Best software De Esser for vocal sibilance - suggestions?

[gigpiglet]

smart arse answer maybe….
but the BSS 901 works awesome as a de-esser..
use it on every lead vocal i mix

[cLoudBase]

FabFilter DS
Oxford SuprEsser
My go to's at the moment.

+1 on the 901... love that box.

[Ben M]

Something I learnt moons ago is to tape a pencil down the centre of the microphone (vertically over the centre of the diaphragm) to decrease sibilance.
I've found it better to nip sibilance in the bud at the source so you don't need to work the de-esser so hard in mixing.

I use the UAD precision and the stock dyn 3 de-essers but they do me fine for acoustic guitar, bv's and lightly on main vox.

[rick]

I use to do this all the time
Way back but i stopped using microphones
That gave me sss and that was that

Fab filter is bound to work though
I have their eq and limiter best plugins ever
As far as i am concerned .

[Ben M]

I'd only say that vocal sibilance isn't solely about the microphone choice. I don't use it all the time...just when I have a sibilant singer/microphone combination.
For me it's the combination of singers technique/proximity, mic selection to suit and the type of vocal performance...

Using the pencil can assist to do less later.

Let's face it, anything is better than having to crank a de-essing plugin/hardware beyond what you'd really like too, later in mix mode.
Give it a try angus and report back. I'm sure you'll find it useful.
A 75 cent pencil may save you a couple of hundred bucks.

Peace

[reddirt]

If it's objectionable I'll manually edit every one - slow but effective .
Cheers, Ross

[Barney Loveland]

I found the u67 was great for not accentuating or causing sibilance. It's now gone so I may just try the pencil when the need arises.

The Massey de-esser I've found great. I've even had two working at diff freqs on female vox with very minimal artifacts.

[The Tasmanian]

+1 Barney
I use 2 x massey de - essers in a row, (sometimes 3) as different words have different frequency esses - depending on the shape of the mouth when forming the S . So they are both set up to hit different frequency types of "S"
EG "yes" and "owes".
I use them gently, and once set up, draw volume changes on any sibilance that is any louder than set thresholds.

IMO - there is no 1 de esser that is magic on every voice - each plug reacts differently to each singer.
Some singers have a really wide band S - others narrow, others connect a type of subtle "TH" with the S, and frequency depends on how much volume in the delivery etc.
They are all complex waveforms individual to each singer, almost like a fingerprint.
And some singers are perfection! They de ess themselves.

[Barney Loveland]

Here's the track I was talking about from an EP.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vIyFFuXPFY ... IyFFuXPFYM

[Engininja]

Massey. Will be AAX sometime I guess.
2 or 3 of them.
Some of them full range, some top end only. Some before the compressor/EQ, some after.
Yet to meet a singer that can sing an SSSSSSS at the same time as another sound.
Automating them out is the cheapest, slowest and most accurate way.
Or re write the chorus from Sit still steven she's swiftly stopped sooking to da da da da do do yeah yeah
works every time.

[onebaldbloke]

A slightly obtuse reply.....
It's extremely fast & painless within Samplitude to slice all of the offending esses (or plosives) into multiple objects, then group them & treat them all as one, whacking whatever de-ess treatment you want across the whole lot. You can leave all these grouped objects on the same track or, if you're in any other software that doesn't do object editing (PT, for example), make a new track & treat that track.

I tend to use less de-ess these days, & more dragging the volume of the grouped objects down, plus a little attenuating the frequencies in the ''s'' ranges on those grouped objects.

The plus is that the rest of the vocal track is left entirely untouched.

Cheers,
Bob.