De-Essing in PTools. share the wealth!

[cajonezzz]

I'm going after some vocals on this record, all in all tracked nice but a few plosives, esssses, and such.

I've tried the plugin deessers (e cue recommended waves) and still am grappling with it.
A visiting engineer that has done some cool stuff suggested I draw in volume mmoves on the offending sssss's , which I've done and had pretty good results with.

what do you folks do that might be helpful? Besides tracking it perfectly or cutting the singers toungue and lips off?

the really tough ones are the "whistling" sssss'ssss.

thanks folks!

[imacgreg]

I really like the Waves DeEsser (not the Renassaince one). For pops and other little wierd noises that the DeEsser won't catch (usually rare) I either use crossfades or regular fades. You just need to enter an edit break (Command-E) and then you can fade away. Usually helps tame some of that stuff. Recently, I've noticed that some vocals tracked through a Telefunken U47 and Neve 1084 had a tendency to get too thick during long, held out vocals. I ended up using the Waves C4 to clamp down on the lower midrange during those parts to thin them out a bit. It's all about using whatcha' got!

Ian

[XHipHop]

This may or may not be helpful. It's a dave pensado article i ran across today and he shares his ren-de ess settings.

http://emusician.com/ar/emusic_dave_...ugin/index.htm

[syra]

Although the Ren deesser works great for most occasions, the oxford comp saved my ass a couple times eliminating exactly what I wanted. When the Ren doesn't cut it, try the oxford and you will be surprised.

peace

[shipshape]

Writing down the 'esses works great....you could also try multing the vocal ..filtering it very heavilly so that all that's left is the esses and is completey thinned out.......don't have it in the stereo buss..but buss it to a compressor across the lead vocal with a very fast attack and release.....and "ride" the filtered channel into the compressor...you will find a spot where it de-esses like a regular de-esser and for the more severe esses.......automate the level higher into the compressor.

[shipshape]

btw.......make sure to allow for the plug-in latency for whatever plugs you are using on the vocal or it wont work properly .

[cajonezzz]

Originally posted by shipshape
Writing down the 'esses works great....you could also try multing the vocal ..filtering it very heavilly so that all that's left is the esses and is completey thinned out.......don't have it in the stereo buss..but buss it to a compressor across the lead vocal with a very fast attack and release.....and "ride" the filtered channel into the compressor...you will find a spot where it de-esses like a regular de-esser and for the more severe esses.......automate the level higher into the compressor.

damn. I'm gonna try that.
thanks!

[PlugHead]

Originally posted by shipshape
Writing down the 'esses works great...

Been doing this (by mouse) for years - always seems to work the best, but can be time consuming...grudge

cheers,

[Renie]

Caj

some people just whip all the ssss's out onto their own track and process separately..

[dave-G]

Originally posted by shipshape
Writing down the 'esses works great....you could also try multing the vocal ..filtering it very heavilly so that all that's left is the esses and is completey thinned out.......don't have it in the stereo buss..but buss it to a compressor across the lead vocal with a very fast attack and release.....and "ride" the filtered channel into the compressor...you will find a spot where it de-esses like a regular de-esser and for the more severe esses.......automate the level higher into the compressor.

This is brilliant and "old-school"...

Pre PT, I used to do this when I wanted to use a better compressor for the tougher de-essing tasks (via a patchbay mult, a second fader feeding the sidechain input of say, an 8900)

I'd only add to this that you could also go with the same automated, filtered "essy" signal running into the sidechain input of your favorite outboard compressor too!

Good luck.

-dave

[robmix]

I still go outboard for de-essing. I've tried just about all the plug's but I can't beat the DBX-902's. Since I'm going outboard for compression and EQ on vocals anyway I throw the 902's in the chain.

Rob

[peterr]

Of the three plug-in de-essers I have (Waves, Waves Ren and PT LE Digirack)

I have found the standard Digirack de-esser from Protools to be the best. Go Figure. Sometimes I just use the Fader Automation to to duck the ess. It takes a long time but it sounds better.

[cajonezzz]

Originally posted by Renie
Caj

some people just whip all the ssss's out onto their own track and process separately..

a good idea as well.I'll have to mess with that.

[adamcal]

for me the bast De ess plug is the built in one in Logic.

Too bad if you dont use Logic however :-(

I usually set up 2 inserts, one for sss (up high at 8-9K), and the other for shhh (lower at 3-6)

[Charles Dye]

My vote is for the Waves De-Esser (orig.) and my preference is to use it in WideBand mode. My only addition is that I like to automate the threshold sometimes for vocals that require different amounts for example in a verse as compared to a chorus.

Or I may instead set up two or more vocal tracks with completely different settings on the de-esser as well as the other plugs + FX sends to deal with differences in dynamics + vocal color.

[Bruce Keen]

I haven't had a lot of success with the waves de-esser, for soft esses the sony dynamics with the sidechain is quite efficient and fast otherwise I automate the HF gain on a sony eq and spend 10 minutes on the automation. It's pretty fast and you're sure to get it right. The SPL deesser is efficient if you're not in the box. I don't have much experience with it but the Weiss deesser they use in mastering is like a razor blade in my memory.

These days, on soft material I try not to eq the vocal and build the track around it. Esses are like cymbals, if you take them all out you're losing some of the excitement. The Fatso always goes on the vocal on the way in and that has solved a lot my essy problems. I am addicted to the fatso on a lot of things. It makes the job easier.

On a sidenote I mixed a female vocal that was done on a C800 the other day and was amazed at the amount of HF I had to pull out to make it sit (with a quartet). I'll never use that one again for lead.
I need to look again at the waves thing. Last time I took more than 10 minutes so I just gave up.
The threshold automation tip is good. and I've got to try a filterbank F2 for the filtering tip on the sidechain. Anyone using deesing on harsh overheads at all?

cheers

[mpr3]

Originally posted by Bruce KEEN
The SPL deesser is efficient if you're not in the box.

Supposedly the SPL mults the vocal into an 'esses' only signal, flips phase on it and then sums the mult with the original vocal. Perhaps something like this could be attempted in PT. As long as the two tracks are delay compensated and close in volume, I cant see why it wouldn't work.

[preben]

There used to be an spl de-esser available as a vst plug. Does anyone know if that's been discontinued..? I've used it quite a bit and preferred in many cases.

[Giles Reaves]

As far as those "whistling" esses, the only cure I know is to paste a good one over it and be done with it!
One "non-standard" trick I've been using has been to use a McDSP MC2000 three or four band compressor as my only vocal processor. The low band is set basically like their LA-2a preset, and the middle band(s) is set to remove the "thickness" on sustained notes mentioned earlier in this thread. The high band is set to a HF limiter type mode - fast attack and release (1ms, 10ms) crossover set to 4-8kHz to taste. I can then balance (read: EQ) the bands to taste. Using this setup, the only missing feature is a low cut filter. I've got compression, de-essing, and basic EQ all in one plug. Well, it works for me, anyway, YMMV!

[Renie]

Caj

The new Focusrite Forte plug-in suite features a de-esser..focusrite have a great rep for their de-essing, worth demoing the plug, I think it's a 30 day go.

[Charles Dye]

I've also recently been using Waves C4 first in my vocal chain, which is a dynamic equalizer, followed by Waves De-Esser. The De-Esser does most of the work, but tweaking the threshold on the top band of the C4 gets it to smooth out the brightest "esses" that the De-Esser doesn't handle completely.

[genericperson]

volume automating the esses is painstaking, but the purest approach and it works.

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Originally posted by genericperson
volume automating the esses is painstaking, but the purest approach and it works.

Instead of using automation, I'll create crossfades (or fade ins).. automation isn't sample accurate. Otherwise I'll use an AudioSuite deesser like the TC Voice Tools or Waves and just process the esses.

Rail

[jho]

I actually like the ren de-esser, go figure.

I also sometimes use two of the ren de-essers, the first one with the split band - I start with the male or female presets, then tweek the frequency range and threshold but don't let it pump too much - and the second one as a narrow band right on the nose of the problem so it only comes in when more severe. Works really well for me.

However sometimes I get lucky and pick the right mic and pre and get away with just a Sony Oxford EQ and one Ren de-esser