I suck at de-essing so much.

[austinhue]

Somebody here (sorry, I don't remember who) showed me this nice little tutorial once about how to use side-chain compression to de-ess vocals. I've also heard it explained by my professor how to do it with EQ. However, no matter what I try, nothing seems to help even a bit. This is an old recording that I just re-did the post on yesterday, and I think everything sounds great except the vocals (especially clean) are sibilancing it like nuts. I was wondering if you guys had any advice for me?

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6920288/Distant Rework.mp3

Also, comments on the mix and master are more than welcome; I'm currently being barraged in the Rate My Mix forum because my song is too "Joey Sturgis".

 

[austinhue]

I meant to put this in the production sub-forum... bleh.

 

[austinhue]

Bump! Any help?

 

[ahjteam]

Have you actually tried a de-esser? If you look the vocals with an analyzer like Voxengo SPAN, you can most likely see the area where the sibilances are peaking. Then just compress that area with the de-esser.

 

[austinhue]

Have you actually tried a de-esser? If you look the vocals with an analyzer like Voxengo SPAN, you can most likely see the area where the sibilances are peaking. Then just compress that area with the de-esser.

Of course I have - I'm using the analyzer that's built into my EQ, and I've tried a few different de-essers. The clip was made with a nuts de-esser, pretty much turn the compression and reduction all the way up. I spent about an hour or two messing with compression amounts and sliding the detection and reduction frequencies up and down the spectrum... I could hardly hear any difference the whole time. The clip I posted is the best I could come up with.

 

[OneDaySky]

I firstly Compress (in stages of coarse ;p) then find the frequency with the most 'ess' And De-Esser (stereo) the vocal buss in split mode. With the compression evening things out, the de-esser works netter IMO

 

[DullElysium]

Maybe get the vocalist to say a long SSSSSSSS or something. Then loop it and play with the de-essed. The music sounds bad ass btw. I like both cleans and screams. And the drums don't sound all slate drums though this could use some more punch overall but still nice. High screams give me eargasms.

 

[austinhue]

Maybe get the vocalist to say a long SSSSSSSS or something. Then loop it and play with the de-essed. The music sounds bad ass btw. I like both cleans and screams. And the drums don't sound all slate drums though this could use some more punch overall but still nice. High screams give me eargasms.

Thanks once more! Yeah, Miles - our vocalist - walked into the studio one day and was like "Guys, I think I figured out how to do a new scream..." =]

None of the drums are Slate - they're all samples the drummer and I made of his kit. You can download them for free in my signature if you'd like!

 

[tempe]

Hey man have you though of not worrying about a de-esser and just automating down the volume of the ess sounds. So much more effective in my opinion, and you can have a lot more control over each one.

 

[austinhue]

Hey man have you though of not worrying about a de-esser and just automating down the volume of the ess sounds. So much more effective in my opinion, and you can have a lot more control over each one.

That does sound like a good idea, is there some clever way to use volume automation so you can still make adjustments to your mix? Because I never use it.

 

[tempe]

Yeah man! Automation is so so so important. One if the big things to take your mixes to the next level. Basically nothing works staying at the same volume all the time so you can use it to get a more balanced mix, or to make certain elements stand out in certain sections. Or to manually de-ess a vocal, its awesome.

 

[DullElysium]

Yeah i noticed you had some free samPles there. Thanks for those! The snare samples sound ringy and cracky. Just like i want them. Maybe i'll use them someday.

 

[austinhue]

Yeah man! Automation is so so so important. One if the big things to take your mixes to the next level. Basically nothing works staying at the same volume all the time so you can use it to get a more balanced mix, or to make certain elements stand out in certain sections. Or to manually de-ess a vocal, its awesome.

Well... okay, I shouldn't say I never use volume automation, I just hate it and I try not to. I have actually created a new track with all the same plugins before and cut the section I wanted louder/quieter onto the new track instead of using volume automation. I use automation for other things all the freaking time - the problem is with volume automation, because I'm always opening up the mix window and just bumping around faders by a dB or two at random. After you automate it's like your level is set in stone (or at least it takes you 100x longer to change it). Is there any way around this?