De-essing?

[pmx]

my vote for the suppressor too, it needs a bit of tuning but i like that level of detail it offers. also have a ds1, but that almost never in use as a de-esser as i alwise get the result i need with the sonnox plug (either rtas or audiosuite).

would love to try derressers though, i like the idea of doing m/s deessing analog. there's a little bug in the suppressor that makes that a pain to do (within an m/s matrix (massey) the left channel bypassed, and processing in the right only, will sometimes dump the stereosignal to mono).

[Thor]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

My general impression after reading through is that the Sonnox is something i should download and try out, and I should do a few projects by manually spot-fixing the problems. The UAD requires an add-on card (no thanks), and the Massey is Windows only. I don't have PT, just sB

The DS1 looks to be out of my current budget (unless I find one used someone is giving away), and I know it's a fantastic unit. If I didn't already have a transparent compressor available it would definitely be at the top of my list. But for plain De-essing duties it's a bit of an economic leap. I was thinking that the DYN upgrade on the EQ1 might help when dialed in to the proper frequencies.

The Masalec and DerrEsser remain contenders as far as analogue goes. Has anyone done a direct comparison? There's quite a price difference there.

As for why I'm de-essing, the problems I'm taking about are mixes where there are sibilance problems that cut your head off (well said!), although sometimes it is nice to be able to soften up the top end a bit (yes, I know there are other ways). There have also been mixes where the vocals have been de-essed, but not enough/wrong frequencies, and there isn't budget/time for a remix. Yeah, normally one shouldn't need it, but if the gig is making someone's mixes sound like a million bucks, sometimes you need a de-esser to help you get that much closer.... Just another tool in the box.

Thanks again for all the ideas.

Thor

[yeloocproducer]

Try the SONNOX with an M/S chain (done with other plugins) in high-res mode. It's seriously good at just nipping the sss's in the center image. Also, I read an early gearslutz post about this plug saying it made the track sound like an "mp3".... but I think he must have been using it in low-latency mode or something. When it's at it's highest quality, it's really transparent.

DC

[hello people]

Cheap de-ess...sing 'ssssing' like 'shhhhing'

[matskull]

I'm not a mastering guy at all but I want to experiment on a project I just finished to mix.

I like the mix but when I listen to it loud or with bright headphones some high frequencies are agressive. I cannot and don't want to go back to the mixing stage for various reasons.

So I'd like to try some deessing on the master, not only for the vocals but also for some transients on the whole mix.
Which plugin(s) would you recommend?
Right now I have the waves' one...

Anything else better that I should try?
Thanks guys.

[Dave Rose]

Originally Posted by SurveillanceP

Not trying to complicate things at all (cough) but if you are de-essing vocals in mastering aren't you compensating for a mixing fail? Or is it just the low budget/badly made stuff where you have to do this?

Also, surely you find yourselves in situations where the vocal has already been de-essed it just hasn't been done right / comprehensively.

So then you're de-essing something which has already been a little mangled...

Sorry for the derail

To the OP- my bands first EP was by a dude who used the de-esser in logic, and the vocals sounded lispy and toothless. Maybe the native de-esser sucked, or maybe he sucked. Thats the only crumb of info I've got soz

I sometimes use it after Eqing a slightly dull mix, the originally acceptable levels of ssss sometimes, on certain mixes, become a little too sharp. Jutht got to be careful I don't thlap too much on, or it will jutht thound thilly. And your right, the de esser in logic sucks!

[laboso]

People are lazy nowadays dude...

After various tests with several DeEssing plugins I came back to the good old way. Open the spectrum-view in WaveLab, select the biting frequencies and dampen them to your like. Works like a charme and brings the most natural results to my ears...

And with crackles the same thing, people are buying plugins for crackles and clicks and spend the whole day adjusting the settings (most of them fucc up the master anyways). It takes max. 10 minutes to edit a track crack- and clickless.

Come on men, wooork for your bread.

[matskull]

Originally Posted by laboso

People are lazy nowadays dude...

After various tests with several DeEssing plugins I came back to the good old way. Open the spectrum-view in WaveLab, select the biting frequencies and dampen them to your like. Works like a charme and brings the most natural results to my ears...

And with crackles the same thing, people are buying plugins for crackles and clicks and spend the whole day adjusting the settings (most of them fucc up the master anyways). It takes max. 10 minutes to edit a track crack- and clickless.

Come on men, wooork for your bread.

For clicks and stuff like that I agree but for a song with a kick that is too agressive or something like that I think a deesser would work better.
Good point though for a little touch up.

Anyway, anybody can recommend me a good deesser plugin to use on my masters?

[huejahfink]

^^ I use Dynamic EQ for the TC Powercore in those cases. Pretty clean sounding and can operate in minimum or linear phase.

Native wise, I think that the Brainworx dynamic EQ would be an excellent choice.

Brainworx | bx_dynEQ

In terms of spot treatments, I use Izotope RX. Although I disagree with Laboso's comment about "the good old way", since the concept of visual spectrum editing is a lot newer than regular de-essing. I've undertaken a number of clean up projects and they all took a lot longer than 10 minutes. Surely it depends on the scope of the damage and the amount of material to be restored?

[Jerry Tubb]

Used the Sonnox SuprEsser (HR mode) today on two different tracks;

One to tame an unruly peaking 3.4k female vocal,

the other, typical 8k DS'ing on a male rock vocalist.

I put it first in the chain on the source mix.

Works like a charm.

JT

[Chris Lago]

Go with the Hardware, go with The DerrEssers. it's versatile, can soften up the High End frequencies without taking too much out of them, it's incredible really. It's much better than the spitfish. No Clicks on a hardware unit either thumbsup

[matskull]

I'm working on a full mix right now using the Waves Renaissance Deesser, I find it better than the normal Waves Desser.

I like the results but I'd like it to suck a little bit less air out of the mix.
I wanted to try the sonnox one but I don't have an ilok...

Does anybody here like the Renaissance Deesser on a full mix?

[huejahfink]

^ I didn't know Waves had abandoned iLok?

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by huejahfink

^ I didn't know Waves had abandoned iLok?

They haven't. But to give the poster the benefit of the doubt - until version 5 you could choose to have a hard drive based activation instead of an iLok. My old DX version of Waves L3 just lives on my older playback DAW running Windows 2000 that will likely be updated at some point the next year or two. At that point I'll probably just erase it off my gear list as I never use it and have no desire to pay the WUP fee to get the VST iLok version of it.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by Chris Lago

Go with the Hardware, go with The DerrEssers. it's versatile, can soften up the High End frequencies without taking too much out of them, it's incredible really. It's much better than the spitfish. No Clicks on a hardware unit either thumbsup

I've been getting lots of good use from my DerrEsser's as well - they truly are amazing bang for buck boxes. It definitely also helps having them on one of my Manley Backbone's M/S insert so that I can change them from L/R to M/S at the push of a button.

As far as plugins - I continue to get good use out of Spitfish for selective de-essing in the box. fwiw - I have the UA Precision De-esser as well but find I don't use it all that much, and never was all that impressed with the Waves plugins either. Curious to demo the Sonnox Suppressor at some point - especially after checking out Dave McNair's video on YouTube demonstrating it.

Best regards,
Steve Berson