de-essing

[veejay_j]

What about a de-esser ?? I'm editing the "S" and "T's" now by hand, but is there a good and fast solution ?? Because the plugin's like waves/spitfish/spl etc. don't work for me ? And I'm also not really happy with the Focusrite de-esser in my channelstrip.

How are you dealing with the "S"

J.

[Darth Fader]

If esses are such a big problem for you, your problem is probably the vocalist's anatomy or your recording chain.

If he/she has a visible gap between his/her front teeth, that might be the cause of harsh S-ses. Try filling the gap with some chewing gum - sounds funny but works great.

Like this:

OTOH I'm quite happy with the Voxbox deesser, although I don't use it very often - better try to get the right sound with the right microphone (position).

What's your recording chain (mic?)

[NeoVXR]

how exactly does the deesser cause a problem?
do you have strong EQ settings, before or after ?
what are you doing in a different way, to the sibilants?

[toolskid]

I generally do most of my deessing by hand (cut and paste the automation if you're feeling really lazy), but you should be able to get really good results with the waves ren-deesser! Try multiple de-essers with different shapes and frequencies if you've got a really problematic vocal

[Renie]

Tools

Why do you generally use volume automation rather than the waves plug-in?

cheers

R

[toolskid]

the you don't get any artifacts of compression, can sound much more natural to my (bashed and abused) ears!

Also the control is finer and not frequency specific! YMMV but it seems to work for me!

I usually do the final tweaks post brightening eq-pre compression...

[Renie]

i usually do a bit of both, using the digi de-esser, which you have to be very careful with.. ..after comp/eq

a lot of people rate the waves ren one hmm

thanks,
I'll investigate further.

Rene

[Boby Stoica]

Rennaisance Deesser here, used in SX2, aplied (process plugin menu) only on the "S"es, cuting them and crossfadeing them. U can cut all of them with the "scisssor" tool and then "select all", and crossfade everything. Select only the "S" portions of the wave (shift+mouseclick) and then aply the plugin, with a shortcut that U define on ":key commands" menu. That works 4 me, and U need SX. Pretty fast - like 10 minutes for a song with voxes and backing - U can use a generic preset for your studio or for every artist.

[JonCraig]

Originally posted by Renie
Tools

Why do you generally use volume automation rather than the waves plug-in?

cheers

R

compressor="automatic turner downer"

de-esser= compressor who's sidechain has the vox (or whatever) running through an EQ first, with the sibilant frequencies hyped (go to town... it's only feeding the sidechain, not the audio path)

since all a compressor does is turn stuff down, there's no reason you couldn't do this with automation. it's not too practical for, say, guitars (it's just easier to let a plugin to the work than to sit with the pencil tool for a day). but for selective volume moves, automation makes perfect sense to me.

[veejay_j]

thanks, guys for the advice... !

If I use a de-esser I hear that I remove some high of the vocalsound, this is with most plugin de-essers I used. And then I am using it not really heard.

When I do it by hand I found out that I got a much more sweet and natural sound. So I was curious to so how everybody is doing this..

And yes I got some problem vocalist, with space between the teeth and also someone with a jazzy low vocal sound with not much high in it so I really want to keep the high area so good/clean as possible.. ;-)

thanks..

J

[mac black]

I use a touch of waves de-esser and the rest with volum rides in logic.

sounds great.

mac

[Alécio Costa]

I use a combination of Waves De-esser and some additional carving with Waves Q6.

Another tip: ask the singer if he touches the back of his teeth too much. There lives the source of the excessive S´s.
Also: ask him to slightly get the mouth off mics axis when he reaches some critical passenges with too much S.
Sometimes a touch of S is also fine to cut thru a jammed mix.

[s.d.finley]

First I will switch mics on an unusally silibant vocalist, and if thats not enuff, use a touch of desser from the Focusrite channel strip.

When mixing, if there are stacks of the vocals, find the most annoying of the "SSSSS" and fade them or use the automation, or the ol' hand(!). But dont do this across all the tracks. Leave the least offensive ones untoched for that "natural" sound.

If i need just a little desseing, i reach for the Waves...

rock

sdf

[dawkab]

Lately I've been splitting the vocal into multiple tracks using a multiband compressor by recording the output of the split bands back to a 3 new tracks (with-out compression). The plan is to split the vocal into managable chunks (lo-mids. hi-mids, hi) then edit the volume of the the offending frequency range separately. The main problem I've had is if the filters are any steeper than 6db per octave phasing shifts are created (unless the MB is timealigned like the Waves linear).

[stealthbalance]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Alécio Costa
[B]I use a combination of Waves De-esser and some additional carving with Waves Q6.

Another tip: ask the singer if he touches the back of his teeth too much. There lives the source of the excessive S´s.
Also: ask him to slightly get the mouth off mics axis when he reaches some critical passenges with too much S.
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no offense but you must be stoned.

id like to see you ask some of the singers i work with that question - then see what happens.

getting tracks from engineers that have asked singers to move around to make up for their engineering hackery just makes me wanna hurt someone.
pick a mic quickly , and get on with the show by letting the singer just sing without thinking that they suck or need dental surgery.

s

[Alécio Costa]

" offense but you must be stoned.

id like to see you ask some of the singers i work with that question - then see what happens.

getting tracks from engineers that have asked singers to move around to make up for their engineering hackery just makes me wanna hurt someone.
pick a mic quickly , and get on with the show by letting the singer just sing without thinking that they suck or need dental surgery."

Fortunately I do not work with your wannabee clients; And yes, it functions. If you study a little bit of vocal techniques and the approach of a vocal mic you will get the point. Also, I do not do drugs.
fuuck

[stealthbalance]

Originally posted by Alécio Costa

Fortunately I do not work with your wannabee clients; And yes, it functions. If you study a little bit of vocal techniques and the approach of a vocal mic you will get the point. Also, I do not do drugs.
fuuck [/B]

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gee , i guess i ruffled your feathers bitch.

im usually not this harsh , but i guess you just dont get it.
statements like what you would tell a singer about their sss's are just so demo league is sickens me. its also turned many a mix ive done into a nightmare fixit job. you are thinking like an engineer and not like a musician or a music producer. look at the big picture and you'll realise what you are suggesting is really wrong.

s

[Alécio Costa]

I think you did not get the picture. It is not telling the singer to keep his hand shaking all the time neither to change the way he handles his tongue behind the front teeth.
I am a producer, singer and used to be a vocal instructor. I do know my stuff.
If you say you might be having lots of big problems on mix stage is because you mic might have a very bad off axis rsponse.
I have mixed over 50 albums in the last 5 years, some got MTV airplay, some were indicated for brazilian "Grammy" and never had any complaint about what are you pointing.