Thanks folks, will try!
 
So those of you that say edit "by hand", you're talking manual gain adjustments right? I don't know what other things you might be talking about editing by hand.
 
It's not the singer's voice, just to inform. I think it was just for that song the take was pretty hot, it's either close mic'd dead on sibilance or maybe even some input distortion. I'm going back in tomorrow for another whack at it.
 

Gain adjustments and possibly fades. If you use EQ as a clip effect, that's more manual adjustment. I would guess you'll get the best results with a mix of techniques with each contributing a slight improvement, which adds up to a bigger improvement.

Gain adjustments and possibly fades. If you use EQ as a clip effect, that's more manual adjustment. I would guess you'll get the best results with a mix of techniques with each contributing a slight improvement, which adds up to a bigger improvement.

ooh, I need to try melodyne for de essing.    Always forget about melodyne.
yesterday i used it to adjust timing on a sloppy drum fill and it worked beautifully.  the kicker is, i was editing a bounced mix of the rhythm section.

'...or maybe even some input distortion..."
 
Easy to imagine, especially if it was one of those ultra-spec I.C. chip Preamps that make everything sound like sandpaper.

I tool copy into Wave Lab and set up a narrow EQ, zoom in and apply. Yes this is called manual editing but Wave lab speeds the process up substantially because it's designed to do just these sort of tasks. I'll have to try Melodyne and see if it has the same ease of use. My computers not always up to running it. 

I'm a Sound Forge guy myself, but I see your point. :-)
 
The thing is, if I can't even get a de-esser to zap the troublesome freqs I don't see how EQ is going to help. I could live with the distortion in a general sense, but it makes the singer sound like she's lisping or has a retainer, and in the context of the mix really takes the meat of the take. But I'll try the various techniques (including that sidechain trick Bit!) and see what I can do!
 

Blarg! Okay I'm striking out here. Tried manual gain envelopes, side-chained the "purposely accentuating the negative" compression technique, and also tried stacking de-essers and eqs. 
 
Just before I call it quits and re-track the vocal I figured I'd toss this out to my nearest and dearest (I'm batting my eyelashes here). A sample of the vocal is here:
https://soundcloud.com/fogpeople/vox-sample
 
If anyone wants to weigh in on whether it's savable or not I'd appreciate it. Maybe a free copy of the whole record when it's done? :-) Especially if you share the secret sauce that fixes it!
 

...wicked
...A sample of the vocal is here:
https://soundcloud.com/fogpeople/vox-sample
 
If anyone wants to weigh in on whether it's savable or not I'd appreciate it. Maybe a free copy of the whole record when it's done? :-) Especially if you share the secret sauce that fixes it!
 

I tried your link and got the message;
 
"Sorry, something went wrong.
Retry"

If we lived close, I'd offer to loan you a nice mic and pre...