Suggestions For De-essing Please?

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Dr. Varney

Dr. Varney

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Can anyone suggest to me a good process for de-essing vocals. What would be the best type of plugin to use... I have filters, a limiter, compressor, parametric EQ - but no dedicated 'de-esser' as such. Would anything work alone or is there a combination of things I should use?

I found a 'de-essing' preset on this little monster,

masximusdesser.jpg


but it doesn't seem to make a difference, until I played around with the noise gate/attack & release, it killed everything else and allowed only the Ss & Ts through. How can I set it to work the opposite way... or should I be using something else?

Cheers

Dr. V
 
The way a classic de-esser works is by doubling the audio that is to be de-essed.
Eq is applied to one of the signals so that the sibilant sounds are overly emphasized/especially loud.
The other signal is th one that will be de-essed.
It is fed into the main input of a compressor.
The sibilance eq-ed signal is sent to the side-chain input on the compressor. The way a side chain works is that the main signal is compressed based on what comes in through the side chain input.
So, the way it should work is that the main signal, without any eq to emphasize or decrease sibilance, is being acted on by the compressor which is reading the overly sibilant eq-ed signal. So every time an "s" comes along, the compressor picks up that overly emphasized "s" sound and reduces the volume of the main signal, there by reducing the volume of the sibilant sounds in the main signal.

Several of the De-esser plugins or presets I've come across have it set up so that you can preview the signal you are adding sibilant frequencies to. You hear the signal that ultimately won't be heard so that you can dial in the eq to emphasize exactly the right frequencies. Then, once that's dialed in, there's generally some sort of button to press to turn off the preview of the eq-ed sound and hear the main sound being acted upon by the compressor.
It sounds from your description that your de-esser preset might default to the preview mode so that when you pull it up you can automatically dial in the correct frequency range.
I'd look for some sort of button that says "pre-eq" or "pre dyn" or "sidechain" or something along those lines and see if it makes any difference pressing it.

Hope that helps some.

Oh, and barring that, there's a free VST de-esser plugin called "spitfish" (part of the fish fillets pack) that works pretty well and has some pretty fool proof presets.
 
Dr. Varney said:
Can anyone suggest to me a good process for de-essing vocals. What would be the best type of plugin to use... I have filters, a limiter, compressor, parametric EQ - but no dedicated 'de-esser' as such. Would anything work alone or is there a combination of things I should use?

I found a 'de-essing' preset on this little monster,

masximusdesser.jpg


but it doesn't seem to make a difference, until I played around with the noise gate/attack & release, it killed everything else and allowed only the Ss & Ts through. How can I set it to work the opposite way... or should I be using something else?

Cheers

Dr. V
Click to expand...
I can't quite make out what the button next to "Monitor" button is, but I see "Monitor" is what's selected in that image. Many plugins will have a facility where you hear what portion of the audio gets effected and not the effected audio itself. For example on some noise reduction programs, you can hear the actual noise that gets reduced, while everything else is muted. Maybe that "Monitor" button does the same thing in the case of Maximus? If so, it would mute everything else and allow you to hear the Ss and Ts that it was reducing so you can narrow down, target and fine-tune what you want to minimise.

BTW, that's probably one of the most complicated looking de-essers I've seen!
 
The Cancers said:
The way a classic de-esser works is by doubling the audio that is to be de-essed.
Eq is applied to one of the signals so that the sibilant sounds are overly emphasized/especially loud.
The other signal is th one that will be de-essed.
It is fed into the main input of a compressor.
The sibilance eq-ed signal is sent to the side-chain input on the compressor. The way a side chain works is that the main signal is compressed based on what comes in through the side chain input.
So, the way it should work is that the main signal, without any eq to emphasize or decrease sibilance, is being acted on by the compressor which is reading the overly sibilant eq-ed signal. So every time an "s" comes along, the compressor picks up that overly emphasized "s" sound and reduces the volume of the main signal, there by reducing the volume of the sibilant sounds in the main signal.

Several of the De-esser plugins or presets I've come across have it set up so that you can preview the signal you are adding sibilant frequencies to. You hear the signal that ultimately won't be heard so that you can dial in the eq to emphasize exactly the right frequencies. Then, once that's dialed in, there's generally some sort of button to press to turn off the preview of the eq-ed sound and hear the main sound being acted upon by the compressor.
It sounds from your description that your de-esser preset might default to the preview mode so that when you pull it up you can automatically dial in the correct frequency range.
I'd look for some sort of button that says "pre-eq" or "pre dyn" or "sidechain" or something along those lines and see if it makes any difference pressing it.

Hope that helps some.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm sure it will, when I get round to reading it more closely. I'm not sure what a side-chain is, but I can guess...

I was confused, until I found this:

The Cancers said:
Oh, and barring that, there's a free VST de-esser plugin called "spitfish" (part of the fish fillets pack) that works pretty well and has some pretty fool proof presets.
Click to expand...

Fantastic! Download the Fishfillets in seconds and now de-essing is a snap! Thanks very much! :D

Dr. V
 
noisewreck said:
I can't quite make out what the button next to "Monitor" button is, but I see "Monitor" is what's selected in that image.
Click to expand...

It says 'BANDS' but I'm not sure what the display is telling me. It's just a load of coloured blocks. Thankfully, I'm now armed with the knowledge that what I'm listening to on the monitor is the nasty bit, sticking out that needs pruning with the EQ. The Fishy thing will do the job of de-essing for me but I'd still like to learn more about this thing. I think it's pretty cool.

Oh, it's not a 'de-esser' tool as such - that was just a preset. The manual says:
"Maximus is much more than a pristine quality Mastering Maximizer, it's also a Compressor, Limiter, Noise Gate, Expander, Ducker and De-esser. Maximus excels equally well as a final-stage mastering plugin or as a per-track effect."

Well... there's my expander, after all!

and then:
"When to use: Put Maximus as the last effect in the Master Mixer Track when creating a final master. If you need to compress individual Kick or Bass sounds (for example) we recommend the Compressor or Limiter."

Looks pretty much like a catch-all sound processor.

Dr. V
 
Dr. Varney said:
It says 'BANDS' but I'm not sure what the display is telling me. It's just a load of coloured blocks. Thankfully, I'm now armed with the knowledge that what I'm listening to on the monitor is the nasty bit, sticking out that needs pruning with the EQ. The Fishy thing will do the job of de-essing for me but I'd still like to learn more about this thing. I think it's pretty cool.

Oh, it's not a 'de-esser' tool as such - that was just a preset. The manual says:
"Maximus is much more than a pristine quality Mastering Maximizer, it's also a Compressor, Limiter, Noise Gate, Expander, Ducker and De-esser. Maximus excels equally well as a final-stage mastering plugin or as a per-track effect."

Well... there's my expander, after all!

and then:
"When to use: Put Maximus as the last effect in the Master Mixer Track when creating a final master. If you need to compress individual Kick or Bass sounds (for example) we recommend the Compressor or Limiter."

Looks pretty much like a catch-all sound processor.

Dr. V
Click to expand...

Does clicking on "Monitor" toggle it off? That might be all you need.

And thanks for expanding on whatt his processor does. That would explain the complexity :D
 
'Bands' means you can trigger the de-essing only on certain freq. bands, like 7k-9k. I was having a big siblance problem on one of my last songs, I tried dessers, they were inefficient and they made some of my 'ssssss' sounds sound like 'thhhh' - like the singer had a lisp.. I ultimately ended up using volume automation - it's easy to spot the problem areas once you konw what you're looking for. I woulda had to automate the shit out of the de-esser anyway.. I was just using the stock cubase de-esser, so maybe it just sucks and yours would be a lot better.
 
suprstar said:
'Bands' means you can trigger the de-essing only on certain freq. bands, like 7k-9k. I was having a big siblance problem on one of my last songs, I tried dessers, they were inefficient and they made some of my 'ssssss' sounds sound like 'thhhh' - like the singer had a lisp.. I ultimately ended up using volume automation - it's easy to spot the problem areas once you konw what you're looking for. I woulda had to automate the shit out of the de-esser anyway.. I was just using the stock cubase de-esser, so maybe it just sucks and yours would be a lot better.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Well, the Spitfish plugin will do, until I learn how to use the Maximus, shown above.

I still have to use automation to get rid of pops, that come from Ps & Bs but thankfully, I haven't recorded too many of those in the first place. Essing is much more frequent and there's no way I could catch them all manually.

Dr. V
 
Is it me or are a lot of top 40 songs definitely NOT de-essed lately? I've been hearing a lot of sibilance on new singles and also some pops. One song I recall the vocals were just MAJORLY overcompressed. One of 'The Frey's' songs that came outlast year.
 
I really couldn't say because I don't listen to the modern crap of today.

Dr. V
 
Slowjett said:
Is it me or are a lot of top 40 songs definitely NOT de-essed lately? I've been hearing a lot of sibilance on new singles and also some pops. One song I recall the vocals were just MAJORLY overcompressed. One of 'The Frey's' songs that came outlast year.
Click to expand...
Yes! It's so goddamn annoying! :mad:
 
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