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[aivoryuk]

Andy Krehm wrote on Tue, 27 February 2007 17:26

I typically insert devices like de-essers, m/s (& my other stereo widener, DD-K-Unit) and even tape, if doing lay-back work, as close as possible to the mix. My rational is that anything corrective should have happened in the mix but since it didn't, I want to make my adjustments right after the mix and then do the rest of the mastering work following. I use the tape early in the chain is b/c ideally the track would have been mixed to tape, plus I can control the amount of tape compression before hitting the rest of the analog chain.

thats my train of thought on it as well, i see dessing as a corrective procedure so its the first thing in my chain if its needed. but i'll certainley try it out at the end of the chain

[turtletone]

Well nothing i've found beats the weiss for de-essing. The problem is it's more valuable doing other things for me, so unless it's a nightmare de-ess problem, I'll find something else. I've been using the waves to de-ess with lately. But it hasn't really been much of a problem for a good while. Not much de-essing needed.

[Bob Boyd]

Another thing about the Weiss is that the sidechain can be set pretty much anywhere in the spectrum.  I will often use it as a kind of one-band problem fixer.  Set correctly, it is very transparent.

[NoWo]

Hi,

I did a longer test with the Spitfish Deesser and have a strong feeling that it does more than just dessing. It seems to thicken up the signal and gives the signal a harsher sound than it had before, not pleasing.
I used it in a mastering chain before the final limiter.

Any ideas?

Norbert

[prolearts]

NoWo wrote on Tue, 27 February 2007 15:52

Hi, I did a longer test with the Spitfish Deesser and have a strong feeling that it does more than just dessing. It seems to thicken up the signal and gives the signal a harsher sound than it had before, not pleasing. I used it in a mastering chain before the final limiter. Any ideas? Norbert

I tried using the spitfish on a track last week as well. Just putting it in with all (2) controls at their lowest (I'd assume closest to "off") settings, it really put a serious blanket on the whole sound of the track. Who is able to run a whole track for mastering through this? Ditto for "bypassed." That doesn't happen to y'all?

Puzzled...

J. Ward

[Andy Krehm]

TurtleTone wrote on Tue, 27 February 2007 16:19

Well nothing i've found beats the weiss for de-essing. The problem is it's more valuable doing other things for me, so unless it's a nightmare de-ess problem, I'll find something else. I've been using the waves to de-ess with lately. But it hasn't really been much of a problem for a good while. Not much de-essing needed.

I am in agreement about the versatility of the Weiss DS1 and also only use it as a de-esser of last resort, since its my best de-esser. I use it often as a stereo compresser or parallel compresser.

First, I'll try my Weiss EQ1 DYN which is decent for light de-essing and especially good for transparently smoothing out harsh frequencies. Secondly, I'll add a touch of the TubeTech SMC 2B's top band with a de-essing setting. If they don't do it, the DS1 will.

If I had an unlimited budget, I would definitely buy another Weiss DS1! This is not, I repeat, not a paid endorsement!

[mikepecchio]

Andy Krehm wrote on Wed, 28 February 2007 09:31

If I had an unlimited budget

no offense, but compared to alot of us you DO seem to have an unlimited budget.  Ive got some nice gear, but damn, son!

Ive been on the prowl for a de-esser myself. but the weiss is out of the question ($$).

I recently modified an Orban de-esser (the mono version) for a tracking engineer friend of mine, and the results are *very* good. much better than expected.  It is currently being used on every vocal track for a BIG major lable R&B artist's new album.  I don't know how well it would work across a mix, I might have to track down 2 of these for myself and see.

the other day I tried out a BSS DPR-402 just for the de-esser.  the de-essing actually sounds pretty good, but the overall tone is a little too dark/thick for my taste.  perhaps it would be better in an M/S loop, only in the middle.  or maybe it just needs to be souped up.

I also came across an alison research rack with a couple of "DSP" modules. they are de-essers with seemingly alot of control.  I didnt listen yet, but will probably get a chance to hok them up before the end of the week. is anyone familiar with these things?

and what about the api 525, that has a d-s mode that sounds cool on vocals, has anyone tried putting it across a mix?

mike

[TotalSonic]

prolearts wrote on Wed, 28 February 2007 09:21

NoWo wrote on Tue, 27 February 2007 15:52 Hi, I did a longer test with the Spitfish Deesser and have a strong feeling that it does more than just dessing. It seems to thicken up the signal and gives the signal a harsher sound than it had before, not pleasing. I used it in a mastering chain before the final limiter. Any ideas? Norbert I tried using the spitfish on a track last week as well. Just putting it in with all (2) controls at their lowest (I'd assume closest to "off") settings, it really put a serious blanket on the whole sound of the track. Who is able to run a whole track for mastering through this? Ditto for "bypassed." That doesn't happen to y'all?

Spitfish is very sensitive to threshold set - so even with the detector set to a high threshold and the depth lower you need to make sure first that the "Soft" button is off (which lowers the threshold of the detector) and second that you are not feeding too much signal into it in order to get most transparent results - plus also critical is to set its center freq correctly so that it is actually reducing the sibilance and not other areas.  I suggest using the listen function so you can hear what you are actually reducing and make sure that it is actually just the sibilace and not other instruments such as hihat.  

Regardless - I've done qute a bit of testng of the various Waves De-essers vs. Spitfish - and 90% of the time to my ear Spitfish would get beter sounding results.

On my DAW (SAWStudio) every plugin has an additional true bypass from the DAW's built-in plugin wrapper which I generally use in preference to the ones on the plugins- so hadn't noticed whether it still "blankets" sound when it is bypassed.

As far as running entire tracks through it - in general I don't - instead I isolate the sibilant areas by splitting these regions to a separate track that has Spitfish loaded into it and only process these areas.  It takes a little extra time but the results if transparency is desired is definitely worth it.  Sometimes tracks come in extremely brittle and overly bright though in which case Spitfish's veiling can actually be a desired effect.

As stated I'm still looking for another solution for de-essing besides the current digital plugin methods (of which Spitfish is one of three that I use) that I already have.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[chrisj]

I came up with a demonstration track for my AU de-esser, which I'll share. I'm actually leaving it alone for the moment, because I thought about it and decided I didn't mind so much the de-esser not affecting lower frequency esses. It seemed to me it would be nice to have a properly transparent one that only hit esses which genuinely fried the extreme top-end. In the example, I took a Studio Projects C1 and then treble-boosted it with my Air plugin until it was blatantly a sibilance problem, and then used the de-esser to take it back down into lisp territory, to illustrate that it could have that much effect (on much program material, it's like a bypass, does nada)

http://www.airwindows.com/m/DeEss.mp3

I would be interested in opinions on whether it's important to MEs to de-ess lower frequency stuff. I see it as more about the sibilance being interactive with DACs, or cutter heads. I'd want to work with some vinyl mastering people before seriously advocating mine as a to-vinyl de-esser. Of course, it can't really hurt anything if it's not doing much, but I can't be certain it is really being effective as a lathe protector, not having used it in that context.

 http://store.kagi.com/cgi-bin/store.cgi?storeID=6FEGJ_LIVE&a mp;a mp;lang=en&page=Effects

[Bob Olhsson]

I hate slapping a de-esser on the whole mix.

Typically I'll just spot the worst ones. Lately the Samp-quoia spectral editor has been my tool of choice. When that doesn't make sense, my second choice is often the waves linear phase multiband with everything but the desired band bypassed. It does less harm to the overall signal than the other things I've tried. Sometimes just the right eq. on the high-end is the ticket.

Sure wish there was a formula...

[Ben F]

The latest generation of M-Box users recording with a condenser microphone, then compressing the hell out of it with a bomb factory 1176 plug-in doesn't help either.

There's pleasant sibilance and really, really harsh sibilance depending on the recording/mix engineers experience. Sometimes a very sibilant analogue recording can sound quite ok...I actually like it. But heavily compressed vocals done incorrectly are a real challenge, the midrange bite has to be reduced without softening the vocals too much. This is where the Weiss is also useful, setting a notch filter on the bite (say 1.5-2.5K) and reducing it quite transparently. I suppose you could also use a waves multi-band but I find their character too noticeable across an entire track, sometimes making a digital recording sound even more digitally processed.

[carlsaff]

prolearts wrote on Wed, 28 February 2007 08:21

I tried using the spitfish on a track last week as well. Just putting it in with all (2) controls at their lowest (I'd assume closest to "off") settings, it really put a serious blanket on the whole sound of the track. Who is able to run a whole track for mastering through this? Ditto for "bypassed." That doesn't happen to y'all? Puzzled... J. Ward

Hey Jason!

What is interesting about your comments is that you say the "blanketing" happens even when the plug is bypassed?

That speaks to a stranger problem than just bad DSP.

I just ran a track through Spitfish with it bypassed, then inverted the phase of the resulting track and summed it with the original. Result: complete phase cancellation.

Just for fun, I ran the same track through Spitfish at it's lowest settings (I agree, this seems to mean "off"), then inverted the phase of the resulting track and summed it with the original. Again, complete phase cancellation.

If you're hearing something happening to the sound with the plugin bypassed or at it's lowest settings, then something else is up, I have a feeling. Not sure what.

Carl

[TotalSonic]

carlsaff wrote on Wed, 28 February 2007 19:29

prolearts wrote on Wed, 28 February 2007 08:21 I tried using the spitfish on a track last week as well. Just putting it in with all (2) controls at their lowest (I'd assume closest to "off") settings, it really put a serious blanket on the whole sound of the track. Who is able to run a whole track for mastering through this? Ditto for "bypassed." That doesn't happen to y'all? Puzzled... J. Ward Hey Jason! What is interesting about your comments is that you say the "blanketing" happens even when the plug is bypassed? That speaks to a stranger problem than just bad DSP. I just ran a track through Spitfish with it bypassed, then inverted the phase of the resulting track and summed it with the original. Result: complete phase cancellation. Just for fun, I ran the same track through Spitfish at it's lowest settings (I agree, this seems to mean "off"), then inverted the phase of the resulting track and summed it with the original. Again, complete phase cancellation. If you're hearing something happening to the sound with the plugin bypassed or at it's lowest settings, then something else is up, I have a feeling. Not sure what. Carl

On second thoughts I'd have to agree with Carl's assessment that something might be amiss in the host DAW app or something else in the signal chain - or in the monitoring chain also perhaps - if your results were what you said they were.  What is the host app & monitor chain?

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[Adam Dempsey]

Bob Olhsson wrote on Thu, 01 March 2007 09:30

I hate slapping a de-esser on the whole mix. Sometimes just the right eq. on the high-end is the ticket.

First port of call, in conjunction with some tube and/or transformer tone balancing. Only then reaching for slight de-essing if need be.

[jtr]

Jerry Tubb wrote on Fri, 23 February 2007 22:41

Wondering what all you guys are using for a Mastering De-Esser? JT

Thanks to a suggestion by Alan Silverman, I've started using my Algorithmix Renovator for de essing. Once I figured out how to work
fast and smart, it does very well. I dial down the display so only the "s's" show up, then use a gain adjust on each peak.

I was skeptical at first, but once I practiced a bit it became very easy to do.

I'm only using this in a mastering setting- mixes are done, artist is down to the bucks left for mastering and replication.