Pro tools (1 Viewer)

[Jill Hives]

How does one fix or reduce the ridiculously over pronounced Ss on the ends of words? There's a program, no? If so, how the hell does it work. Anyone know?

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

a de-esser

or you could select the s sound and reduce it by a few dbs

 

[Jill Hives]

a de-esser

New at this all -- how does this work? Actually now I can probably google it now since I wasn't spelling it correctly.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

i dont really know how it works, i presume it analyses the frequencies and reduces parts it thinks to be ssss sounds. i've always found it a bit easier to select the offending bit of audio and lower the level of it

 

[Jill Hives]

i dont really know how it works, i presume it analyses the frequencies and reduces parts it thinks to be ssss sounds. i've always found it a bit easier to select the offending bit of audio and lower the level of it

Isn't that rather difficult since it's just a teeny tiny bit?

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

no, not really, if you zoom in and use the little thing that plays the audio as you drag the mouse over it you can find it pretty quickly and you'll soon recognize the shape of the s sounds!

 

[Jill Hives]

no, not really, if you zoom in and use the little thing that plays the audio as you drag the mouse over it you can find it pretty quickly and you'll soon recognize the shape of the s sounds!

Thanks, I will give it a try.

 

[shower another shower]

roll off the EQ at 7KHz-8KHz.

 

[Jill Hives]

roll off the EQ at 7KHz-8KHz.

You're talking to someone who knows nothing about music or recording here. What would/should that do?

 

[Pantone247]

nah you stick a de-esser over the whole track, and it filters out the very very high freqs and dips the volume everytime these feqs go above a certain level. So when there is no SSSSS sound it does nothing

(well that's not true, my desser dulls down tracks a bit anyway, could be just a shitty plug-in, BUT it is handy for taming hi-hats or over excited tambourine shaking)

I use Spitfish which was (is?) a free plug-in from Digital Phones (???) Fish Fillets set...

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

my way is best

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Yeahhhhh.
I don't usually run into much trouble with sibilance, maybe I mic singers up a little different or something.
Anyway, I was mixing something for a dude the other day that was a little essy, the Dynamics 3 De-esser sorted it out pretty good.
Best thing to to is solo the track, hit 'Listen' or whatever it is on the de-esser and sweep the frequency around until you get the meat of the ess. So to speak.
Set it to reduce high frequencies only, then set the reduction so that it's working without brutalising the poor vocal track.
Course, if you're doing some mentaloid eq'ing of the track that's pumping up the esses to the max, you might want to look into that.
Also, if there's reverb in the melting pot you can get away with eq'ing a load of the ess range out of that before it starts to sound weird.
etc.
etc.

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

roll off the EQ at 7KHz-8KHz.

All things in small doses.
The auld de-esser only works when it's needed (hopefully).

 

[shower another shower]

You're talking to someone who knows nothing about music or recording here. What would/should that do?

the 'sssss' sound happens at 7-8KHz on the frequency spectrum. If you open a parametric EQ on the track in Protools, isolate the 'sssss' sound, and turn the gain down on at that frequency, it will tame it.
Red Tape Menace or Aoboa will confirm or dispute this. I don't know. I've got the flu and my third hot whiskey is just kicking in now.

 

[shower another shower]

All things in small doses.
The auld de-esser only works when it's needed (hopefully).

Didn't say, "roll out".

 

[Jill Hives]

Thanks, I will try these suggestions.

 

[Goodbye]

Have 3 hot whiskies and slur your speach... Problem solved

 

[Jill Hives]

Have 3 hot whiskies and slur your speach... Problem solved

Probably the best idea so far since I can't sing and laugh every time I get near the microphone.

 

[Pantone247]

the 'sssss' sound happens at 7-8KHz on the frequency spectrum. If you open a parametric EQ on the track in Protools, isolate the 'sssss' sound, and turn the gain down on at that frequency, it will tame it.

a de-esser essentially sorta does this for you but without you having to think too much about it, always a good thing

I got mad into de-essing a while ago as an effect, I think crispy brittle high-end is one of the tell tale signs of a digital recording (or a plain bad recording made by a lousy homerecorder...) so using a desser to curb this down a bit sort of appears to "warm things" up a bit by limiting how high the high end.

 

[kraster]

I generally try and avoide the use of De-essers, expanders or gates if at all possible. A simple fader ride or a rendered fade out usually does the trick.

As Red Tape said earlier on, good mic technique is the way out of this on the tracking end. If you are using a side addressed condenser (as opposed to a front addressed dynamic, sm57, sm58 etc,) try tilting the Mic ever so slightly off axis (so the front of the Mic is not bang in front of the singer) so the wind from the sibilance is not hitting the Mic head on. Too much essy sounds and over active plosives (B's and P's) are as a result of wind interference on the capsule.