#de-ess

Today I was working with a dialogue track that had some distracting sibilance issues. I was having trouble taming this sibilance with the Pro Tools De-Esser plug-in so I looked for some tips on the net. Here is some of the advice I found:

You have to listen for what frequency range is hissy, though, and that can vary widely from singer to singer. Sweep with an EQ and find it if need be. It's there somewhere, hissing away.. I still keep de-essers early in the signal chain because they're more of a quality control mechanism than any type of specific shaper. I'm usually past -15dB (further from zero) in terms of threshold, but that equates to between 2 and 5 dB worth of attenuation at the de-essing stage, which is not drastic. I don't like getting rid of esses altogether since they're a very important part of speech and coherency. A helpful tool is sidechain listen, like on a Waves DeEsser. Then you can really hear the band of frequencies you're pulling back and it makes pinpointing the "hissyness" easy. Even barring that, you can still find esses with a narrow-Q parametric and either pull those down via EQ or set a frequency range for the de-esser. Multiband compression works in a similar fashion and it can help some, but the frequency bands are much larger than that of a de-esser. I still notice myself using less de-essing after multiband, however.

Posted by Synonym Music

There is often an EQ point somewhere between 3500 and 5K that seems to calm some voices down, or make them less harsh anyway.

This is particularly true of sibilant people recorded on lesser condensor mics like the Senn.ME66 onto mini DV type cameras--this combo of gear makes sibilant voice sound very harsh. Soemtimes we just attack the offending syllables directly, cutting and reducing their volume (which is what the de-esser is doing anyhow).

A side note--often when a very sibilant person is recorded in a reflective room we find that we can get at the core sibilance, but still have the broadband reverb of that sibilance left in the ambiance around the voice.

Posted by Philip Perkins

The best and most under-control de-essing is done by drawing ultra-short volume-curves around extreme esses or other percussive hits like knocks etc that spoil the overall dialogue quality.

Posted by wildtrax

Despite these tips I could not fix my dialogue tracks as well as I would have liked; I think it is much more desirable to fix sibilance issues at source if possible!

Original sources: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2347386-Sibilance-and-plosives-de-essing-lesson