscious of every ess I sing, it's possible to reduce the attack I give the esses and emphasize the following vowel instead, which seems to help. I'll try recording this afternoon. I'm also going to try cominginsecond's advice about applying de-essing just to the esses in the track.

 

[Richard Monroe]

I believe you're getting it, Dobro. Stick with it.-Richie

 

[Innovations]

My two cents.

There is a difference between sibilance and plosives. Pop filters and placing the mike off-center will help greatly with plosives but not much with sibilance. Sibillance is the S sound being louder and harsher than we would expect it to be. With sibilance there is only two things you can do. The first is electronic de-essing. That involves finding the relatively narrow frequency that the s is occuring on and limiting it. The second is changing your vocal style. Take the work yes. You can sing it riding the e or you can sing it riding the s. If you are riding the s no amount of de-essing is going to make the results satisfactory.

 

[Emeric]

She sells seashells by the seashore.

I havn't noticed any glaring problems with sibilance in your tunes Dobro. I have heard many popular tunes that have excessive sibilance, if you focus in on it (listen to Supertramp for example). Certainly being conscious of it is important, but I wouldn't dwell on it.

 

[dobro]

Thanks for the encouragement Emeric. The reason you haven't heard much sibilance in the stuff I post here is because I don't post stuff if it's got loads of sibilance. When I finally get around to sending you the CD you'll see that there are one or two tracks that have a bit of sibilance, but I decided to let it go by because I'm pretty relaxed about it basically. I'm not dwelling on it, honest. I'm dealing with it.