Quite often the producer will manually search for sibilance and use volume automation to attenuate the sibilant frequencies. The process of taming or controlling sibilance is called De Essing which makes perfect sense as what we are trying to do is to de-ess, ie, remove the sss or attenuate it. The microphone is merciless in picking up sibilance and taming these nasties can be a nightmare if you don’t know-how. Sibilance refers to the harsh consonants, notably ess and eff, that are exaggerated due to either the singer’s voice or delivery (sometimes getting too close to the microphone can exaggerate sibilance). One of the biggest problems facing producers who process vocal takes is that of sibilance. It is important to understand that we are not de-essing the vocals, we are de-essing the reverb effect.īefore we can explore this wonderful technique let us have a little jaunt into the world of de-essing. It can be used creatively to shape sounds and effects and in this technique tutorial, I show you how to use a de-esser to smooth out a reverb effect when using it with vocals. BUT a de-esser can do so much more than just tame sibilance. It goes without saying that when you need to treat sibilance in vocals a de-esser is the best tool for the job. Reverb smoothing using a De-Esser video tutorial explains how to use a de-esser to smooth reverb effects into a lush and liquid texture.
