De.essing

At around 7-8 KHz.

Or you could just use Sonar's gain envelope to tame those "Sssss" and bad consonants at the precise spots without using an outside editor and/or ruining the rest of the vocals. It could be time consuming depending on how bad the "s" are but it works great -- I have to thank ohhey for this tip which he always brings up everytime the subject pops out.

The tricky part is that "S"s are very broadbanded - look at a well-recorded "S" with a spectrum analyzer and it looks like white noise. Unless you attenuate each relevant band by the proper amount, you can easily end up with a lispy or hollow-sounding "S". That's why you can often get better results by just attenuating the whole consonant rather than EQing.

It's just that editing single consonants is time-consuming, perhaps making that approach impractical. But how much time did you spend getting that take? It may be worth a half-hour's investment to improve the track.

It might be worthwhile to examine your track with a spectrum analyzer, because sometimes what sounds like essy-ness is really an artifact of comb filtering, perhaps the result of recording the vocal in a too-live room with the mic gain too high. This effect can easily be seen on a spectrum display, as the "S" appears as alternating bands rather than as smooth white noise. If you have this problem, you will never fix it with EQ, and the only option is attenuating the offending consonant or re-recording the track.

ORIGINAL: artmusic

What is a good frequency point to start at for de-essing, thanks.
Art

I don't use a plugin for de-essing, a single "setting" is almost never right for the entire track. I zoom in and use the clip gain envelope to tailor the reduction for each one. I always do a clip gain adjustment on vocals anyway so it's not extra work for me I just take care of the esses as I reduce all the other loudness lumps. It's always worth the time and effort, even if I have to use a compressor later it can do a much better job with a track that has been adjusted by ear with the clip gain envelope first.

ORIGINAL: evan

ORIGINAL: ohhey

I don't use a plugin for de-essing, a single "setting" is almost never right for the entire track. I zoom in and use the clip gain envelope to tailor the reduction for each one. I always do a clip gain adjustment on vocals anyway so it's not extra work for me I just take care of the esses as I reduce all the other loudness lumps. It's always worth the time and effort, even if I have to use a compressor later it can do a much better job with a track that has been adjusted by ear with the clip gain envelope first.

Can you copy clip gain envelopes from one track to another?

No, the clip gain envelope is not a track object, it's a clip object. If you notice the ends don't extend beyond the ends of the clip. Also unless you clone the track it would not be valid for any other clip. The clip gain is for precise adjustment and based on the content under it. You really should create one for each clip that needs it and spend the time to get it just right.

ORIGINAL: evan

ORIGINAL: ohhey


No, the clip gain envelope is not a track object, it's a clip object. If you notice the ends don't extend beyond the ends of the clip. Also unless you clone the track it would not be valid for any other clip. The clip gain is for precise adjustment and based on the content under it. You really should create one for each clip that needs it and spend the time to get it just right.

Thanks for your answer!

I was trying to copy the clip gain envelopes because I have to de-ess plenty of tracks; main vocals and several tracks of backing vocals for each project. This is going to be a nightmare!

Well.. I don't consider working at the DAW a nightmare.. the rest of my life is the nightmare LOL !